This study relates to a research tradition that critically reflects issues of evaluation and quality in education where criteria and significance of the term quality are not taken for granted.

(Ozga, Dahler-Larsen, Segerholm, & Simola 2011; Harvey & Green 1993). Our study has it´s roots in Franke-Wikberg and Lundgren’s (1980) theory-directed approach for evaluation studies. Segerholm (2003) developed the theoretical frame for such research and emphasised the need for including the political and historical context of the study and the evaluation itself in order to understand the analytical results of conducted research.

Quality has for the last decades, globally and in Sweden, been the word of honour when discussing and evaluating higher education. In the wake of the Bologna process the European ministers of education agreed to support the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the Higher Education Area in 2005, drafted by the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education, ENQA (ENQA 2009; Thune 2010) and revised in may 2015 (ENQA 2015). ENQA coordinates requirements about quality assurance policy and practice for higher education in the member nations. This way of organising quality assurance implies that the academy, its scholars and teachers no longer have the control they traditionally have had over the meaning and significance of quality in higher education. Furthermore, the history and idea of the university, borne of the 12^th century Bologna Charter, containing the notion of academic freedom and self-governance has during the 20^th centurybeen replaced by other models of the university (Wyatt 1990). New ways of trying to secure quality in higher education seems to be contradictory to the traditional academic freedom. Quality and what counts as valid knowledge is currently a matter also for administrators and evaluation authorities outside the academy. Quality in an administrative perspective is defined by the government while quality in the academy traditionally has been defined by collegial processes in each discipline. Overall quality in the latter sense has meant systematic and critical analysis and for higher education to create possibilities for students to practice and be assessed in that tradition. The discrepancies between these two perspectives on quality has frequently been noted and discussed (e.g. Rider & Waluszewski 2015, Scott 1997). We argue that the vice chancellors at the universities in Sweden harbours both these perspectives, as they are former researchers and professors in their discipline as well as governmental representatives and administrators in their role as leaders. Swedish vice chancellors are appointed by the government and have duties comparable to a CEO, which may force them to differentiate between their academic values and those to be represented. In line with Marshall, Mitchell and Wirt (1985), we also argue that the vice chancellors’ notions, their ‘assumptive worlds’, concerning these issues matter for their way of leading, governing, and trying to form policies and practices at their universities.

In this paper we are taking a closer look at the Swedish vice chancellors notions of, on the one hand what quality in higher education is and on the other hand on what characterises a university. Do the vice chancellors notions of quality in higher education correspond with or differ from their idea of what characterises a university? Is it possible to trace any signs from these notions in the vice chancellors views on important tasks for their university?

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