Research On Governance Structure Of Cambridge University

Since the 90s of last century, university governance problems have received the attention of academics and higher educational institutions. University on one hand is a place of passing knowledge and research. Its educational and research capacity cannot be substituted by any other institute. On the other hand as universities receive funding from the government and taxpayers, it has a social responsibility. However, universities often can not coordinate teaching, research and the relationship between social services. Therefore there are many internal contradictions between universities and the outside world. The purpose of university governance is precisely to resolve these contradictions. Since our country has carried on the university system reforms taking university governance as the focus, it has obtained some achievements. But still there are a lot of problems exist. Drawing experiences from world class universities'governance is one of the most effective methods of reforming our country's universities'governance structure. This study is based on governance theories and stakeholder coorporate governance theories and has used literature analysis, history analysis, a case study and comparison methods to study the governance structure of Cambridge University to get an inspiration to develop the governance structure of our country's universities.This study is divided into four parts excluding the introduction and conclusion.The first section reviews the history of Cambridge Universities'governance structure. This research is based on 3 important reforms in the history of Cambridge University and has divided Cambridge's development history into 4 time periods namely; the initial formation of governance structures, the mature turbulent period, period of rapid development and period of adjustment and reforms. The main focus is on discussing the establishment and change of each governance body of the university of Cambridge.The second part describes the present situation of the Cambridge University's governance structure. This study divides Cambridge University's governance into 2 parts, namely; external governance and internal governance. External governance mainly describes the role of government and third party institutions in the administration of Cambridge University. Internal governance mainly introduces Regent House, the council, the General Board, Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, superindent and other stakeholder's powers and responsibilities.The third part analyzes the characteristics of governance structures of the Cambridge University and causes of their formation. Main four features of Cambridge University's governance structures are balance of rights, autonomy of college, policy making democracy and separate supervision. The causes of the formation of these features include External cultural causes and Internal cultural causes. External cultural causes include traditional culture of U.K. including conservatism and liberalism and the British Legal system of Higher education. Internal cultural causes includes the constitution and concepts of the Cambridge university.The fourth section explores the governance structures of the Cambridge University to get inspirations to develop the governance structures of our country's universities. This study on the basis of our country's university governance problems, combines the present status of governance structures of Cambridge University, its features, causes of formation. It further discussses about the transformation of the government's role, improving the constitution of universities and other suggestions to get an inspiration to our country's universities from the governance model of Cambridge University.