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Abstract

The aim of the article is to explore the impact of excellence as a powerful policy idea in the context of recent and contemporary developments in three selected Central and Eastern European countries, namely, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. More specifically, we explore how excellence as a ‘global script’ was translated by policy makers into local contexts with institutionalized practices. It shows that the translation of the idea of excellence involved the rise of a series of novel policy measures such as long-term strategic funding and the establishment of various pertinent schemes (e.g. flagship universities, centres of excellence). By doing so, the analysis – which is comparative by nature – focuses on exploring major differences and similarities in the conceptualization and implementation of the idea of excellence in the three local contexts of science.

Keywords

Higher education excellence institutional theory flagship universities CEE countries

One of the prevalent features of the changes sweeping across higher education (HE) in Europe in the last decade or so has undoubtedly been the importance attributed to the need to become globally competitive, substantiated by ‘world class’ and ‘excellence’ discourses (Cremonini et al., 2014; Ramirez and Tiplic, 2014). Such imperatives have been taken on board by a variety of stakeholders, policy makers, institutional managers and planners, and other external stakeholders (e.g. industry and regional governments) with vested interests. In short, the political concept of excellence has become a prevalent feature surrounding the ‘Europe of Knowledge’ discourse (cf. Pinheiro, 2015). Few studies to date have looked in detail at how such discourses have impacted developments at the national level in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries.

The aim of the article is to explore the impact of excellence as a powerful policy idea in the context of recent developments in three selected CEE countries, namely, the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine. More specifically, we explore how excellence as a ‘global script’ (Meyer et al., 1997) has been translated by policy makers (Pedersen, 2007) into local contexts with organizational forms and institutionalized practices. The article shows that the local translation of the idea of excellence involved the rise of a series of novel policy measures such as long-term strategic funding and the establishment of various pertinent schemes (e.g. flagship universities, centres of excellence). Theoretically, we focus on three major explanatory factors associated with contextual dimensions affecting the local infusion of meanings into the abstract concept of excellence in HE and its generic organizational template of research university (Mohrman et al., 2008). First, following historical institutionalism, we assume that paths of political and economic transformation (e.g. speed of integration with the European Union) have had a prevailing impact on the dynamics of transnational diffusion of world polity ideas and concepts, and hence allowed transnational organizations to act as agents of world society. This has increased the pressure on national governments to follow hegemonic models. The rationale for selecting the three case countries is largely due to their common socialist past, from which they have joined (or have declared their intentions to join) the European integration process, and to the fact that these HE systems have experienced considerable change in the last two decades or so. The article highlights the historical legacies of the three HE systems and their distinctive (institutionalized) academic traditions, which are the basic foundations for adaptation and implementation of ‘excellence’ and its organizational embeddedness into specific institutional environments. What is more, our cases are representative of the various influences of the Napoleonic (Ukraine) and the Humboldtian (Czech Republic and Poland) tradition and thus the notion of equal but different higher education institution (HEI) (Nybom, 2003). Last but not least, the article looks at the size of the country as an important variable in accounting for the ways in which the concept of ‘world class’ and the notion of ‘research university’ were locally translated and implemented. Size matters, both as regards the number/type of HEI and their internal (formal and informal) organization, accounting for the overall complexity of the system as a whole. Therefore, the article, which is comparative by nature, explores major differences and similarities in the conceptualization and implementation of the idea of excellence across three specific geographic and political contexts.

The article is organized as follows: next, we sketch out the core elements underpinning our conceptual framework which is centred on the notion of ‘travelling and diffusion’ of hegemonic policy ideas embedded in or resulting in specific ‘policy logics’. We then investigate the historical contingencies or path-dependencies associated with the development of the three national HE systems based on a shared communist legacy. The following sections of the article are dedicated to presenting and analysing our empirical findings. In so doing, we pay attention to three key aspects or phases: political drivers; key actors and diffusion mechanisms; and institutionalization. Finally, the article concludes by providing a critical account of the empirical findings, linking these to the existing literature, and reflecting on possible policy and research implications going forward.

Conceptual backdrop

Policy transfer logic

There is a widespread consensus regarding the salience of hegemonic ideas in processes of policy change. Earlier studies suggest that global ideas and practices spread across national contexts and policy portfolios, particularly so when these ideas are aligned with the normative positions or value orientations of certain stakeholders (e.g. policy makers) and/or are laden with external support or legitimacy (Czarniawska-Joerges and Sevón, 2005; Deephouse and Suchman, 2008). Institutional scholars have long advocated that the adoption of common practices within the realm of a given organizational field or sector of activity results in homogenizing pressures, which are termed in the literature as ‘isomorphism’ (Boxenbaum and Jonsson, 2008; DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). This phenomenon is particularly salient in situations characterized by increasing environmental ambiguity, volatility and, thus, uncertainty. When faced with unprecedented and unforeseen external forces – socio-economic, political, cultural, etc. – as in the recent global financial crisis, organizations tend to assess their fields (i.e. the actions of dominant players) in the search for ‘solutions’ on how to respond adequately. More often than not, however, they do so in a rather ritualistic manner without necessarily engaging in a systematic assessment of the pros and cons, i.e. without learning about what works, why and under which circumstances, or how (Geschwind and Pinheiro, in press).

