Transparency and Accountability in Higher Education as a Response to External Stakeholders and Rules: A Comparison Between Three Country-Case Studies

Abstract

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been increasingly under pressure to enhance accountability towards their stakeholders and to disclose relevant, updated, and reliable information about their performance in terms of teaching/education, research, and other activities, often labeled "'third mission."'.Based on an exploratory qualitative research, build through the analysis of literature, of national legislation, and of the information disclosed in different institutional websites, the purpose of this chapter is to offer a general overview of the present accountability requirements and of the instruments or resolutions, rule-driven but also voluntary, adopted in three European countries used as country-case studies --the Netherlands, Portugal, and Italy -. In addition, this contribution aims at proposing a general assessment of the degree of transparency and accountability of public-funded HEIs. 2Findings indicate that there is a quite a strong emphasis on accountability towards public or private funders/sponsors and to actual and future students and their families. It has also been realized that the weakest area in terms of transparency of HEIs' performance is that of transfer and consulting activities, contrasting to the attention paid to the disclosure of teaching and education performance information. Overall, HEIs in the three countries seem to be transparent but especially towards expert stakeholders who know exactly what to look for and where, since performance information is often scattered and available on wide documents, making the access and usability of information relatively low.The current research aims at contributing to the literature on transparency and accountability, particularly on performance information disclosure in the specific environment of public-funded higher education institutions, from an international comparative perspective, while offering to managers and policymakers some hints on how to assess their current transparency practices, as well as some suggestions about possible future amendments and improvements. Clearly, additional investigation is needed to further validate some findings and introduce other transparency dimensions and national contexts.

Academics' perceptions regarding performance evaluations and the consequences for their professional and personal activity

“…However, changes in higher education (e.g. massification, specialization, globalization and new teaching challenges) have made these forms of evaluation scarce (Pattaro et al, 2022). As a result, recent decades have witnessed reforms aimed at improving the quality of the sector.…”

“…Despite this, current discourses uphold the belief that these evaluation processes are true instruments of transparency, democratic validity and quality improvement (Huisman, 2018;Gunn, 2018). However, the lack of evidence supporting the notion that these evaluation processes produce improvements (Pattaro et al, 2022;Macheridis and Poulson, 2021) leads us to consider them as a simple method of control, reward or punishment (Huisman, 2018;Gunn, 2018) that directly affects the staff involved (university faculty) and, therefore, their institutions (Dugas et al, 2020;Jim enez, 2019;Ursin et al, 2020;Huang et al, 2016). These teachers are required to undergo continuous evaluation processes that determine their academic trajectory (Ma and Ladisch, 2019;San Fabi an, 2020;Laiho et al, 2020;Harvey, 2020).…”