Colin Scott

This chapter addresses the broad challenge of developing and implementing the processes, tools and techniques by which to mainstream the values of equality, diversity and inclusion in higher education. We first examine the meaning of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and a commitment to mainstreaming in a higher education context, noting that commitments to EDI can be challenging and contested. The literature on mainstreaming of EDI at national, EU and international levels is suggestive of a wide range of techniques for organisations to more effectively live their EDI commitments. Secondly, we consider and evaluate against the international literature the experience of implementing a range of mainstreaming techniques for EDI in higher education (HE) in Ireland. Mainstreaming techniques for EDI in HE in Ireland range between data collection and dissemination, national reports and policies, externally accredited charters, communication, competitions and behavioural measures. Thirdly we offer some conclusions on the mix of multiple and overlapping measures to support EDI mainstreaming, with a degree of redundancy and continuing reflection and adaptation to changing circumstance, to mainstream EDI in institutional practices and culture.

Purpose: This article addresses the relationship of universities to their changing regulatory environments internationally.Design/methodology/approach: This article updates analysis published in 2004 exploring the contrasting modes of, and key trends in, regulation of higher education across eight OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) states. The article offers a wider analysis of the changing patterns of regulation rooted in mutuality, oversight, competition and design, and the implications for the management of higher education institutions.Findings: Since 2004, higher education has seen more growth in oversight-based and competition-based regulation, but also some decentralization of regulation as an increasing cast of actors, many international and transnational in character, have asserted themselves in key aspects of the regulatory environment. This article explores the implications of these changes in the regulatory mix over higher education for the ways that universities manage their regulatory environment, arguing first, that there is significant evidence of meta-regulatory approaches to regulating universities, and second, that such a meta-regulatory approach is consistent with an emphasis on university autonomy, raising a challenge for universities in how to use the autonomy (variable by country) they do have to manage their environment.Originality/value: This article offers an original analysis of how universities might most appropriately respond, deploying their autonomy, however variable, to address their external regulatory environment. The author suggests we might increasingly see the external regulatory environment as meta-regulatory in character and universities making more use of reflexive governance processes.

The management of commitments by higher education institutions to equality, diversity and inclusion both for employees and students presents significant challenges. The implementation of measures to comply with legislative equality requirements, the indicators of commitment to formal equality, do not deliver anything like equality of outcome. This creates the challenge as to how universities may articulate and act on commitments which go beyond formal equality and which may be expected to build a culture of equality, diversity and inclusion. This article addresses the incorporation of equality values and objectives in institutional strategy and the governance arrangements to define, develop and implement measures to address the objectives. Analysing contrasting and coordinated modes of governing I note that a reflexive approach tends to shift regulatory emphasis from control to learning as the basis for effective action. I conclude that it is appropriate and possible that higher education institutions should, to a significant extent, be able to think of themselves as governing EDI matters as much through reflexive learning as through the aspiration to control.

Article A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Regulation was published on February 1, 2022 in the journal Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium (volume 12, issue 1).

Independent regulators have proliferated over recent years in most of the industrialized countries. This development has reached a stage where independent regulators should be regarded as an aspect of good governance, constituting part of the machinery through which government is rendered accountable. The contribution to accountability occurs in part through a deliberate diffusion of power which takes some decision-making away from elected government. More significantly, this fragmentation establishes alternative sources of authority and expertise to which government is, in an informal sense, accountable. It also underpins a tendency towards greater transparency both in decision making and outcomes in policy domains involving regulation. There is additionally a more direct, but also horizontal form of accountability established through the creation of independent regulators charged with overseeing government itself, in such matters as public finances, maladministration and human rights. Empirical evidence as to the accountability effects of independent regulators for public accountability generally is rather limited, but some hypotheses are advanced. Overall it is possible to argue a strong normative case for the existence and activities of independent regulators as an aspect of public accountability.