Towards an agency-centred approach to the study of managerial governance in Italian universities

This article analyses the complex relationship between evaluation and managerial power in Italian universities. Specifically, it addresses the rise of managerial figures following the passing of the first evaluation law in 1993, law n.537. This period symbolises a key managerial turn for scholarly literature, yet vice-chancellors’ actions are often deduced as adaptive rather than being analysed in detail, due to the assumption that they were subsumed under the pressure of New Public Management policies. At a closer look, however, the committee of vice-chancellors of Italian universities (CRUI) keenly advanced its own approach to university evaluation and practically influenced its development. In contrast to legislators’ generic approach to evaluation, the CRUI constructed indicators and advanced guidelines to their implementation. As I suggest, this provides new important insights for discussing how university governance has was first rearticulated through evaluation, giving a bottom-up perspective on the rise of the new public management in the sector.