Changing missions? How the strategic plans of research-intensive universities in Northern Europe and North America balance competing identities

ABSTRACT

This paper assesses the assumption that public research-intensive universities are conforming to external pressures and demands in similar ways. By analyzing the strategic plans of public research-intensive universities in Northern Europe and North America, we identify variations in how public and private dimensions of higher education are balanced. The study includes 19 North American and Northern European universities and finds that North American universities loosely couple strategic objectives addressing separate stakeholders linked to their public and private missions. Northern European universities tend to organize their strategic priorities more tightly within a narrative of ‘research excellence.’ The findings suggest the nature of change in contemporary higher education and the blurring boundaries between public and private missions.

KEYWORDS:

• University strategic planning
• planning
• purposes of education
• qualitative research
• governance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We make no assumptions regarding how (or whether) strategic plans are operationalized. Our analysis is focused on how these plans communicate the balancing act universities engage in.

2 We thank Reviewer 1 for pointing to this issue.

Additional information

Funding

This paper has been supported by the research project “European Flagship Universities – Balancing Academic Excellence and Socio-Economic Relevance” funded by the Research Council of Norway (FORFI program) [grant number 212422].