Multilevel dynamics in universities in changing research landscapes

Abstract

While at the top of universities, strategic research management has evolved from facilitation to become more directive, partly inspired by New Public Management approaches, and the need for universities to profile themselves, at the bottom level of research groups and other research performing entities, the orientation and resource mobilization is towards scientific fields and domains of application, which allows them a degree of autonomy. The intermediary layer of deans and directors of (big) scientific institutes is becoming increasingly important. A striking example are the Centres of Research and Excellence, actually a new type of entity in the strategic research landscape. The evolution of research management is traced for each of these levels and their interactions, in three universities in the Netherlands, and three universities in South Africa. They represent the three main types of universities in terms of their resource dependency strategy: classical-elite universities, entrepreneurial universities and niche universities. One finding is that the classical-elite universities and the entrepreneurial universities appear to converge, because their research groups and centres operate on the same market of strategic research.