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This book argues that the current renegotiation of the postwar social contract concerning the welfare state in Europe is being accompanied by the renegotiation of a smaller-scale modern social pact between the university and the nation-state. Current transformations to the state under the pressures of globalization will not leave the university unaffected, and consequently it is useful to discuss the university and its future in the context of the state. In the new global order, against the odds, universities are striving to maintain their pivotal role in society. Their role as engines of economic growth and contributors to economic competitiveness between increasingly knowledge-driven economies is being widely acknowledged. But it is a radical reformulation of their traditional social roles. The main reasons for current transformations of the university include globalization pressures on nation-states and their public services, the end of the 'Golden age' of the Keynesian welfare state, and the emergence of knowledge-based societies and knowledge-driven economies. Therefore the university can no longer be discussed solely in traditional, relatively self-contained disciplinary contexts. Here the university is seen from a variety of perspectives and through the lens of a wide range of disciplines (mainly educational sciences, political economy, sociology, political sciences, and philosophy).

This book is devoted to the condition of the university under the pressures of globalization, with particular reference to Central Europe. It is intended as a companion volume for all those who combine their academic and disciplinary research with wider interests in the functioning of higher education institutions under the new pressures affecting Central Europe. Drawing on its interdisciplinary nature and the wide range of scholars involved, it intends to outline a useful map of new, often challenging, areas, topics and concerns to be taken into account in rethinking the function of the university today.

The global stratification of higher education institutions is accompanied by the vertical differentiation of the academic profession. The various segments of the profession and the various components of higher education systems have been drifting apart. A general contrast emerges between the haves and have-nots in terms of working conditions and the attractiveness of the academic profession at the individual level; and the global visibility in league tables and access to national research funding at the institutional level. In massified systems, the traditional teaching-research nexus will be maintained in practice almost exclusively in the small elite sub-sector. The opportunities at the disposal of institutions will vary immensely in the future, but the most important, qualitative distinction will be between the top 1,000 universities and the rest (comprising about 25,000–30,000 institutions).

A decade of reforms has changed almost every aspect of university functioning. Poland has moved from privatization to deprivatization and from deinstitutionalization to reinstitutionalization of the research mission of its universities. The research internationalization agenda has led to introducing quantitative, research-focused indicators and new funding and assessment systems. However, the system of incentives to internationalize Polish research has so far proved to be ineffective. These reforms were pursued in politically turbulent times.

This paper is focused on the links between reform agendas and their rationales in higher education and in welfare state services across Europe. Lessons learnt from past and ongoing welfare state reforms can be useful in understanding ongoing and future higher education reforms. Research on reforming European welfare states is a missing context in research on reforming European universities. We intend to fill this gap and briefly explore possible links between these two largely isolated policy and research areas. European universities and European welfare states are closely linked today because they are heavily dependent on public funding – and the competition for public funding between the different claimants to it is on the rise. Reforms of both sectors are also closely linked to increasing intergenerational conflicts over public resources in aging societies, and pressures on both sectors are linked to the shrinking tax base, the power of the neoliberal ideology, and changing social attitudes to both welfare and universities. Problems of both sectors and solutions to them are increasingly being defined at a global level through transnational reform discourses. ; This paper is focused on the links between reform agendas and their rationales in higher education and in welfare state services across Europe. Lessons learnt from past and ongoing welfare state reforms can be useful in understanding ongoing and future higher education reforms. Research on reforming European welfare states is a missing context in research on reforming European universities. We intend to fill this gap and briefly explore possible links between these two largely isolated policy and research areas. European universities and European welfare states are closely linked today because they are heavily dependent on public funding – and the competition for public funding between the different claimants to it is on the rise. Reforms of both sectors are also closely linked to increasing intergenerational conflicts over public resources in aging societies, and pressures on both sectors are linked to the shrinking tax base, the power of the neoliberal ideology, and changing social attitudes to both welfare and universities. Problems of both sectors and solutions to them are increasingly being defined at a global level through transnational reform discourses.

The massification of doctoral studies in Poland has not led to an equivalent increase in doctoral degrees. While the number of doctoral students increased steadily through the 1990s and 2000s, the number of doctorates awarded did not follow suit. Many students entered doctoral programs, but only a minority were ever awarded the degree, as most either dropped out or completed the program but did not defend their dissertation. This disparity between entrants and doctoral degrees awarded is central to understanding the emergent tensions around doctoral education in the Polish context. Based on international comparative statistics, the current intake of 43,000 doctoral students combines overproduction of doctoral students and a scarcity of doctorates. In the Polish context, only one in four doctoral students are ultimately awarded a doctoral degree. It follows that the processes affecting the distribution of doctoral education differ from those that determine the distribution of doctorates. The emergent tensions reveal the fundamental difference between the changing higher education system in terms of teaching (where the Bologna Process places doctoral education) and research (where doctorates awarded belong). In Poland, there is the further difference of national statistics, as fields of study used to report doctoral student numbers differ from those used to report doctorates awarded. What has changed fundamentally during this time, however, is the gender composition of doctorate holders, with a gradually increasing share of female doctorates. While 31% of doctorates in 1990 were awarded to females, the percentage rose after a decade of change—to 42% in 2000, and to 53% by 2010. From a gender perspective, the turning point was 2008 when, for the first time in the history of Polish science, the number of female doctorates exceeded the number of male doctorates. Currently, reforms are accelerating and the expectation is that public funding for both higher education and for academic research will be higher. In the center of the reform package there is a concept of competition: between research teams, academic units and institutions, with a new model of academic research assessment to be applied in 2021. The concept includes also new doctoral schools competing for public subsidies and top minds.

