Reflections and Conclusions

The massification of higher education, the rapid development of new academic subjects and fields, the growing international market competition among universities, the associated deregulation of government policy and growing institutional autonomy, the commercial provision of quality information, and the resulting academic arms race for research reputation and prestige have challenged the traditional ways of maintaining academic standards. In this concluding chapter we reflect on the lessons to be learned from our studies of professional regulation, market regulation, and state regulation of academic quality and we explore how the necessary balance among the different forces can best be accomplished. We also attempt to derive from these studies of individual instruments some general guidelines that may prove useful in designing national framework conditions for assuring academic standards in the university sector.