Abstract:

Ten years ago the European University Association (EUA) started to collect data on university autonomy in a wide European aspect. The aim of this collection is to compare the level of university autonomy in different countries. The developed methodology uses over 30 different indicators and defines the autonomy of universities in four dimensions: organisational, financing, staffing, and academic. The methodology, called Autonomy Scorecards, makes it possible to clearly compare the level of freedom of universities in different countries.

Project TRUNAK (Transition to University Autonomy in Kazakhstan) is to develop a model of decentralisation of higher education institutions in Kazakhstan and to support structural changes in Kazakhstan higher education by transfer of experiences from EU countries in this area. The consortium of project TRUNAK includes 17 partners, mainly universities, but also ministries and non-governmental bodies. Project TRUNAK is funded within the framework of the Erasmus+ KA2 (Capacity Building in Higher Education) as a structural project. Such projects affect systems of education and promote reforms at a particular level, in this case the national one.

This paper presents the university autonomy in different EU countries, the methodology of its calculation, aims of the TRUNAK project, its partners and main stages.

Keywords:

University autonomy, structural project, autonomy scorecard.