POLICY REFORMS AND GOVERNANCE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The higher education systems worldwide are currently facing major trends, external and internal. These trends are: recognition of the growing importance of knowledge in economic development, a strong social demand for higher education and expansion of systems that it entails; diversification of training supply in terms of higher education and the rapid development. Consequently, these developments have led governments around the world, to reform their political steering and governance of higher education. The current paradigm of a "remote control", the higher education institutions today often have more autonomy from the academic and administrative decisions. The proposed research will build on governance in higher education, because it covers both the changes in governance at the national level and their impact on the management of higher education institutions. The focus wills, however, the effectiveness of governance reforms as a means to enhance the overall effectiveness of a higher education system. Moreover, if the study suggested will focus primarily on the national level, it is not possible to assess the effectiveness of a system without analyzing the effects of the implementation of a national policy level institutional, as higher education institutions are key players in the implementation of these policies. Thus, this research on the governance and management of higher education is an effort to analyze both the reform measures and their effectiveness in regional contexts and different development, both national and institutional levels.