Who should own higher education institutions buildings? A comparative analysis of arguments and practices in Norway and Poland

The examination of European countries reveals differences in the campuses ownership and management. In more and more countries there has been a tendency in recent years towards decentralization (defined here as devolution of power and responsibility from the state level to higher education institutions (HEIs) level). Higher education systems (especially western and central-eastern ones) have made it possible for HEIs to own buildings as decentralization has been seen as a more efficient, lean and effective management strategy. However, this does not apply to the Scandinavian countries where centralized model is quite common and campuses are owned either by the state or a semi-public agency. In Norway, where the universities have traditionally been founded directly by the state (Ministry of Education) the ownership of buildings and facilities have been transferred to the universities after the building project have been done by the semi-public agency Statsbygg. The university colleges are normally renting their buildings from the semi-public agency or in smaller scale from the private market. Purpose – The aim of this paper is to compare two opposite campus ownership and management models in Norway and Poland and discuss the arguments in favour of centralized and decentralized model.Design/methodology/approach – This study has adopted qualitative document analysis to explore the advantages and disadvantages of centralization and decentralization of campus ownership and management based on the examples of Norway and Poland. These contradictory models were the reasons for choosing the two countries, as well as was the contrast between them in terms of population size and the number of HEIs. Findings - The paper demonstrates two opposite campus ownership and management models and indicates that both centralization and decentralization present their own challenges. The Norwegian centralized model based on a belief that with a relatively small number of HEIs located on a large, sparsely populated national territory, centralization as a policy mechanism allows achieving results such as economies of scale, efficiency, implementation of best practices, development of specialized functions, optimization of resources and creation of flexibility via a large pool of assets. With a governmental initiative to create larger and stronger Norwegian HEIs, in 2015-2017 the majority HEIs (universities and university colleges) merged with 2-3 partners in order to be stronger in research and education and competitive institutions in national and international perspective. In comparison, Poland represents a large, densely populated country in which, after the fall of communism in 1990, a decentralized model was implemented as a promising strategy for improvement in management and administration of over 100 public HEIs. However, because of inadequate planning of decentralization results by policy-makers and limited experience in campus ownership and management by HEIs, some of HEIs have been facing considerable problems. A lack of sufficient mechanisms for coordination of this transformation resulted in negative outcomes for several HEIs, such as over-investment and low utilization rate of campus space.Practical implications – This paper can be a resource for HEI policy makers, funding and supervisory institutions as well as HEI chancellors, financial directors and campus managers.