Some reflections on the current roles and interventions of external governing board stakeholders in Portugal and the UK in a new managerialist context

The chapter examines how recent governance reforms to higher education institutions, namely the power of external lay governing board members and the process known as ‘boardism’, are affecting the balance of power between academics, manager-academics and external board members. We draw on examples from higher education systems in Portugal and the UK, which are at different stages of university governance reform with respect to academic decision-making, governance models, new managerialism variants and the extent of engagement of external stakeholders in governance. Existing research has drawn attention to stakeholders on Portuguese boards being perceived by rectors as acceptable if members remain ‘non-interfering friends’. In England, however, following the 2017 legislation on how the higher education system is run, more intervention than ever is now demanded from governing board members. Finally, we assess what lessons may be gleaned from what has been described as ‘the English experiment’ in marketization and governance.