This research project aims to analyse the changes in the French higher education provision in the light of developments in funding models over the period 2000–2025, and offers a forward-looking perspective up to 2035. This research is set against a backdrop of successive reforms to university governance and the rise of negotiated and conditional funding, culminating in the 100 per cent COMP scheme. It aims to examine the varying effects of these mechanisms on universities, taking into account structural inequalities in resources, reputation and regional roots. In particular, it aims to examine the links between funding for excellence, the redistribution of resources linked to student mobility, and changes to the range of courses on offer. Our approach draws on longitudinal quantitative analyses, institutional typologies and a qualitative survey of university stakeholders. The project also incorporates the expected impact of the demographic decline on the financial and educational sustainability of degree programmes. It thus aims to identify the university models that are most resilient in the face of these combined constraints. By combining retrospective and prospective analysis, it seeks to contribute to academic debates on the cumulative and unequal effects of performance-based funding mechanisms, and to provide a basis for decision-making in the face of the challenges that the coming decades will present.
Funding from the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Region
Cathy Perret (IREDU) & Julien Gossa (SAGE)
Funding for Miléa Royer’s (IREDU) PhD thesis