NPM, Network Governance and the University as a Changing Professional Organization

For most authors, the numerous higher education reforms that have been implemented during the last decades in most EU countries (Eurydice 2000 and 2008), are the consequence of the dissemination of New Public Management (NPM) rhetoric and narratives. These reform processes were accelerated by the central role knowledge and innovation were expected to play for economic development in contemporary societies. As a result higher education and research systems progressively reached the top of the governmental agendas at the national, regional and European levels in the mid 1990s. In a time of budgetary restrictions, solutions aiming at increasing the productivity, efficiency and relevance of academic activities have been launched, and progressively implemented in European higher education institutions.