University Autonomy: The ‘80s and After

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Abstract
British institutions and individual academics have in recent years suffered large losses, perceived and real, in their autonomy; either to a hostile State or to managers within the institutions. This paper looks at recent research evidence, to see which autonomies may have survived and how important they are. Signs are found that the culture of autonomy in Britain is still strong, that managers are under pressures to enlist scholarly support and that political ideologies do not always retain some significant control of their own values.Some basic British assumptions, mainly historical, about administration and about the state here and in Europe are then looked at, where it seems that misunderstandings may contribute to the current crisis, perhaps collapse, of confidence within the universities. If these understandings could be seen in a wider context, the crisis itself might become more manageable.

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