Across Europe, higher education institutions are navigating increasingly complex governance environments. Institutional autonomy is frequently invoked, defended, measured, or questioned - yet often conceptualized in binary terms: autonomous or controlled, independent or regulated. Such simplifications obscure the gradual, relational shifts through which autonomy is actually shaped.

This presentation proposes a transformation-oriented analytical framework that reconceptualizes autonomy as a dynamic and negotiated condition rather than a fixed status. Instead of asking whether institutions possess autonomy, the paper asks how autonomy is reconfigured through governance arrangements over time.

Using German Universities of Applied Sciences as an illustrative case, the presentation examines how regionally embedded institutions operate at the intersection of state regulation, intermediary quality regimes, academic self-governance, and regional stakeholder expectations. Their strong societal coupling provides trust and legitimacy, yet also exposes them to subtle shifts in steering logics and performance regimes.

The key contribution lies in a stepwise analytical approach that differentiates between (1) institutional self-positioning, (2) structural differentiation of decision arenas, and (3) forms of external coupling. This framework allows for identifying gradual transformations of autonomy that are often invisible in normative debates.

For the European Higher Education Area, such a perspective offers a more nuanced understanding of governance resilience and leadership responsibility. Rather than framing autonomy as a defensive stance, the paper invites reconsidering it as a relational governance capacity requiring strategic reflexivity.

The presentation aims to stimulate discussion on how higher education leaders and policy actors can sustain institutional integrity while operating within increasingly interdependent governance systems.

Higher education is increasingly situated within a global context marked by political polarization, mounting pressure on democratic institutions, declining trust in established knowledge authorities, and a digital public sphere that enables the rapid circulation of disinformation. These developments challenge not only democratic governance, but also the conditions under which research-based knowledge can serve as a foundation for public deliberation, evidence-informed policymaking, and academic autonomy. Across national contexts, universities are facing growing political pressure, ranging from direct interference in teaching and research to more indirect forms of delegitimization of academic expertise, rendering their role as independent knowledge institutions increasingly contested.

At the same time, education is increasingly framed as a key instrument for strengthening democratic preparedness. Policy discourses emphasize the role of higher education in fostering critical thinking, civic competence, and the capacity to navigate complex and contested information environments. This raises fundamental questions about the societal mission of universities and their responsibility for promoting democratic citizenship while maintaining academic freedom and scholarly independence.

Questions addressed in the paper are the following:

• How do academic staff and students perceive the situation within their own academic environments with regard to pressure and politicization, both internally and externally?

• What consequences do they experience this as having for their academic work, teaching, research, and academic freedom of expression?

• How do they assess the role and content of education today, and what changes do they believe are necessary to strengthen academic integrity and academic autonomy going forward?

The paper is based on an ongoing study conducted by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills, examining how these broader developments affect Norwegian higher education. In the study, we combine a review of international research literature and policy documents with qualitative interviews with academic staff and focus groups with students in selected disciplinary environments in Norway. Through interviews and focus groups, we explore perceptions of political pressure and politicization within academia, their perceived consequences for teaching, research, and academic expression, and implications for universities’ democratic role. The paper contributes empirically grounded insights into how higher education institutions navigate an increasingly polarized political landscape.

European universities increasingly operate under conditions of polycrisis—a configuration of interconnected crises that interact and amplify one another, producing systemic instability and prolonged uncertainty (Henig & Knight, 2023; Liou, 2015). Institutional mergers, funding reforms, the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and growing public scrutiny have collectively reshaped the governance landscape of higher education (Sposato, 2025). In this context, crisis is no longer episodic but structural.

Although research on crisis leadership in education has expanded in recent years (Chatzipanagiotou & Katsarou, 2023; Da’as et al., 2025; Bellibas & Karaferye, 2025; Harris & Jones, 2025; Striepe & Cunningham, 2021), most studies focus on single crisis events and senior-level leadership (e.g. Culha et al., 2025). Less attention has been paid to middle-level management, which occupies a critical position between strategic governance and operational practice. This paper examines how middle-level managers rethink leadership, autonomy, and responsibility in a university operating under polycrisis conditions.

The study draws on hybridity theory, which conceptualizes universities as arenas where competing institutional logics—academic, managerial, and political—coexist and generate tensions (Pekkola et al., 2021; Perkins et al., 2024). From this perspective, middle managers (deans, heads of institutes and centres) act as mediators who translate strategic imperatives into locally meaningful practices while negotiating professional norms and organizational constraints.

Empirically, the paper presents findings from a qualitative single-case study conducted at a post-merger European university that has experienced overlapping institutional reforms, pandemic disruptions, geopolitical pressures, and funding transformations. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with twelve middle-level managers and analysed using thematic analysis.

Findings indicate that polycrisis intensifies the hybrid character of middle management. Leadership shifts from formal authority to sense-making, relational coordination, and legitimacy work. Autonomy is reinterpreted as negotiated agency within institutional constraints, while responsibility expands beyond procedural accountability to encompass moral and communicative dimensions. By foregrounding the experiences of middle-level management, the study contributes to governance and management debates in higher education and advances the application of the polycrisis framework within leadership research.