Change in university governance structures in continental Europe

This article discusses changes with respect to university governance structures in six comprehensive universities in Europe. We present an analytical framework on the basis of which we conduct a comparative analysis of the university governance structures along four different dimensions: (a) the internal democratic nature of the governance structure, (b) the external involvement in university governance, (c) the level of centralisation of decision‐making authority in the university and (d) the concentration of authority in an individual leadership position versus authority in a collective body or spread over various collective bodies.