The study team strongly recommends review of the mechanisms for policy coordination between the Department of Finance, the Department of Economic Affairs, and the Department of Education, Culture and Science, so as to ensure the more coherent alignment with national policy objectives and leadership, of programme administration in education and research.
It is further suggested that there be a review of existing OCW data collection, analysis and dissemination procedures in order to ensure more comprehensive coverage, and also greater national and international transparency of, and awareness of, the national system of higher education.
For any kind of binary line to be viable in the longer term it is necessary that both sectors are operating at a continuously advancing level of modernisation, with the capacity to shape both a national and international role, even while such roles may continue to differ between the sectors. If the HBOs are weakly integrated into national, European and global contexts, over time they are likely to become increasingly unattractive to local and foreign students, to potential faculty and to Dutch employers and the larger setting, so becoming increasingly destabilised and forced into measures designed to strengthen their profile regardless of the preferred national role or their real capacity.
The binary line should be rendered more dynamic over time, with freer variation across and between the sectors. More attention should be given to broadening student pathways between the two sectors (see Chapter Five) and to further increasing the institutional cooperation between them. However if the binary line is to be maintained then variations should take the form of collaborative arrangements and couplings of distinct units from each sector, rather than free-standing imitation and blending of functions. The basic research mission of the WOs, and their monopoly of research training in the form of research Masters and doctoral degrees, stands as the essential dividing line along which the binary system can be policed.
The occupational mission of the HBOs suggests that they should move more extensively into flexible short courses, continuing vocational education and associate degree programmes; professional Masters programmes on a comprehensive basis; and to augment their capacity in applied research, development and consultancy. These changes would strengthen the HBOs at the cutting edge of the industries and occupations they service, and improve their capacity to attract foreign students and
collaborate with foreign universities. In the knowledge economy context, it is difficult to envisage reflexive advanced training that is not somewhere joined to an R&D capacity.
On the other hand the development of a broad HBO capacity in basic research would deplete resources needed for further building the research- intensive universities to global competitive levels of capacity and performance. In the absence of such an HBO research capacity it is impossible to justify the introduction of government funded research Masters and doctoral programmes – especially given that there are few HBO staff fully qualified to provide research degree supervision - or additional funds to support basic or strategic basic research in the HBOs. Without a significant capacity in basic research a university cannot be fully competitive in applied research and consultancy, but some such activities are within reach. The research role of the lectoren should be built in the form of teaching-led research, rather than trying to create research-led teaching as applies in the postgraduate programmes of research-intensive universities. The lectoren programme thereby would better contribute to the mission of the HBOs in professional education and while establishing a partial consultancy function serving SMEs.
Without creating the expectation of a level playing field in research funding, HBOs should be free to bid for competitive government research and consultancy funding, as AMK higher professional institutions are permitted to do in Finland. This is consistent with recent developments such as the lectoren programme and would ensure that as pockets of capacity develop in the HBOs, these become more fully accessible to the national innovation system. Inescapably, the augmentation of R&D capacity requires the employment of more doctorally trained staff in the HBOs. In the next decade it becomes possible to do this at scale, because a surfeit of PhDs in many disciplines, given the difficulty of obtaining faculty posts in the research intensive universities, coincides with the large number of impending retirements in the HBOs generated by the present age profile of HBO staff (further measures to develop research capacity in the HBOs are discussed in Chapter Seven).
In the research intensive universities the central research agencies could secure a greater strategic purchase on priorities if additional public support for research was channelled through Stream 2 (especially) and Stream 3 rather than Stream 1 funding - provided that Stream 2 was reworked to cover a greater proportion of the costs of research infrastructure so as to avoid the current disincentives to engage in Stream 2 activities, so better sustaining the foundation funding in Stream 1 (see Chapter Seven).
In relation to institutional diversity, consideration should be given to national policies designed to qualitatively strengthen selected research universities, possibly through additional funding for research infrastructure and programmes, and deregulation of academic remuneration to facilitate the appointment of high calibre foreign faculty and post-docs. Such a programme of fostering ‘global universities’ would need to be widely discussed within the Netherlands in order to facilitate the achievement of a threshold national consensus concerning the selection of the institutions.
Government could establish a project-based fund for institutional innovation in management and internal systems, subject to bidding. For example, institutions could submit proposals for funding for innovations in data collection systems and performance-based resource allocation.
At institutional level there is scope for substantial enhancement of the role of strategic funding in the hands of both central boards and of faculty deans and committees. It is noted that the Chang committee recommended the creation of a financial reserve at the level of the Board, for distribution on the basis of performance and of bids for innovations. Faculties and sub- faculty units, including research groups that raise additional private incomes should be rewarded by allocating them an enhanced proportion of public funding; provided that institutions continue to safeguard the resources of those disciplines with minor prospects of raising non-government income.