Cipes — Centro de Investigação de Políticas do Ensino Superior, Fundação das Universidades Portuguesas, Rua 1.° de Dezembro, No. 399, 4450-227, Matosinhos, Portugal.
E-mail: aamaral@cipes.up.pt

Abstract

Universities are living a triple crisis of hegemony, of legitimacy and institutional. This crisis is coterminous with the fiscal crisis of the state and the crisis of the welfare state. The loss of legitimacy of the welfare state gave rise to an increasing role of the market and to the change of the university from a 'social institution' to a mere 'social organization' while new managerial values seem to be replacing the traditional modes of academic governance. It is necessary for higher education to be reinvented and for academics to present again the case for higher education. But this needs to be a new case, not a restatement of the former.