Transparency in higher education: The emergence of a new perspective on higher education governance

In democracy, transparency must be a concern of the public organizations as an incentive for the collaboration of their stakeholders to promote innovation and, consequently, economic development. This study aimed at understanding how higher education institutions can improve their transparency to one of their main external stakeholders, the business community, by directly asking them what information should be provided. The approach adopted included two Focus Groups and five individual interviews with Portuguese entrepreneurs and was exploratory, quantitative and descriptive. The results indicated that there is a need to improve the information provided by the higher education institutions in order to become more competitive. The entrepreneurs suggested this could be achieved by better exploring the potential of Information and Communication Technologies. They believe, information should be easily accessible to facilitate the transfer of knowledge, use of resources and the establishment of partnerships towards economic development.