Rapid, centralised decision-making in a higher education emergency

Purpose This study aims to explain the primacy that rapid, centralised decision-making gained in higher education institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on Australian universities. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on discussions regarding policy problems of an international, purpose-convened on-line policy network involving over 100 registrations from multiple countries. It analyses emerging institutional policy governance texts and documents shared between network participants, applies policy science literature regarding traditional institutional policy-making routines and rapid decision-making, and references media reportage from 2020. The paper traces how higher education institutions rapidly adjusted to pandemic conditions and largely on-line operations. Findings The study finds that higher education institutions responded to the COVID-19 crisis by operationalising emergency management plans and introducing rapid, centralised decision-making to transition to remote modes of operation, learning and research under state-imposed emergency conditions. It highlights the need to ensure robust governance models recognising the ascendance of emergency decision-making and small-p policies in such circumstances, notwithstanding longstanding traditions of extended collegial policy-making routines for big-P (institutional) Policy. The pandemic highlighted practice and policy problems subject to rapid reform and forced institutions to clarify the relationship between emergency planning and decision-making, quality and institutional policy. Practical implications In covering a range of institutional responses, the study advances the possibility of institutions planning better for unexpected, punctuated policy shifts during an emergency through the incorporation of rapid decision-making in traditionally collegial environments. At the same time, the paper cautions against the normalisation of such processes. The study also highlights key practices and policies that require urgent reconsideration in an emergency. The study is designed as a self-contained and freestanding narrative to inform responses to future emergencies by roundly addressing the particularities of the 2020 phase of the COVID-19 pandemic as it affected higher education. Originality/value There is only limited research on policy-making in higher education institutions. This research offers an original contribution on institutional policy-making during a prolonged emergency that deeply changed higher education institution’s governance, operations and outlook. Particularly significant is the synthesis of experiences from a wide range of sector personnel, documenting punctuated policy shifts in policy governance (meta-policy), institutional policy-making routines and quality assurance actions under great pressure. This paper is substantially developed from a paper given at the Association for Tertiary Education Management Institutional Policy Seminar, 26th October 2020.

European shrinking rural areas: Key messages for a refreshed long-term vision

Resumen: El artículo comienza con un debate sobre el concepto de “contracción” y sus orígenes, fuera del ámbito del desarrollo rural. A partir de ahí, se muestra la distribución de las zonas rurales en contracción en toda Europa. A continuación, se describen los procesos socioeconómicos que impulsan el declive demográfico en las zonas rurales, utilizando tanto la revisión bibliográfica del proyecto ESCAPE como los resultados de sus ocho estudios de caso. Seguidamente, se describe de forma breve la evolución de las intervenciones de la UE para paliar los efectos del declive demográfico, y se hacen algunas observaciones sobre el panorama político/de gobernanza actual. Concluimos considerando cómo una mejor comprensión del problema y del proceso de reducción puede conducir a intervenciones más eficaces, en el contexto de una visión renovada a largo plazo para el medio rural europeo. Este último debe reconocer plenamente el creciente abanico de oportunidades a las que se enfrentan las zonas rurales, a medida que la COVID-19 cambia estas y se aceleran las transformaciones en el comportamiento laboral y en la geografía de la actividad económica, y se cumplen los anteriores cambios graduales en la tecnología y los mercados. Palabras clave: Espacios rurales, declive demográfico, enfoque neo-endógeno, crecimiento inclusivo. Abstract: The paper begins with a discussion of the concept of “shrinking”, and its origins, outside the realm of rural development. Building on this, the paper shows the distribution of shrinking rural areas across Europe. Using both the project’s literature review and findings from its eight case studies the socio-economic processes which drive demographic decline in rural areas are then described. A brief account of the evolution of EU interventions to alleviate the effects of shrinking, and some remarks about the current policy/governance landscape follow. We conclude by considering how a better understanding of the problem and process of shrinking may lead to more effective interventions, within the context of a refreshed long-term vision for Rural Europe. The latter needs to fully acknowledge the expanding repertoire of opportunities confronting rural areas as COVID-19 changes in working behaviour, and the geography of economic activity, accelerate, and fulfil, previously incremental shifts in technology and markets. Key words: Rural areas, demographic decline, neo-endogenous approach, inclusive growth.

How Do Networks Reflect Collaborative Governance? The Case of a Sport Policy Program

This study examines the extent to which collaborative governance thinking is realized in a government-funded sport policy program. Our main argument is that this conversion requires the analysis and interpretation of meso-governance and related networks. In the analysis of meso-level sports policy governance networks, we apply social network analysis and theme interviews. The empirical analysis conducted in this study involves the network-based structure of the Finnish Schools on the Move (FSM) program, which was implemented in Finland from 2009 to 2018. Our research questions are as follows: (1) How have the nature and network structure of the program changed throughout the implementation of the program? (2) How is the collaborative governance thinking reflected in the design and implementation of the FSM program? This study shows that the network is the most significant intermediary structure at the policy and organizational levels. Particularly, it was important in the start-up phase of the program, when the main task of the network was to bring together different actors and to generate a common vision. By the end of the program’s funding, the structure of the network became centralized, with decreasing density. However, the analysis shows that collaborative governance thinking is mainly reflected in implementation, rather than in the genuine joint planning of activities.

Developing and applying the Mission-oriented Innovation Systems (MIS) approach

Building on the literature on Mission-oriented Innovation Policy, governance, transition studies and innovation systems, this paper develops an initial approach to studying the Mission-oriented Innovation System (MIS). Central to the MIS is the concept of a mission arena, in which actors formulate and govern the mission as well as mobilize and direct other, existing system components, in order to legitimize, develop, diffuse and adopt innovative mission solutions. The MIS approach involves a problem-solutions diagnosis and an analysis of structural, functional, and systemic barriers. To provide formative mission governance recommendations, the systemic barriers are contrasted with the mission governance actions that the arena undertakes to mobilize the MIS. A case study of the Dutch mission for sustainable shipping illustrates the value of the MIS approach.

Trust in Schooling System Governance and Reform

Since the 1980s there has been significant reform in the development, delivery, and evaluation of all areas of public policy and services provision, including schooling. The reforms are prompted by a general “turn” from direct government determination and provision of public services to indirect governance undertaken by a mixture of public, private, and philanthropic actors. Orthodoxies about public sector governance and schooling system reform have shifted over this time from a preference for bureaucracy to preferences for markets, contracts, and most recently social networks. Schooling system governance in many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries has seen devolution of substantial statutory powers, responsibilities, and accountabilities to local parent communities or shared-interest coalitions, both for-profit and not-for-profit. Schooling policy, governance, and services provision work is now distributed across multiple state, parastatal, and nongovernmental actors. Trust in the actions of others within devolved and distributed systems is identified as an essential social lubricant of contemporary schooling governance and reform. Studies of the role played by trust in schooling systems remain relatively rare.