The process of policy transfer and/or learning is surrounded by a multiplicity of aspects, ranging from comparative analysis of the risks and potentials of different strategies and processes of learning (Toens and Landwehr, 2009); the (various) ways in which decision makers learn from epistemic communities responsible for knowledge generation and diffusion (Dunlop, 2009); and the complex relationship between systemic (globalizing) forces and the increasing scope and intensity of policy transfer activity (Evans, 2009), among others. Policy transfers are often conceived from the prism of a learning process (cf. Dunlop, 2009), involving a multiplicity of agents and intrinsically embedded in particular spatial-, temporal- and social-related (networks) dimensions (Stone, 2012). Proponents of the so-called ‘policy diffusion’ literature argue that policy change occurs by osmosis, i.e. something that is contagious rather than chosen, thus connoting the spreading or dispersion of hegemonic models or widespread practices from a common source or origin (Stone, 2012: 484). Institutional scholars have long contended that ‘ideas travel’ (Czarniawska-Joerges and Sevón, 2005) and that, when faced with particular local contexts or geographies, they are ‘translated’ in accordance with local dynamics belief systems and institutionalized practices (Sahlin and Wedlin, 2008). The widespread (local) adoption of hegemonic ideas such as ‘world class’ or ‘excellence’ is, to a large degree, associated with what organizational scholars term ‘environmental determinism’ (Hrebiniak and Joyce, 1985) or what Olsen (2007) refers to as the TINA (‘there is no alternative’) syndrome. In contrast, the adaptation of abstract ideas to specific local circumstances is associated with ‘strategic agency’ (Oliver, 1991) where actors translate or edit these ideas – and the values and norms associated with them – in the light of historical circumstances, but also their strategic agendas and imperatives (cf. Pinheiro and Stensaker, 2014).

While investigating shifts in public policy, it is worth taking into account the role of dominant policy logics (Maassen and Stensaker, 2011) informing and/or legitimating such shifts. March and Olsen (2006) make a distinction between decision-making processes that are inherently ‘rational’, i.e. based on the assessment of risks and opportunities (‘logic of outcomes’), from those that are primarily ‘cultural’ in nature, where rule-following and symbolic behaviour play a central role (‘logic of appropriateness’). The latter is often associated with isomorphic activities exercised in the form of ‘fashion-following’ (Geschwind and Pinheiro, in press).

Those individuals and organizations that pick up ideas have been depicted not only as acting according to a logic of appropriateness but more specifically as fashion followers. The word ‘fashion’ here points to the temporal and social logics of processes of adoption … Fashion guides imitation and the attention of actors to specific ideas, models and practices, and fashion identifies but also creates what is appropriate and desirable at a given time and place. This leads organizations to adopt, but also to translate, these ideas, thus changing both what is translated and those who translate.

(Sahlin and Wedlin, 2008: 222)

Czarniawska-Joerges and Sevón (2005) point out that local actors involved in transfer and translation processes tend to focus on particular accounts and materializations of a specific idea or practice rather than the (transfer of the) idea or practice per se. For example, Huisman et al. (2002) found out that, over time, it is the meanings associated with certain labels (e.g. the ‘entrepreneurial university’) that change rather than the labels themselves. Similarly, Greenwood and Hinings (1993) refer to the fact that archetypes (e.g. ‘the modern organization’) only exist in a stylized or abstract form, and thus in order to be of practical use, they require translation or localization, i.e. the embodiment of the abstract idea into a particular organizational form; or, in our case, a set of policy measures and their subsequent instruments.

The concept of excellence and its organizational embeddedness

The pursuit of excellence has always been at the heart of scientific exploration and investigations, but it was largely individual with a strong reference to self-motivation and professional accountability to the academic community (Clark, 1995). It was less explicitly exposed on the organizational level as universities traditionally were depicted as communities of scholars enjoying high levels of autonomy. This is at odds with a new understanding of excellence in HE which became an utterly political concept linked to an increasingly instrumental conception of the role of HE in society/economy.

The shift from the traditional to instrumental uptake on excellence was reinforced by the rise of a quality assurance regime. Over time, quality assurance of HEIs has displayed a strong external accountability orientation (Stensaker and Harvey, 2011), which was induced by politically motivated assumptions of accountability checks for legitimacy (Harvey and Newton, 2004). Quality monitoring manifested itself in the form of the adoption of simplistic comparative measures (bibliometrics, rankings, etc.) both nationally and internationally. Under such developments, excellence became highly politicized and emerged as a policy instrument or tool to engage HEIs in the economic (and political) arms race for global position and reputation-building that have become pivotal factors in the comparative advantage of a country/region in the global knowledge economy (Peters, 2007; Temple, 2012).

In the pan-European context, this political shift was officially declared by the 2000 Lisbon Strategy (Pinheiro, 2015a). Gradually, it led to the growing role of global comparisons in the form of university league tables or world rankings (Hazelkorn, 2011). Supranational organizations such as the World Bank and the OECD, whose predominant vision of excellence in HE reflects their contribution to the economy, play an increasingly predominant role. Stated differently, the idea of excellence was institutionalized through the framework of transnational comparisons since ‘international rankings form an important input and stimulation in this positional competition for “world-class” status in times of global educational expansion and global inter-connectedness of higher education’ (e.g. Enders, 2014: 155). Research outputs in global bibliographic databases, as a measurable proxy of research intensiveness, became associated with international excellence. Although scientific publications have traditionally been considered significant for academic prestige and career promotion (Musselin, 2007), under the newly scripted global excellence discourse, they became a significant carrier of the institutional(ized) notion of ‘world class’ status.

Thus, the rather ambiguous and complex nature of excellence in HE/science was narrowed and seen mainly through the prism of the criteria of global rankings which offered simplistic but ready-to-use metrics for comparison. This has had a profound impact on the way the idea of excellence is depicted, defined, measured and legitimized. It distinguishes winners from losers, largely based on measurable academic outputs as part and parcel of the diffusion of the ‘excellence script’. National governments across the globe (from China to Germany) started adopting proxies of excellence from the global rankings and often use them as guidelines for devising national performance measures (cf. Hazelkorn, 2011).

