University Leaders as Key Advocates of Managerialism in Irish Higher Education in the Early 2000s

• In Event: Research and Practice in Higher Education Governance

Abstract

Ireland, similar to other countries, has seen changes to the governance of higher education (HE) that has been interpreted as but another example of managerialism in a HE system. In other countries this has been interpreted in the light of the changing nature of the state and/or “new public management”. The Irish context, however, has features which complicate the standard narrative of managerialism. Looking at institutional changes in three Irish universities, this paper considers the extent to which higher education itself and university leaders were the drivers of these developments, and thus the extent to which the Irish context presents a new, more nuanced picture of the forms managerialism can take.

Authors

• Andrew Gerard Gibson, Trinity College Dublin

• John Walsh, Trinity College Dublin