Equality does not mean uniformity, and a university is not an industrial assembly line. In an era of fierce global competition, a university will be stronger and more relevant the greater the trust, freedom, and autonomy granted to the organic units that make up its ecosystem.
University autonomy has, since its inception, been one of the pillars of modern higher education. Traditionally, this concept is associated with institutional independence from the state and political power, serving as a guarantee of academic, scientific, and pedagogical freedom. However, the profound reforms in university governance models over recent decades have brought to light a second dimension—equally or even more relevant, yet often overlooked: the internal autonomy of schools and faculties (the so-called organic units) within their own universities.
The achievement of greater autonomy for universities as macro-structures has, paradoxically, resulted in a significant loss of autonomy for their organic units at the grassroots level. This tension between the top and the base now represents one of the major competitive bottlenecks in European academic ecosystems, forcing us to confront the stark contrast between former organic independence and today’s administrative centralism.
In several countries, legal reforms (such as the transformation of various Portuguese institutions into public foundations governed by private law) were intended to free universities from state bureaucracy. The objective was noble: to give institutions greater agility in hiring, revenue generation, and asset management. However, this newly acquired power was almost entirely transferred to central administrations—such as rectorates and general councils—which absorbed responsibilities once held by faculties (or organic units). In practice, this often meant simply replacing ministerial bureaucracy with rectoral bureaucracy.
This phenomenon is widely documented in academic literature. As researchers Harry de Boer and Jürgen Enders have shown in several studies, contemporary academic management policies have created an illusion of deregulation. Academic independence has, in many cases, given way to centralizing rectorates, with faculties now subordinated to bureaucratic imperatives and the performance priorities of central leadership. Executive powers have been consolidated at the top, imposing a far more hierarchical form of control over faculties. Paradoxically, the formal autonomy granted by the state thus became a vehicle for injecting centralization within institutions, suffocating the traditional collegial independence of schools.
The core problem with this centralization lies in the false efficiency of uniformity—the so-called “one size fits all” approach. Contemporary universities are complex organizations, bringing together highly idiosyncratic fields such as management, economics, law, medicine, engineering, biotechnology, information sciences, and social sciences. Managing this diversity through an excessively vertical model inevitably generates entropy. While centralization is often justified as a way to reduce redundancies, treating structurally different entities as if they were the same erases value built over decades—something academic literature has consistently demonstrated.
The metrics of success, hiring rhythms, logistical needs, and funding models of a business, economics, and finance school competing in the global market are not—and cannot be—the same as those of other faculties. Imposing a standardized management model stifles agility, enforcing rules that ultimately serve no one effectively.
Perhaps the most harmful impact of the loss of autonomy among organic units occurs in the financial and strategic dimension. Strong universities are plural, and each school builds its own identity and positioning. When granted autonomy, a faculty acts entrepreneurially: securing international projects, collaborating with companies, attracting foreign talent, and generating its own revenue—confident that any surplus will be reinvested according to its priorities.
In highly centralized models, excessive redistribution of surpluses can reduce incentives for generating own revenues and attracting competitive funding, weakening the dynamism of the most entrepreneurial units.
Over the medium term, the most competitive units lose their ability to retain talent and innovate with agility, leveling the institution downward and embedding structural disincentives.
It is important to stress that decentralization does not mean fragmentation or the “Balkanization” of the university. Rather, it means recognizing that diversity requires differentiated management models. Resolving this paradox demands returning power to the base, applying the principle of subsidiarity.
Executive, financial, and scientific autonomy should primarily reside at the level of the organic unit, enabling informed and swift decisions by those who understand operational realities in detail and compete in their respective international markets.
The case of Nova SBE, and its integration within Universidade Nova de Lisboa—an institution that has so far been characterized by significant autonomy—clearly illustrates this dilemma. With several programs ranked among the world’s top 5 and top 10, 72% international master’s students from over 100 countries, 60% international faculty, and more than 80% of its revenues generated from its own sources, the school operates in a highly competitive global market. Excessively centralized and uniform governance models compromise the agility required to sustain that positioning.
In short, we cannot be what we are not.
Equality does not mean uniformity, and a university is not an industrial assembly line. In an era of fierce global competition, a university will be stronger and more relevant the greater the trust, freedom, and autonomy granted to the organic units that form its ecosystem. Autonomy is not a corporate privilege; it is a tool for competitiveness and for better serving students.
Pedro Oliveira in Jornal de Negocios, 25/02/2026