The selection of a simple set of indicators favours a specific type of HEI, i.e. the research intensive university, therein making a substantial contribution to the construction of a ‘global script’ (Meyer et al., 1997) for excellence in HE. By prioritizing and favouring certain types of organizational features linked to research intensity and performance, the script endorsed the Anglo-Saxon model of research intensive university that emerged in North America in the second half of the 20th century (Kerr, 1991) that has become the ‘envy of the world’ (Khator, 2011) and a template to be emulated by others, notably, Europe (Aghion et al., 2008). Mohrman et al. (2008) characterize it as the Emerging Global Model (EMG) of 21st-century research university which emphasizes ‘the international nature of a small group of institutions that represent the leading edge of higher education’s embrace of the forces of globalization’ (Mohrman et al., 2008: 6). The authors identify eight basic characteristics that describe a top stratum of research universities worldwide, namely, a global mission, new roles of professors, diversified funding, worldwide recruitment, increasing complexity, new relationships with government and industry, and global collaboration with similar institutions. Furthermore, this new type of university is focused on measurable outcomes of publication performance, in addition to engagement in worldwide competition for scarce resources like academic staff, talented students, reputation and funding. This legitimized model has become a benchmark/role model for so-called ‘world class universities’, ‘flagship universities’ or ‘elite institutions’ that diffused rapidly worldwide through specific policy measures centred on the concentration of scarce resources, i.e. people and funding (Hazelkorn, 2007; Salmi and Saroyan, 2007).

[g]lobal comparisons are made most prominently in relation to one model of universities, the comprehensive research-intensive university. This university model, most prominently developed in the leading U.S. American research universities,¹ lends itself to the formation of a single global competition constructed in the rankings that build on established notions of what constitutes a ‘world-class university’.

(Enders, 2014: 162)

This narrow and instrumentalistic concept of excellence in HE and its global endorsement carries such a normative force that it makes any governmental policy hard to resist. In the particular context of CEE, this notion of excellence appears to be distant from a long-standing HE tradition based and the very specific institutional environment resulting from the communist historical legacy (Dobbins, 2011).

This section delved into two important conceptualizations (policy transfer logic and excellence) in light of the research question posed at the outset (how the idea of excellence has been translated by policy makers into local contexts with organizational forms and institutional practices). Given the importance attributed to path-dependencies, as alluded to earlier, we now turn to the historical contingencies shaping the dynamics within each of the three case studies.

Historical contingencies

Before the 1990s, HE in Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine was embedded in a rather similar environment. Ukraine was part of the so-called ‘Soviet model’ (Árnason, 1993) that spread throughout the Soviet satellite countries like Poland and the former Czechoslovakia (Connelly, 2000). It was characterized by tight state control, bureaucratization and the role of communist ideology in the governance of HE affairs. The system of HE in independent Ukraine inherited features from the Soviet model, such as the division between primarily teaching-oriented HEIs and the research institutes of the Academy of Sciences without teaching obligations. A similar institutional division can be found in other countries in CEE. In general, the system was centrally organized with research activities predominantly conducted in the Academy of Sciences as well as (sectoral) institutes for research and development (R&D centres).

In all three countries, HEIs were assigned to perform teaching functions and fuel the needs of a centrally planned economy with a well-educated workforce (Pabian, 2010; Szczepański, 1963). Research activities at HEIs were not completely absent prior to 1989, but they were not the chief priority, as ideological pressure and control were exerted on scientific work in the humanities and the social sciences in particular (cf. Connelly, 2000; Roskovec, 2006). The notion of excellence had never been a political issue, although one might argue that concentrating research in the Academy of Sciences may have, unintentionally, played a key role in establishing isolated centres of research excellence. And indeed, the most intensive and advanced research in all three countries, largely within the natural sciences, used to be conducted under the institutional umbrella of the Academy of Sciences.²

The democratic revolutions in the late 1980s/early 1990s brought major shifts in public policy formulation, but excellence in science (HE and research sectors) was not among the top priorities. In Poland and the Czech Republic, the injection of a ‘democratic spirit’ entailed liberalization, significant political autonomy and the return of the Humboldtian model of the university based on the teaching-research nexus (Dobbins and Knill, 2009). The latter model held symbolic meaning for the academic community, as it referred to the ideal model of university in the Weberian sense and glorified a historical myth. Put succinctly, after decades of tight scrutiny and control by the authoritarian regime, HEIs enjoyed the freedom to conduct research without political interference. The stipulations of the HE Acts of 1990 (Czech Republic and Poland) were predominately about confirming academic rights, freedoms and university autonomy (Hübner, 1992; Pabian, 2009). In Ukraine, after 1991, the state regulation in HE was also weakened, but to a lesser extent than in Poland and the Czech Republic (Zgurovskyi, 2005). Yet, similarly to the latter countries, research and education were not priorities for local politicians (Kvit, 2013).

In short, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the newly established democratic governments prioritized freedom and autonomy. The various legal acts were, first and foremost, meant to liberalize student admissions, reinstate academics’ and students’ rights and freedoms, remove the ideological bias from the curricula and enhance institutional autonomy (Antonowicz, 2012; Cerych, 1997). This posture was due to three key factors: (a) the authoritarian past; (b) the scarcity of resources to conduct any meaningful policy; and (c) the non-existence of independent sectoral HE policies (Antonowicz, 2015; Sadlak, 1995). Research and HE were not identified as political priorities in CEE countries at the time. On the contrary, science was often seen as an activity that, even though it was heavily underfunded, caused the least social harm.

Method: analysing ‘excellence’ in the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine

Fostering excellence is not a straightforward or linear process. Like many other changes in this field, it involves a variety of actors, and dynamic and complex interplay between them, in addition to the use of a wide range of political instruments and economic mechanisms. The analysis undertaken here pays special attention to three key aspects associated with the dissemination of excellence in science in the three chosen countries. First, it explores the set of political drivers responsible for cross-national dissemination of the idea of excellence, including a closer look at politicization mechanisms that serve to legitimize excellence as an integral part of a much wider and politically significant socio-economic transformation, i.e. the phenomenon of Europeanization (Olsen and Maassen, 2007). This is followed by an attempt to identify the main actors promoting excellence as well as the diffusing mechanisms allowing those same actors to transfer the latter concept into the local political agenda and action. Last but not the least, we examine the various means of institutionalization of excellence by shedding light on a number of policy instruments devised to promote (diffuse) excellence across the board. The structure of the analysis, by phases or analytical segments rather than on a country by country basis, helps us to identify commonalities and variations, in addition to complex interactions (e.g. tensions and overlaps) between transnational trends and national processes. Our analysis is largely based on secondary data sets such as the extant literature on the topic which covers book chapters and journal articles. They are most often published in local languages (Czech, Polish and Ukrainian) as a wider part of policy discourse or simply domestic politics. However, the strongest focus was placed on official policy documents issued by public authorities which mark political initiatives, outline strategic goals and also shed light on wider political contexts within which the goals are located. Each of the analysed countries has its own ordination of policy documents which are deeply embedded in local political contexts. The analysis also covers national legislation, which has a direct impact on defining and measuring excellence in HE. The analysis covers legal documents of a different rank, both major legal acts approved by national parliaments – and their numerous amendments – but most often lower ranking regulations (ordinances) which have an immediate and direct impact on HE. In addition, the analysis covers key insights gained by the authors as a result of their direct involvement – as researchers, policy advisors, local committee members, etc. – with issues pertaining to HE and science policy in the countries in question.

