Sustainability in the Strategic Planning of the Italian Higher Education System

Among performance-based funding mechanisms widely adopted in higher education, performance agreements have been observed as a later introduction across Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OECD) countries. Performance agreements deal with contracts agreed upon with the funding authority. These funding mechanisms are focused on multiple objectives and performance dimensions within a set of performance areas and multiple indicators proposed by the central governments. Each institution can identify its own set of target levels, considering its peculiarities in terms of specific environment (external and internal), mission, strengths and weaknesses. This type of negotiation is then reflected in the planning activity of each university through the redaction of specific strategic plans. In the Italian higher education systems, among the complex mechanisms to allocate state funding (FFO – Fondo di Finanziamento Ordinario), the assignment of the share connected to university plans, also called Pro3 (Three-year Programming), belongs to the performance agreement mechanism. This study aims to investigate whether and how the strategic approach of the Italian Higher Education system incentivises universities toward sustainability. Firstly, the in-depth study of how sustainability has been depicted in the strategic planning by the central government will be developed through the analysis of the last Pro3 document, Ministerial Decree n.289/2021. Secondly, a group of universities across the country will be selected. Their Pro3 plans will be analysed to understand how universities adopt the central approach and how sustainability is configured in planning objectives and actions.