Event Description

Collegiality in the Governance of Universities: Resistance and Possibilities

Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist in conversation with Nanna Mik-Meyer

As higher education continues to be contested terrain, challenged by a wide range of trends including corporate managerialism, financialization, state populism, EdTech, and artificial intelligence, strengthened collegial governance is increasingly being proposed to counteract to these pressures. Yet, because collegial governance in academia is often taken for granted, its strengths (and weaknesses) are often difficult to articulate, particularly in relation to other contemporary governance ideals such as bureaucratic or enterprise-like models.

In this seminar, Professor UllaEriksson-Zetterquist will present the concept and practice of collegial governance — as developed within the framework of an international research project published in Research in the Sociology of Organizations (Volumes 86 and 87). She will explore its advantages as well as its limitations, including its “darker sides”. She will discuss how collegial governance enables higher education operations to be grounded in quality and integrity through peer review, and how this, in turn, supports academic freedom.

Professor Nanna Mik-Meyer will be a provocatrice of the discussion. Participants are invited to engage in reflections on and debates about current developments and future directions related to collegiality in the governance of universities.   

Ulla Eriksson-Zetterquist is Professor of Management at the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, and Otto Mønstedt Visiting Professor and a SCANCOR Scandinavia Scholar at Copenhagen Business School the fall of 2025. Her research addresses governance, digitalization, and inclusion across diverse organizational contexts, including private corporations, public sector organizations, and universities. She is a fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and a member of the Board of SCANCOR.

Nanna Mik-Meyer is Professor at CBS. She is part of the management group of the Danish Power Inquiry (Magtudredningen), where she studies the state of freedom of expression at Danish universities and university colleges, and is also involved in a large qualitative study on career trajectories, gender and performance metrics in academia. She chairs the CBS Professors' Association and is a board member at the Independent Research Fund Denmark (DFF) and the Danish Center for Social Science Research (VIVE).