연합대학 구축을 위한 법제도 활용 방안과 입법적 과제 = Legislative and Institutional Strategies for Establishing a University Alliance

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study examines the university alliance as an institutional form that seeks to move beyond responses at the level of individual universities in the context of demographic decline and the structural transformation of higher education. Although inter-university sharing and cooperation have expanded, particularly through government-funded initiatives, many of these efforts have remained project-based and temporary in nature, thereby failing to secure a stable and durable institutional foundation. In light of these limitations, the study proceeds from the premise that a university alliance should not be regarded as a completed or self-contained institutional type. Rather, it should be understood as an institution in the process of formation and consolidation, which requires analysis from a staged and process-oriented perspective.
The university alliance is conceptualized in three stages: cooperation, deepened cooperation, and alliance. The cooperation stage can, in principle, be implemented through the interpretation and strategic utilization of existing legal frameworks and institutional arrangements, without necessarily requiring additional legislation. In the deepened cooperation stage, a consortium-level decision-making structure begins to take shape in a more substantive manner. At this point, cooperation extends beyond academic affairs to managerial domains such as personnel and finance, and questions concerning the distribution of authority and responsibility among internal university bodies, as well as national and local governmental actors, emerge as central issues. In the alliance stage, a unified governance structure is expected to exercise decision-making authority encompassing both academic and managerial matters, which in turn raises the need to clarify its corresponding legal status and the structure of accountability attached to such authority.
With regard to the choice of legal model, the study compares the formal university model and the civil law corporate model. While the formal university model may secure a higher degree of institutional completeness and symbolic clarity, it entails a comprehensive restructuring of the existing higher education legal framework and thus involves considerable systemic burden. By contrast, the civil law corporate model constructs alliance governance externally on the premise of maintaining the existing university system, thereby allowing the scope and impact of legal reform to be more carefully controlled while facilitating gradual and staged development. Nevertheless, institutional constraints remain, including restrictions on asset transfers and capital contributions under the current higher education laws. These constraints indicate the need for statutory amendments or special provisions and, in the longer term, the possible enactment of a special act on university alliances.