Higher Education Reform in Italy: Tightening Regulation Instead of Steering at a Distance

Abstract

In December 2010, a comprehensive reform (Law 240/2010, or 'Gelmini reform') changed the institutional governance and internal organization of Italian state universities. This paper investigates the redefinition of the state role in the light of public management reform narratives, linking them to the Governance Equalizer Model to evaluate how the on-going reform process has affected the power sharing arrangement and coordination mechanisms in the Italian higher education system thus far. Rhetoric of reform was influenced by the New Public Management narrative; Law 240 was presented as a fundamental change to the traditional Italian governance regime, based on detailed state regulation and academic self-governance. In practice, contradictions between the rhetoric of the reform and the effectiveness of implementation are evident: Italian reform complies more with the Neo-Weberian narrative and it did not have any substantial impact on power distribution. Higher Education Policy (2015) 28, 215-234.

Work–life interferences in the early stages of academic careers: The case of precarious researchers in Italy

“…Since 2009, aca-demic staff turnover has been limited by law (with a threshold of 50% for retired staff in recent years) (Donina et al, 2014). Moreover, in conjunction with the economic crisis, severe cuts to university public funding have been established by law.…”

Higher education governance in France, Germany, and Italy: Change and variation in the impact of transnational soft governance

“…The professoriate strategically mobilized to capture the administrative councils to the extent that they could hardly be distinguished from academic senates in terms of composition and function. Demands for entrepreneurial governance structures hence resulted in the duplication of already existing academic-dominated institutions (Capano, 2008;Moscati, 2012;Interview Italian university researcher 2015) to the detriment of external stakeholders (Donina, Meoli, & Paleari, 2015). Thus, by 2010, Italy had actually to some extent fallen back into academic oligarchy, as attempts at isomorphic alignment with managerialist structures were either strategically exploited to reinforce historical institutions or simply withered away in the entrenched collegial institutions.…”

“…2h; Art. 2n; 2o) (see Donina et al, 2015). Contrary to France, the law maintains the academic senate as a core governing body.…”

“…However, the Gelmini law now externalizes professorial appointments to panels of state-appointed academics from other universities, before individual universities may then choose among candidates deemed eligible. Thus, universities no longer can fully manage recruitment processes according to own priorities (Donina et al, 2015). Like in Germany, rectors who generally chair the consiglio are still exclusively recruited from academic ranks and -contrary to France and Germany -subject to six-year term limits.…”

University scandal, reputation and governance

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