Centres of excellence in teaching and learning (CETL) as governing instruments in universities in England and Germany

This conceptual article focuses on Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs) as an instrument of governance to steer teaching and learning activities in universities. The efforts of steering university leaders in regard to teaching and learning are widely unexplored. The question of how CETLs can be best understood as an instrument of governance in universities will be investigated. After having presented some ‘managerialist’ technologies employed for governing teaching and learning two national initiatives, in which funded CETLs will be presented, drawing on empirical examples of Germany and England in order to illustrate the governance instruments of CETLs. The paper concludes that on the conceptual level, managerialism is one perspective to understand CETLs as a governing technology, since it can be argued that CETLs inherit several features of managerialism.