In order to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary - the third lustrum - of our Center, we at CHEPS decided to collectively write a book on the issue of how higher education institutions deal with the demand for change. Institutional change is without any doubt one of the burning issues for researchers in higher education and policy studies in general, but even more so for administrators at the institutional level (institutional leadership, deans) and planners of higher education in public life (government agencies, intermediary organisations, international organisations). Whereas the lustrumbook we wrote for our second lustrum concentrated on comparative policy studies, many of them focusing on comparisons between different national higher education systems, this time the object of our analyses is the institution itself. Today's higher education institutions are faced by demands from a multitude of actors - from inside the institution (students, staff) as well as from the institution's environment (governments, employers, research councils, sponsors). These demands require changes in policy, practice, systems, and culture. The ways in which institutions respond to these demands and how their behaviour may be understood and predicted is the challenge tackled by the authors of this volume, each from their own perspective and each looking at different aspects of the educational organisation.

This vigorous study provides an alternative framework for reflecting on the changes in Western Europe's higher education systems over the past quarter century. Building from two basic concepts -- the rise of the evaluative state and the shifts in meaning and definition of positional and institutional autonomy - it dissects the profound shifts in the external relationship between higher education, government and society. Changes in external relationships demands radical revision to the internal balance of power. Re-distribution of authority and responsibility re-define the functions thatboth institutional and positional autonomy are expected to assume. Drawing on rich data from France, Spain and Portugal, this book also examines the role in the rise of the evaluative state played by such pioneering systems as Britain, France and the Netherlands. It demonstrates the centrality the two key concepts have for higher education policy in Western Europe today and charts how autonomy has mutated from being of integral value in higher education to becoming an instrument of policy.

This pioneering book examines how policies to raise efficiency and performance in Europe's universities have profoundly altered ties between government, society and higher education, outlining how Evaluation Agencies have urged Europe's universities to meet the challenge of modernization.

In order to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary - the third lustrum - of our Center, we at CHEPS decided to collectively write a book on the issue of how higher education institutions deal with the demand for change. Institutional change is without any doubt one of the burning issues for researchers in higher education and policy studies in general, but even more so for administrators at the institutional level (institutional leadership, deans) and planners of higher education in public life (government agencies, intermediary organisations, international organisations). Whereas the lustrumbook we wrote for our second lustrum concentrated on comparative policy studies, many of them focusing on comparisons between different national higher education systems, this time the object of our analyses is the institution itself. Today's higher education institutions are faced by demands from a multitude of actors - from inside the institution (students, staff) as well as from the institution's environment (governments, employers, research councils, sponsors). These demands require changes in policy, practice, systems, and culture. The ways in which institutions respond to these demands and how their behaviour may be understood and predicted is the challenge tackled by the authors of this volume, each from their own perspective and each looking at different aspects of the educational organisation.