Universities are very stable institutions where their basic role in society is still alive after centuries; nevertheless, the way to provide it has deeply changed due to the generation of knowledge, evolution of technology, and evolution in internal and external governance and funding schemes. Even if those changes were successfully surfed and universities are still recognised in society as key actors for education and knowledge generation, new challenges are on the way and the smooth adaptation approach used in the past could be not valid anymore in front of disruptive societal changes. In fact, traditional higher-education value-chain is being challenged with the introduction of new actors in the higher education process and the emergence of IT-based disruptive learning models, which impact on university performance and governance. The main goal of this paper is to analyse how public universities' structures should efficiently evolve in that context while preserving their role in society. We are aware that many of the findings could be also applied to private universities although regulatory contexts are different.The article offers a global view on public university governance challenges motivated by the digitisation of society and how Western universities should address them in order to keep a prominent role in the future knowledge society, where more complex educational ecosystems will be in place. The objective is to analyse the relative importance and interaction of a set of drivers for transforming universities' structures in the context of a digital economy and how the (fragmented) answers provided today by universities over the world should evolve in the future towards a consistent policy and organisational mix by using concepts borrowed from digital platforms and collaborative economy. The article is mainly focused on the situation in the European Union (EU) linked to policy actions launched by the European Commission and EU Member States, although some action lines could be shared in broader geographical contexts.The analysis presented in the paper is focused on the applicability of the concept of (digital) higher educational platforms and how they can modify the provision of higher education services within an open education ecosystem in close cooperation with other actors. The impact in the higher-education value chain implies that several public and private actors will occupy positions formerly exclusively linked to universities; this evolution and their consequence are presented in the article through a number of potential trajectories. Finally, the article discusses a much more disruptive perspective by considering the future role of universities as "specialised learning platforms" for providing higher educational services over the world with weaker links to territory, and its derived consequences for new or pre-existent universities.
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