Political drivers for excellence

Worldwide, the pursuit of excellence in the realm of HE/science entered the public policy imagination as a result of growing transnational competition in both research and teaching (Marginson, 2004; Rust and Kim, 2012). It entailed an instrumentalist approach to science (cf. Pinheiro, 2015a) and was primarily aimed at fostering international recognition and the global competitiveness of national economies (Cremonini and Antonowicz, 2009). Yet, in a number of countries throughout Europe, excellence stood at odds with the well-established Humboldtian tradition that conceives of universities through an egalitarian prism, i.e. equal but different institutions (Nybom, 2003). It is undeniable that the transnational embodiment of political drivers, including within the European Union (e.g. the Lisbon Agenda), played a crucial role in the pursuit of excellence in science (see Geschwind and Pinheiro, in press). That being said, it should be emphasized that, from a global perspective, excellence was narrowly defined as referring to research endeavours only (as the most prestigious part of the academic profession), with an immediate impact on university reputation. It is worth noting that in all three countries there have been attempts to stimulate quality in teaching, which has become a serious challenge in the ever-expanding systems of HE. All three governments have undertaken measures to increase quality in teaching, largely through the implementation of a system of accreditation and evaluation ‘inspired’ or simply adopted from the pan-European template. However, these initiatives have been much less politicized when compared to excellence in research and thus have had little impact on public policy (Tutko and Naumov, 2014).

Particularly in CEE countries, it is hard to overestimate the role of political mechanisms in initiating, endorsing and leading change in the public realm. Overall, political involvement in the design and implementation of public policies has widely been found to be significant for transforming policy sectors within the context of CEE countries (Beblavy et al., 2012; Meyer-Sahling, 2008). Almost any socio-economic transformations resulting in organizational re-adaptions, wide-scale monetary redistributions and new policy design creations are likely to take place under political interventions, i.e. politicization (cf. Neuhold et al., 2013). In this case, excellence was framed into a political discourse centred on fostering economic efficiency, resource efficiency and global competitiveness. In all three countries, excellence came to the fore in the second half of the 2000s as a result of the internationalization (i.e. Europeanization) of HE (Enders, 2004). It was then followed by a major political shift in the EU (Gornitzka, 2007) introduced by the Lisbon Strategy (European Council, 2000), which catapulted science to the centre stage of economic growth and development in Europe. It entailed an instrumental and utilitarian understanding of excellence as a means to achieve ‘smart growth’ (Rusu, 2013). Thus, the emerging national policies to support excellence were not a pro-active political choice per se but, instead, a form of reactive response to the changing environment marked by the growing impact of supranational dimensions (Kwiek, 2014). Overall, it was part and parcel of a much wider political and economic trend of ‘catching up’ with Western European countries that were miles ahead in terms of R&D expenditure, labour productivity and the visibility of research outcomes.

The political drivers for excellence took a different route in each of the three countries. In the case of Czech HE policy-making, excellence, along with the quality of academic activities, was made one of three overarching policy priorities in the Strategy for Higher Education for 2006–2010 (MŠMT, 2005). This policy logic reflected a ‘fit for purpose approach’ encompassing support for the priority areas spelled out by the HEIs themselves. However, through the 2000s, the R&D policy, emerging in parallel with HE policy, increasingly emphasized the issues of productivity gaps, limited research effects on Czech society/economy, as well as support for mediocrity to the detriment of excellence, not least due to the failing organization of R&D funding streams. In Poland, the turn towards excellence took place in the early 2000s with the emergence of global university rankings in tandem with wider political debates on the underperformance of Polish academics in attracting EU funds (Supel, 2007). These two aspects, seen as highly important to key political figures, became major drivers, hence sending a strong signal across the sector that Polish universities had descended into mediocrity, with the idea of excellence easily conquering the public and policy debates (Antonowicz, 2015). This shift was reflected in the 2008 Green Paper (MNiSW, 2008) explicitly referring to excellence as a major policy priority, as the mediocrity in R&D became a politically sensitive issue in the context of the new challenges set by the Lisbon Strategy (cf. Pinheiro, 2015a).

The situation was only slightly different in Ukrainian HE, as the idea of excellence was then presented (in 2010) in the form of ‘flagship universities’ of a national and research character (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine 2010a). It was also highly politicized. The government hoped that awarding elite status would stimulate privileged HEIs to take higher positions in global university rankings (Hladchenko et al., 2016), promising additional funding to research universities. However, the Ukrainian case stands out from the remaining two because the government expected beneficial economic results from knowledge transfers (rather than discovery) and third-party funding (Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, 2010). Excellence seemed to be a perfect policy answer for addressing the panacea of heavily underfunded universities. This peculiar interpretation, aligned with the neoliberal approach to HE (Slaughter and Leslie, 1997), can be explained by the scarcity of state funding for research. International excellence was far beyond the reach of Ukrainian universities, but the idea of ‘institutional excellence’ was adapted to local circumstances in the form of domestic university rankings (Kvit, 2013).

