Transparency and Accountability in Portuguese Public Universities

Abstract

Universities are one of the most important institutions in our society. They are knowledge-creating organizations that contribute to the social and economic development of society through new concepts, ideas, applications, and inventions. They play a key role in social criticism, identifying key issues and contributing to informed public debates. Governance is a relatively new concept in the approach to the literature on public management. It is related to the way in which a society or organization is governed or to the creation of conditions for the existence of a social order, triggered by collective actions. In this article we will study the models of university governance and analyze the problem of accountability in its context, with a view to assessing the transparency with which financial information is currently disseminated in Portugal, by public Higher Education Institutions.