Paper short abstract:

The Danish university reform in 2003 created ’self-owning’ universities, which did not actually own anything. This paper takes a historical ethnographic approach to explore how this concept is implicated in a new system of governance and the production of universities as a new kind of subject and object of management.

Paper long abstract:

The Danish university reform in 2003 created 'self-owning' universities. This change of status went unremarked in the Rectors' conference and the parliamentary debates. The concept was central to the policy to change the governance and social role of Danish universities, yet was not clearly defined. Universities were no longer located within the state bureaucracy, and were placed in a contractual relation to the ministry instead. They gained the status of a legal person and could go bankrupt for the first time. But they did not actually come to own anything - the state continued to own the universities' land and buildings. Rectors, realising how tightly university finances are now tied to fulfilment of state priorities, have begin arguing for universities to own their assets to gain more independence.

This paper asks, how was 'self-ownership' implicated in a new system of governance and the production of universities as a new kind of subject and object of management? The paper draws on a four-year research project studying the debates leading to, and the actions following from, the Danish University Law of 2003. Clearly, the Danish reforms are part of what the literature calls neo-liberal governance, but the paper avoids assuming in advance what such a form of governance entails. Instead, taking a 'historical-ethnography' approach to the trajectory of a policy concept, the study makes a detailed analysis of the ways different actors, politicians, civil servants, and rectors have made sense of, contested and contributed to the emergence of a new form of governance.