Governance in Swiss Universities. A comparative Analysis through Cantonal and Federal laws

The new Higher Education landscape requires universities to respond to an increasing number of complex demands by society, like providing specialized personnel to industry or proximity knowledge (Larédo 2003); moreover transparency and accountability requisites have modified the model of governance and the relation with the state (Fumasoli 2008). Hence, deprived of traditional flows of unconditional state funding and obliged to deal with a more unstable environment, universities have reacted by stratifying additional missions besides teaching and research and by developing, at different degrees of intentionality, strategies aiming at building an external positioning by pursuing individual profiles (Bonaccorsi and Daraio 2007). This paper presents a comparative analysis of official strategies presented by Swiss universities: ten cantonal universities and two Federal Institutes of Technology. It is a contribution in highlighting how universities act – or conceive their possible action –in a system where different forces push in different directions: public authorities acting top‐down at system level, the academic profession, operating transversally and universities, that, individually (or, sometimes, together) and at different degrees, are influencing their future and transforming in formal organizations (Brunsson and Sahlin‐Andersson 2000, Musselin 2006). Strategy‐making is one of the fundamental dimensions of an organization and it will be shown that universities are able to delineate strategic features as of their mission, legal and institutional framework, education and research orientation