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- Title
New power configurations of higher education policy in Finland The birth of the foundation university and the struggle for university democracy.
- Authors
KUUSELA, HANNA; KALEVA, VEERA; TOMPERI, TUUKKA; POUTANEN, MIKKO; TERVASMÄKI, TUOMAS
- Abstract
In the beginning of the 21st century many voices called for an urgent reform of the Finnish higher education system. !e reform drive, referred to as “structural development”, aimed to concentrate resources, cut down the number of institutions, and pro#ling the universities more strongly. !is article analyses the birth of the foundation university as an important aspect of this development and the 2009 Universities Act. We #nd that the foundation university was enabled by a meeting of interests between the Finnish state, business representatives and the top leadership of Finnish universities. Within the birth processes of the foundation university, these actors came together in a new way, which resulted in a considerable weakening of Finnish university democracy and the position of university communities within their universities. As the interests of the state, business and top university leadership aligned, it was possible to marginalize democratically organized university communities and even partially bypass normal legislative processes of the Finnish parliament. Based on our conjunctural case analysis, we argue that the birth of the foundation university, notably in the case of Aalto University, represented the trends of higher education policy in 2000s in general and marked a clear shi% in the power con#gurations of Finnish higher education policy. !e foundation model encapsulates the following long-term goals of Finnish higher education policy: centralization of decision-making, reining in university democracy, increasing especially the power of business interests, making the universities directly responsible for their own #nances, and favouring capitalization instead of increasing basic funding. !is ethos is made plain in the many statements preceding the Universities Act, the founding process of Aalto University, the original dra% for the Universities Act and in the later developments of the foundation university model.
- Subjects
FINLAND; AALTO University; EDUCATION policy; HIGHER education; DEMOCRACY; STRUGGLE; TWENTY-first century
- Publication
Politiikka, 2021, Vol 63, Issue 2, p225
- ISSN
0032-3365
- Publication type
Article