Higher Education Policy and Institutional Change: Intentions and outcomes in turbulent environments

This book originated in the Society for Research into Higher Education annual conference at Leicester University in 2000. Papers were selected for publication around the theme of the implementation of policy at different levels of higher education. The book as a whole is structured around the notion of the ‘implementation staircase’, as the first chapter explains. It was originally published 2002 by Open University Press/SRHE. Because the book went out of print copyright reverted to me, Paul Trowler, Professor of Higher Education at Lancaster University, UK. I wanted to make it available to researchers, managers and others for whom the content remains important and relevant. The chapters are as follows: 1 Introduction: Higher Education Policy, Institutional Change. Paul Trowler. 2 Explaining Change in Higher Education Policy. Ivar Bleiklie. 3 The Role of Different Groups in Policy-Making and Implementation: Institutional politics and policy-making. Maurice Kogan. 4 Access and Recruitment: Institutional Policy in Widening Participation. Brenda Morgan-Klein and Mark Murphy. 5 Resources in the Management of Change in Higher Education. Rachel Johnson. 6 The Unintended Consequences of Deregulation: Australian Higher Education in the Market Place. Di Adams. 7 A Comedy of Manners: Quality and Power in Higher Education. Louise Morley. 8 Exploring the implementation gap: theory and practices in change interventions. Paul Trowler and Peter Knight. As its title suggests, the subject matter of this edited collection is higher education policy, institutional change and the ways in which they inter-relate. It does not, however, see policy and policy-making as distinct from or 'above' processes of implementation and change, located only in formal settings of policy design or strategy formulation. Instead it draws on a model of policy-making and implementation which acknowledges that policy is made in ways other than in formal settings of government or Vice-Chancellors’ offices and which sees 'implementation' processes as essentially creative – and therefore also part of the policy-making process. Implementation of formal policy initiatives is also seen as contextually contingent in this model, taking different forms in different institutional and departmental contexts.