Management of education and research is to a larger extent than any other
sector: staff governance through facility management. 80% staff and 20%
other expenditures is a normal ratio of the overall higher education institution
budget: hardly any sector is more labour intensive. With such a ratio
at least 80% of governance is guiding people. The main products of universities,
graduated students and publications, are direct results of the human factor.
However, management of intellectual processes is a contradiction in terms.
Thinking is hardly manageable, even by the thinker itself. 'Gedanken sind
frei' (thinking is free), as Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano composed
it in a song of the collection 'des Knaben Wunderhorn' (1806-1808). Nevertheless,
higher education has an important role in society and is expensive, so
organisational structures must ensure the (s)election of a leadership
that provides the staff with an optimal set of working conditions in terms
of co-operative atmosphere, best possible facilities, morale and substance.
'Facility management', vital in any academic environment, requires a well-organised
dialogue to take full advantage of the capacities of the academic community,
including students. Evidently, staff respond better to carrots than to
sticks. Without underestimating the attraction of a higher salary in individual
cases, there seems sufficient evidence that poor opportunities in the
institution and the system at large are the main causes of brain drain.
For the legal draftsmen the message is to create a proper imbalance of
incentives and sanctions: many facilities and few sanctions.
In the Netherlands a three person executive board has been introduced
to promote a more democratic as well as professional management and reduce
the dependence on just one leader. Since 1997 the members of the board
are nominated by a supervisory board which is in its turn appointed by
the minister. In Europe, this is an exception. Although it has been noted
that the collegial model has been replaced by a managerial model, it is
still largely functioning (Bargh, Scott & Smith; 1995). Rectorial
management is prevailing. This essay is not the frame in which to compare
the organograms of universities; this has been done in De Groof, Neave,
Švec, 1998). One common feature is interesting: only in politics
and higher education is it the norm that the subordinate becomes the boss
for a while and then subordinate again. This is not a guarantee for professional
management, but it is the essence of democracy. lt becomes more unique
when we consider that the responsible minister often is an (active) professor,
and that a minister of education, who is not a professor, has occasional
difficulties in being accepted. So, higher education and research is managed
by temporary (s)elected governors, of the same rank as the subordinates.
At least during the first years of office, managers need strong guidance
from professional and influential administrators.
These are important phenomena for jurists who anticipate the effects of
formal and informal organisation on the effectiveness of the regulations
they are drafting. Regulations should serve the continuity of the organisation,
as well as establish a line of authority that facilitates the work.
3.7 From education to innovation
Another question for legal draftsmen is how to deal with
strategic aims, the mission. Are the objectives for example to facilitate:
- a focus on a limited area of excellent research;
- a wide range of more modest research ambitions;
- transfer of culture and knowledge to students;
- teaching for the labour market;
- emphasis on research based- or profession oriented education, related to the question whether to concentrate on basic or applied research, (whatever the sense of the distinction may be).
The trend in education is towards learning to learn, life-long learning, teamwork, personal capacity building. De-specialisation, diversification and modularisation are key concepts to satisfy the needs of the new generations of students. Students are a driving force of changing the goals of university, already because knowledge is increasing at an accelerating speed, and thus quickly useless again (paradoxically leading to specialisation). In teaching, the trend is from ex-cathedra teachers to study-facilitators and mentors. Education should not be aimed at training for a job, but training for a career.
Regulations in higher education are forged by structures that were predominant until the sixties and the medieval tradition of guilds. This is not compatible with universities expected (and forced) to act as well-managed market-oriented organisations. The economic necessity of making contracts for education and research to earn extra money, is another strong driving force towards an entrepreneurial type of management. Fortunately, the fast learning academic community is still able to escape from counter-productive forms of business management and the oppressive State, for example through internationalisation, networking, forming new guilds while world-wide-web-surfing. Education and research is future oriented by definition. Higher education institutions are transfer agencies of innovative thinking. This is the new core business. The answer to the question how to run and regulate 'a school that produces graduates and publications, is quite different from how to run and regulate an 'Institution of Innovation through Education and Research'.