It is worth pointing out that the idea of excellence came largely from outside the CEE region, whereby the political process of Europeanization was a major driver in the diffusion and legitimization of excellence throughout Europe. Being a champion in science and HE was imposed on national political agendas through the Lisbon Strategy (Pinheiro, 2015a), while the notion of excellence was simultaneously diffused via the EU research framework programmes (FPs). The dominant notion across the three countries was that centres of excellence and/or research universities would be in a position to attract external competitive funding as the CEE countries suffered from low R&D investments. However, in retrospect, the strategic opportunity for obtaining funds through FPs was largely missed as the CEE countries in general underperformed in the EU research programmes for a variety of reasons. Hence, the overall structure of research funding was largely unchanged. Despite missing this opportunity, the CEE countries were ‘compensated’ by newly devised EU-funded programmes (late 2000s onwards) open to the new EU member states, including Poland and the Czech Republic. Despite the ineffectiveness in absorbing funding through the EU’s FPs, the major policy drivers remained strong and were underpinned by the hope that only excellence could bring significant systemic change.

Behind the contagiousness of the idea of excellence, there were also dynamic changes in the political and economic environments of the three countries which, in turn, entailed a fundamental restructuring of their respective HE systems, including finding an adequate balance between mass (open) and elite status (Tapper and Palfreyman, 2010). Each country tried to respond to this changing environment by, inter alia, addressing the problem of mediocrity (in science) among their publicly run and funded universities, research teams and individual academics. The idea of excellence was conceptualized (locally translated) through the lens of global research rankings with the EU’s FPs geared towards excellence in science as its core policy instrument. In short, there should be little doubt that the Lisbon Strategy provided a strong inspiration and legitimization for fashioning excellence, while global university rankings and FPs acted as its major drivers.

Main actors and diffusion mechanisms

The idea of excellence in science and HE across the three countries was predominantly politically driven and had a profound impact on universities and research institutions. Some key political figures pushed strongly for hands-on, top-down administrative measures in order to select a set of elite institutions. Excellence became a fashionable and politically sensitive issue attracting strong media attention. In Ukraine, this process was rather bureaucratized and centralized, while in Poland and the Czech Republic more indirect measures (mostly through competitive mechanisms allocation of research funding) were undertaken so as to strengthen excellence in science. In addition, in Poland and the Czech Republic, the influence of the Humboldtian tradition of academic self-governance was stronger and to a large degree still is an important part of academic identity (Dobbins and Knill, 2009), implying that political (external) attempts to structure the university system faced strong resistance by internal stakeholders (cf. Olsen, 2007). In all three countries, the central government played a dominant role in promoting excellence despite the fact that it was confronted by strong resistance from the academic community while attempting to initiate deep structural reforms.

In the Czech Republic, the functional remit and responsibilities of actors involved in the formulation of the national R&D policy, namely the Ministry of Education and the R&D Council, was set in the Act on Research, Experimental Development and Innovations (2002). Ukraine stands out because of its centralist policy-making tradition, while in the Czech Republic and Poland the state can only initiate change, yet its ultimate success (implementation) is largely dependent on the academic community, which still has a strong veto position. The idea of excellence therefore needs to be adapted (Beerkens, 2010) in order to fit specific local circumstances, including deeply institutionalized academic values and traditions.

In post-Soviet countries, any top-down initiatives in science became highly politicized and thus met with strong resistance from academics. The strong tradition of self-governance compelled the central government to mobilize other societal actors in an attempt to diffuse the idea of excellence indirectly, as a means of ‘soft governance’ or steering from distance (cf. Kickert, 1995), through a number of low-profile policy actions. Stakeholders such as the Foundation for Polish Science, intermediary or advisory bodies such as the Czech RD&I Council, and/or prominent individuals played a critical role in this respect (diffusion and legitimation phase). In Ukraine, prominent figures such as the Rector of the National Technical University (Kyiv Polytechnic Institute) were among the powerful advocates for excellence and also among those who initiated the local translation of the idea of the research university into policy actions.

In general, the governments tended to translate the concept of excellence into a number of incremental and indirect measures that helped to shape conditional funding for research. In Poland, a political move to support excellence in R&D was diffused through the establishment of autonomous research funding agencies such as the National Science Center (NCN) and National Center for Research and Development (NCBiR), which allocate research funding through competitive mechanisms. They became key actors in the process and the new apostles of R&D excellence. In addition, after failing to establish flagship universities, the Polish government came up with the idea of National Research Centers for Excellence (KNOW) and a financial scheme to provide block grants for a very few select faculties or other scientific units. This led to the concentration of research funds in a handful of selected universities (for example, in 2015, a fifth of research funding distributed by NCN went to the University of Warsaw and Jagiellonian University). This was not a typical top-down political initiative, but rather was a form of ‘translation’ of institutional excellence in the post-Humboldtian institutional environment. This was still a controversial policy measure, but was legitimized by similar initiatives across Europe, like the German Excellence Initiative (Kehm and Pasternack, 2009). Finally, in the Czech case, the most effective way to disseminate excellence was through the design of the underlying assessment methodology that brings together research results, awards a certain number of points to each result according to its worth (‘real or perceived’)³ and, on that basis, remunerates it financially. This methodology has had a significant financial impact on the level of allocation of institutional R&D support (Mahieu and Arnold, 2015).

To summarize, the central government turned out to be the dominant actor in pushing for excellence, but in comparison with Ukraine, in Poland and the Czech Republic (due to historical traditions) the state tried to engage various stakeholders to legitimize and disseminate it through different channels into academia. Striving for excellence in scientific policy is a political idea and serves predominately economic and political purposes, and thus is associated with increasing instrumentalization of the sector in the light of regional and domestic political agendas (Olsen and Maassen, 2007; Pinheiro, 2015b). Therefore, it should be no surprise that the political actors played the key roles and that the policy mechanisms adopted were specifically devised to promote excellence.

Institutionalization

The empirical analysis provides evidence that drivers, actors and diffusing mechanisms are important, but what really matters is how and in what form the concept of excellence is translated into institutionalized academic practices. We identify three main types of instruments for institutionalizing excellence across all three countries: (a) legal tools; (b) organizational instruments; and (c) financial instruments. In general, science is vested in the state, which therefore still exercises its authority to define and promote excellence, mainly through national regulations which apply to institutions (e.g. research assessment) as well as individuals (e.g. criteria of academic processional development).