A chapter linking universities and welfare states to permanent financial austerity can take a shorter or a longer historical perspective. This chapter looks further back (to the postwar expansion of European welfare states) to better understand future transformations of both public institutions. Their long-term sustainability problems did not start with the financial crisis of 2008 but have been growing since the 1970s (Schäfer and Streeck 2013; Bonoli and Natali 2012; Hay and Wincott 2012). Financial austerity is not a post-crisis phenomenon. As a concept, it was used in welfare state research at least a decade earlier, although it does not seem to have been used in higher education studies until recently. Two quotations bring us to the heart of the matter: welfare states and universities are currently changing under adverse financial conditions caused by an array of interrelating and mutually reinforcing forces and their long-term financial sustainability is at stake across Europe. The welfare state is a "particular trademark of the European social model" (Svallfors 2012: 1), "the jewel in the crown" and a "fundamental part of what Europe stands for" (Giddens 2006: 14), as are tuition-free universities, the cornerstone of intergenerational social mobility in Continental Europe. The past trajectories of major types of welfare states and of universities in Europe tend to go hand in hand: first vastly expanding following the Second World War, and especially in the 1960s and 1970s, and then being in the state of permanent resource-driven and legitimacy-based "crisis" in the last two decades. Welfare states and universities, two critically important public institutions, seem to be under heavy attacks from the public, the media and politicians. Their long-term sustainability is being questioned, and solutions to their (real and perceived) problems are being sought at global, European, and national levels.

University rankings are a topic of controversy and contention in many countries. Poland is no exception. This chapter analyzes aspects of rankings in the Polish context. Poland is a particularly interesting case, since it is a middle-sized country with a middle-tier higher education system. Among the questions discussed here are: what is the impact of global university rankings on the Polish national flagship university, the University of Warsaw? Are the changes in funding and governance occurring in Polish higher education, and in our case study institution, directly or indirectly linked to rankings? Are rankings driving the push for planned changes both in the system and in the case study institution, or do these developments merely happen to be concurrent? How do academics and administrators view global rankings? What are their perceptions of global rankings with reference to the institution and to their own academic careers? How, if at all, do global rankings relate to national rankings? Is the institutional culture of the case study university changing more due to ongoing reforms, global rankings, or national rankings? These questions are discussed in a context of ongoing higher education reforms, rooted in the OECD discourse of the increasing role of competition in research and of competitive research funding in higher education funding.

This paper studies the applicability of theoretical models of university governance from the international research literature to the Polish system. In particular, it is to test the applicability of a collegial model in the Polish case. The research question was 'to what extent is a collegial model reflected in actual governance patterns found in the Polish university sector'. This is based on large-scale internationally comparable quantitative material. The empirical evidence for it comes from 3700 returned surveys in Poland (and more than 17,000 in eleven European countries) produced for two international research projects focused on the academic profession (CAP: "Changing Academic Profession" and EUROAC: "The Academic Profession in Europe"). This paper concludes that Polish universities are operating according to the traditional collegial model of the university as a "community of scholars" to an extent that is unparalleled in Western Europe. A detailed study of selected variables and specifically constructed indexes indicates that the defining feature of Polish academia today is the power of academic collegial bodies. The influence of collegial bodies on academic decision-making in Poland is the highest in Europe; and, in contrast, the power of the government and external stakeholders is the lowest. However, academics, sharing the "republic of scholars" institutional vision of the university, and still highly influential in university decision-making, are currently confronted with higher education reforms grounded in an instrumental vision of the university (in which it is a tool for national political agendas). Consequently, powerful value-driven clashes between the academic community and the community of policymakers and reformers are to be expected to intensify. The major theoretical concepts used in this paper come from Johan P. Olsen's, Ian McNay's and Robert Birnbaum's studies of university governance, and its findings are presented from a European comparative and quantitative perspective.

The internationalization of the Polish academic profession is studied quantitatively in a comparative European context. A micro-level (individual) approach relying on primary data collected in a consistent, internationally comparable format is used (N = 17 211 cases). The individual academic is the unit of analysis, rather than a national higher education system or an individual institution. The authors' study shows that research productivity of Polish academics (consistent with European patterns) is strongly correlated with international collaboration: the average productivity of Polish academics involved in international collaboration ("internationalists") is consistently higher than that of Polish "locals" in all academic fields. Polish academics are less internationalized in research than the European average but the research productivity of Polish "internationalists" is much higher than that of Polish "locals". The impact of international collaboration on average productivity is much higher in Poland than in the other European countries studied, a finding with important policy implications. (DIPF/Orig.)