The “Entrepreneurial University”: a preliminary analysis of the main managerial and organizational features towards the design of Planning & Control systems in European Academic Institutions

In the last decade, European academic institutions have been affected by significant reforms aimed to improve their own performance levels. The reason for these reforms has been inspired by various factors, such as budgetary restrictions imposed by National Governments and the “marketisation” of the Higher Education sector. This has led European universities to increase their autonomy and accountability to successfully perform and compete in a worldwide competitive system. Both autonomy and accountability have involved a greater emphasis on performance management and Planning & Control (P&C) systems. In the light of the new institutional and competitive context, the aim of this paper is to provide a preliminary analysis of the main features of European universities according to a management-based perspective. Subsequently, a definition of “academic performance” is suggested in order to design a P&C system, which may fit academic „business‟ features in terms of both competitiveness and quality of Higher Education services.