Governance of Higher Education

‘Governance’ is often contrasted to ‘government’ on the one hand and ‘management’ on the other, which has led to two distinct definitions. According to the first, the governance of higher education has a more extensive scope than the government of higher education. It embraces the totality of how decisions are made and implemented and includes all the participants in that process, informal as well as formal. The government of higher education, in contrast, is confined to the formal legal and administrative arrangements for decision-making and the scrutiny of and accountability for these decisions and their implementation; it often concentrates on system and institutional levels; and the key players—politicians, civil servants, board and council members, and senior managers—are clearly identified whilst informal actors, and influencers, are ...