Can University Leaders Effectively Promote Research on Complex Societal Challenges? A Change-Agency Perspective.

In recent years, new expectations have been placed on universities, demanding academic contributions towards solving large-scale, interdisciplinary challenges. This is in conflict with existing insights from university governance research, which emphasises that scientific communities focus on reproducing disciplinary practices that are unsuitable in addressing societal challenges, because the problems associated with them are usually large-scale, complex and interdisciplinary. In light of this seeming paradox, we revisit the question of how-and on which theoretical grounds-universities may still be able to develop suitable internal governance mechanisms that allow them to address complex societal challenges effectively.