Legal tools aim to operationalize excellence and establish new rules to encourage both organizations and individuals to change their academic practices. In Poland, it was primarily the Act of the Principles of Financing Sciences (2010) that laid the ground for policy direction to promote excellence, although the operationalization of excellence together with measures applied are based on legal acts of lower rank (ordinances). Similarly, in the Czech Republic, the R&D Act and its 2009 Amendment, together with the HE Act of 1998, set the framework to promote excellence. As stated in the above section, the definition of excellence cannot be seen as isolated from transnational processes, as both Poland and the Czech Republic (as members of the EU) are members of the European Research Area (ERA), which also has a strong say in defining and measuring excellence in science. This contrasts with the situation in Ukraine, in which the impact of national regulations is by far the strongest due to its academic roots in the Napoleonic (rather than Humboldtian) tradition (Bakhrushyn, 2013), and weaker political connections with the Western world. Thus, the system still remains closed (compared to Poland and the Czech Republic), making it very vulnerable to changing national regulations. That said, it remains largely open as regards: (a) how to support the institutionalization of excellence through legal instruments, and (b) how legal changes devised at the system level translate into individual academic practices (dos and don’ts).

Institutionalization through legal tools

In all three countries, there has been an observable shift towards international publications, in particular in journals indexed in internationally respected databases, a measure that has been strongly supported (or ‘forced’) by state regulations. Initially, the influence has grown through international professional networks, especially within the natural sciences that are deeply embedded in the transnational body of knowledge. The corresponding policy designs adapted the definition of excellence calculated by the bibliometric measures from Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus and insert them into formal criteria of academic professional development, but also institutional evaluation of research performance. This was due to the traditionally strong position occupied by the natural sciences on the one hand, and the transnational hegemonic position of the aforementioned bibliographic databases on the other (Paasi, 2005). In all three countries, this notion of excellence spread across all scientific fields. The transnational character of these databases provided them with the needed legitimacy to define excellence and the tools to measure it, despite being a subject of mounting and vociferous academic criticism. The adoption of ‘metric-based’ R&D assessment methodology has stirred up deep concern. The reasons are as follows: a reduction of the complexity of performance to an overly simple category of outputs; an exclusive focus on the immediate outputs to the detriment of wider societal relevance, including the quality of doctoral studies; a lack of consideration for disciplinary and institutional differences, treating all institutions in the same way; and not taking into account national long-term R&D priority areas (Mahieu and Arnold, 2015).The definition of excellence was largely adopted from the transnational arena and legitimized by the hegemonic position of international journal databases and their specific bibliometric means of measuring excellence.

Institutionalization through organizational instruments

The institutionalization of excellence is taking place through the adoption of organizational instruments as a means of top-down restructuring of the HE sector, albeit in different ways depending on the local context. Both in the Czech Republic and Poland, the central government has proposed top-town diversification in order to select elite institutions. In both countries, these initiatives have largely failed. The idea of elite institutions is very controversial but also politically alluring, particularly in big countries, due to the ambiguous nature (institutional hierarchies) in which many HEIs make a self-claim towards their elite status. The Polish government twice tried to institutionalize the idea of excellence through flagship universities, the first time in 2008 and later during 2015. The latter attempt took place through the Program for HE and Research Development (MNiSW, 2015), which proposed three different types of HEIs depending on their profiles: research-oriented, research-teaching-oriented and teaching-oriented. This idea stirred up massive criticism from the academic community and, as a result of domestic political turbulence, it was abandoned at least for the time being. Establishing some form of elite institutions is clearly in fashion (Schwartzman et al., 2015; Tapper and Palfreyman, 2009) and in both Poland and Ukraine, political attempts have been made to select ‘national’ and ‘research’ universities. This contrasts with the Czech Republic, where there is no relevant policy discourse (past or present) around differentiation, and the selection of ‘flagship’, ‘elite’, ‘research’ universities is not really an issue. Even the widely criticized 2009 White Paper on Tertiary Education has no reference to flagship universities, not least due to the unchallenged positions of Charles University and Masaryk University in the national HE landscape. In Ukraine, a centralist (top-down) diversification policy was initially developed, but failed to be implemented because of the lack of financial resources. Starting in 1994, when the first three Ukrainian flagship universities were awarded the status of ‘national’ institutions, an attempt was made to stimulate the remaining prominent universities to strive for this status. At that time, there were plans to establish 51 national universities. However, domestic politics overtook the logic of excellence as Ukrainian presidents generously tend to award many different statuses before elections and there were ultimately 117 national universities instead of the initial plans for 51 (Stadnyi, 2013). At first, the government declared that national universities would acquire additional funding, yet due to the fragility of the Ukrainian economy there were problems with the allocation of funds. Despite the initial failure, the idea of elite institutions returned to the public debate in 2007, embedded in the hegemonic idea of the ‘research university’ (Mohrman et al., 2008). However, during the process of local translation, the key figures in the government kept on changing and they interpreted the ‘research university’ in different ways; the economy was in constant crisis and the government did not aim to build a knowledge economy and, as a result, the idea of ‘research university’ gradually hollowed out (cf. Hladchenko et al., 2016).

Institutionalization through financial instruments

HE in CEE is characterized by considerable underfunding in comparison to Western European countries, but analogous to them it relies heavily on public funding. Both these features make the domestic HE systems particularly vulnerable to new financial opportunities linked to strategic agency (Oliver, 1991) and changing rules for the allocation of financial resources or resource dependencies (Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003). As EU members, both Poland and the Czech Republic make strategic use of the EU’s Operation Programmes aimed at strengthening European centres of excellence and various forms of regional R&D centres. EU funding was invested in research infrastructure and, in principle, it was allotted through competitive mechanisms (in separate fractions for each country). That said, at least in Poland, the topography of local political interests inevitably played its role in the allocation of funds. For both countries, the infrastructure revolution was probably the most effective way to let the leading research centres catch up with the rest of the world. However, the long-term financial stability of these centres might be in danger, as maintaining cutting-edge, modern research infrastructure requires a steady supply of adequate funds in the future.

