Comparing the Administrative and Financial Autonomy of Higher Education Institutions in 7 EU Countries

The challenge of providing qualitatively competitive higher education to an ever increasing percentage of the population, despite the limited availability of public funds, has led many countries to grant broader administrative and financial autonomy to higher education institutions in an attempt to improve results by means of better incentives. Can a correlation be shown between this autonomy and scientific output? The preliminary evidence presented here (using OECD data for 7 Western European countries) provides some support for a positive answer to this question.