Reconciling Republican “Egalité” and Global Excellence Values in French Higher Education

TLDR: This paper examined how a system with different public norms and values managed excellence policies, and how the idea of "world-class university" might be generalised, and looked at excellence initiatives in France to explore whether these initiatives benefit the system as a whole.

Abstract: Building prestigious higher education is today one of the main drivers of public policy. Many governments have initiated policies to support or create elite universities in the belief that they will boost their system’s prestige in the world. Despite the assumption that all countries will make similar world-class university policy choices, a growing body of criticism points out that elite universities are in fact an ideal type drawn from a narrow pool, Anglo-American in nature, and currently dominant. By examining how a system with different public norms and values managed excellence policies, the chapter considers how the idea of ‘world-class university’ might be generalised. The chapter looks at excellence initiatives in France to explore (a) how world-class university policies are introduced in a system with values which contradict those embodied by today’s prevailing notion of global excellence and (b) whether these initiatives benefit the system as a whole.