To sum up, all three types of policy instruments have been utilized to embed or institutionalize excellence in HE/science. Clearly, in all the countries, legal regulations have played a leading role as science is deeply embedded in the public realm and thus relies on public support (cf. Amaral et al., 2010). The central government, supported by various stakeholders, defines not only excellence but also the means of measuring it either at the institutional level (e.g. institutional research assessment) or at the individual level (e.g. academic degrees are awarded according to criteria set in national regulations). This policy posture lends credibility to the thesis of coercive isomorphism long advocated by institutional scholars (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). As regards organizational instruments, there have been serious political attempts to institutionalize excellence in the form of elite (world class) institutions. What seemed to be the political short-cut to excellence became a ‘wicked problem’ (Churchman, 1967). In this context, clear differences emerged, with Poland and Ukraine making several attempts to restructure HE from ‘the top down’ while such attempts were largely abandoned in the Czech Republic. Small countries tend to have a well-established hierarchy of HEIs with elite institutions in ‘the academic lore’, as demonstrated by a recent study into the Mathew effect in Czech HE (Šima, 2013). By contrast, Poland and Ukraine turned out to be more vulnerable to university rankings, and, largely due to the size of their national HE systems (450 HEIs in Poland and 277 in UKR), the organizational restructuring of mass HE in the form of ‘elite’ institutions made some sense. In countries of considerable size, rankings also fuel aspirations of local political elite who see them instrumentally as a source of prestige of regions and magnets for knowledge-intensive investments. Hence, they often tend to over-emphasize the role of rankings and attach great importance to formal statutes of HEI. Finally, one of the most effective mechanisms to promote excellence are financial instruments, which reflect the steering-at-a-distance approach (Kickert, 1995). New actors and mechanisms such as funding agencies, intermediate and advisory bodies are becoming engaged in supporting the institutionalization of excellence in science. In heavily underfunded systems, such as those in most of the CEE countries, dependence on resources is strong, and the most effective way to institutionalize excellence is thus through the supply of additional (external) research funding in the form of competitive mechanisms. Poland and the Czech Republic, in particular, are beneficiaries of considerable amounts of EU structural funding (totalling billions of euros), a large part of which is specifically focused on promoting excellence through the development of research infrastructure. Furthermore, both countries are members of the ERA, which also has an impact on shaping notions of excellence through setting up criteria for competitive mechanisms regarding research funding programmes like Horizon 2020.

Discussion and conclusions

Across Europe, the idea of excellence in science and HE arrived as a consequence of the internationalization of HE (Stensaker et al., 2008) on the one hand, and the increasingly significant role of the sector in the context of a global knowledge-based economy (Temple, 2011) on the other. In the broader European context, this change was marked by the 2000 Lisbon Strategy that not only declared a shift in economic policy for the region, but also put science and HE at the forefront of political initiatives (Olsen and Maassen, 2007). It probably would not be an exaggeration to state that the drive towards excellence was reflected in an isomorphic response (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) to a fast-changing (and increasingly nested) local, national, regional and global environment in which governments, but also universities and other scientific organizations, operate. In such circumstances, actors tend to follow, sometimes un-reflexibly, the actions of other legitimate actors, thus resulting in imitative behaviour or convergence (Pinheiro et al., 2014).

The highly politicized and narrowly defined concept of excellence invoked a multiplicity of political responses. Among these, the first and somehow most natural reaction to growing international expectations to support excellence was through the establishment of elite or ‘flagship’ universities. Fuelled by political aspirations, this policy posture fit perfectly with the institutional race for glory (rankings), which managed to attract substantial attention worldwide, thus becoming a popular proxy for excellence (Hazelkorn, 2011). Seen from the perspective of neo-institutional theory (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), the adoption of this policy logic was drawn from the legitimized backdrop of global solutions or ‘best practices’ (Salmi, 2009) which, in turn, allowed governments to domestically legitimate their actions while attracting additional external resources (EU funds) to support them. However, this strategy largely stood at odds with a deeply embedded university tradition of equal but different universities and the notion of academic self-governance (Antonowicz and Jongbloed, 2015). In both Poland and the Czech Republic, the Humboldtian legacy is still alive, although largely as a myth as empirically demonstrated by Kwiek (2012). Yet, the role of the academic community was considerably more prevalent in these two EU countries when compared to Ukraine where both the Napoleonic (‘centralist’) tradition and the Soviet (‘bureaucratic’) model were found to have a critical impact in both the process of local translation and consequent diffusion (institutionalization).

In all three countries, the idea of excellence came from outside academia and was promoted by either government or prominent actors, even in Ukraine where the idea came from rectors who spoke as members of the political establishment rather than the academic community. An instrumental approach to science and HE was contradictory in terms of the long-lasting and deeply institutionalized academic traditions. In Ukraine, the local translation of the idea of excellence became embedded in the notion of ‘research universities’ as an inseparable part of the knowledge economy, implemented in a centralized, top-bottom fashion. In the Czech Republic and Poland, by contrast, the idea of excellence was not a comprehensive concept implemented top down by a single body. Instead, a wide range of actors were involved in adapting the idea of excellence to local environments and this obviously caused some political confusion as the different actors approached excellence from a different perspective. The plurality of actors and their roles in the policy-making process increased the overall complexity of translating/adapting the idea of excellence locally. Although there are always ministers responsible for overseeing the whole system, a number of actors involved in the policy process often caused confusion, misinterpretations, misunderstandings, misconceptions or even delays in policy implementation (Gornitzka et al., 2005). This further suggests that governing within a corporate-pluralistic model associated with the rise of the stakeholder society (Neave, 2002) is a complex issue to say the least (cf. Pinheiro, 2015b).

