Trust and the Governance of Higher Education: The Introduction of Chancellor System in Hungarian Higher Education

Abstract

Increasingly, governments have introduced elements of performance in the funding mechanisms for their higher education institutions. One particular development is the rise of Performance Agreements (PAs), which are contracts signed between funding authorities and individual universities or colleges. The key characteristics of the PAs in place in several OECD countries are summarized before turning to the Netherlands, where an experiment with PAs was recently (2016) concluded. The question is whether this experiment improved performance in the higher education system, where ‘performance’ is understood in terms of the students’ graduation rates, the quality of teaching and learning and the diversity in the provision of education and research. What has been achieved in these areas? And what can be learned from the Dutch performance agreements experiment in general?