The power game of translation was visible in the Czech Republic and Poland in which the position of the academic community was considerably stronger (i.e. their position to promote their own understandings of excellence was robust) when compared to Ukraine. Various advisory and representative bodies acting as political actors tended to concentrate on their specific and narrowly defined goals and, thus, presented very different, sometimes contradictory, approaches towards policy articulation or operationalization as in the case of excellence. Thus, the policy lost its focus and consistency. In Ukraine, which has been less influenced by the Humboltdian tradition, the academic environment is less institutionalized, and adaptation appears to be a more straightforward political process. The lack of sufficient financial resources allows the government to re-brand institutions and enhance their formal status, yet everything else seems to have remained the same, i.e. no change in actual behaviour or capacity. Nevertheless, the government, with the support of prominent academic figures, acted directly by imposing regulations and organizational changes, while in the Czech and Polish cases it is more steering from a distance (Kickert, 1995) through a number of intermediate bodies (e.g. research funding agencies, evaluation bodies) and financial instruments. Both countries also used considerable amounts of EU structural funds to support excellence through unprecedented investments in research infrastructure that were also allocated through a competitive mechanism that per se supports excellence.

In all three countries, the academic community put up significant resistance to the imposition of bibliometric measures of excellence as a part of the institutionalization of excellence in science. But in this case, both political drivers and actors were too strong for the academic community to resist isomorphic pressures. It resulted in: (a) an uncritical acceptance and rather narrow understanding of excellence as a form of research performance, and (b) bibliometric measures were adopted to calculate or assess research outcomes. Regardless of distinctive differences between the three countries, they all relied on the same international databases that index publications, mainly the WoS and Scopus. Despite all the criticism levelled against it, such assessment methodology impacted institutional strategies and individual behaviour following bibliometric rules and the ‘publish or perish’ academic logic. Not only did the three governments build the system of institutional and individual research evaluation on bibliometric measures, but they then linked them directly to resource allocation and professional career development. In all three countries, this development was supported by the privileged position of the natural sciences, which were legitimized by their internationally recognized performance (cf. Brzeziński, 2016; Jurajda et al., 2015). Above all, they strongly rely on citations and impact factors which seem to proxy excellence to the extent that in Poland and Ukraine the names of these databases have been inserted in policy documents and even legal acts. At the end of the day, as research publications are key to academics’ and HEIs’ prestige and individuals’ career advancement, the utilitarian perception of excellence takes precedence.

Scopus data for the period 1996–2015 show that the Czech Republic increased the number of journal publications by 340% (from 5000 to 22,000 articles annually). The figures for Poland show a 233% rise (from 12,000 to 40,000), with Ukraine having a more modest 66% growth (from 6000 to 10,000).⁴ Put succinctly, there is a substantive difference between the growth of research outputs defined as a central part of the ‘excellence script’ in both the Czech Republic and Poland in comparison to Ukraine. It could be concluded that the trajectory of socio-economic transformations has had a profound effect on the diffusion, translation and institutionalization of the political concept of excellence in HE. The rapid development of close and strong ties to the Western world, combined with the financial resources behind ‘excellence’ initiatives, turned out to be pivotal factors not only in strategic decisions to redesign priorities in HE policy but also to disseminate its particular account among elements of the academic community. Hence, it is not surprising that only three institutions are part of the top 500 in AWRU rankings,⁵ namely, Charles University (Czech Republic) and Warsaw and Jagiellonian Universities (Poland).

The analysis shows that although the academic community understands and shares enthusiasm towards excellence, it also shows some resistance towards such a narrow understanding of making it a top political priority, which legitimizes rapid and deep structural changes in HE. Thus, a number of actors engaged with the use of indirect political mechanisms, helping the government to adapt the concept of excellence to the local environment and institutionalizing it into individual practices. This means, however, that what the government wants to see as the ‘motorway’ to excellence sometimes becomes a ‘bumpy road’ laden with crossroads and roundabouts.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Funding

Dominik Antonowicz gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Research Council (NCN) through its research grant (UMO-2013/10/M/HS6/00561).

Notes

Author biographies

Dominik Antonowicz holds a PhD in Sociology and works as an Associate Professor in the Institute of Sociology, Nicolas Copernicus UniversitY, Torun. His research interests include higher education policy and also system and institutional governance. He has published numerous articles in peer-review international journals including, Higher Education and Studies in Higher Education. Furthermore, he has been deeply involved in strategic planning, policy design and policy-making process while participating in numerous expert bodies at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in Poland.

Jan Kohoutek is a Research Associate at the Centre for Higher Education Studies, Prague. Holding a PhD in public policy, he specializes in issues of policy work, policy design and implementation as well as, more specifically, in quality of educational policies. On these topics he has published in peer-reviewed international journals including Central European Journal of Public Policy, European Journal of Education or Higher Education Quarterly.

Rómulo Pinheiro is Professor in Public Policy and Administration at the University of Agder. Romulo heads the research group on governance and leadership in the public sector (GOLEP). Romulo is also a Senior Researcher (part-time) at Agderforskning’s Innovation Group, a Visiting Professor (Higher Education) at the University of Tampere, Finland, Associate Member of the ExCID’s (Expert Cutlures & Institutional Dynamics) research group based at the University of Oslo, and a long-time collaborator of HEDDA - an European consortia of research centers in the field of higher education studies. Romulo’s research interests lie at the intersection between public policy and administration, organizational studies, regional science and innovation, and higher education studies.

Myroslava Hladchenko, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Pedagogy, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine. She had visits as an invited researcher to the International Centre for Higher Education Research- Kassel, University Kassel (2015) and Observatory of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lausanne.

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The roads of ‘excellence’ in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Keywords

Conceptual backdrop

Policy transfer logic

The concept of excellence and its organizational embeddedness

Historical contingencies

Method: analysing ‘excellence’ in the Czech Republic, Poland and Ukraine

Political drivers for excellence

Main actors and diffusion mechanisms

Institutionalization

Institutionalization through legal tools

Institutionalization through organizational instruments

Institutionalization through financial instruments

Discussion and conclusions

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interest

Funding

Notes

Author biographies

References