The departure from Marxist or simply monolithic curricular and disciplinary frameworks is rarely initiated from the peripheries. Typically, all the acknowledged innovative institutions were established or initiated by members of either the central universities or the academies of sciences, usually in the capital cities of the four countries. Only the Program of European Studies was physically established in a peripheral region, and only Academia Istropolitana was designed to offer to substitute for the programs of the main Slovakian universities. A trend toward diversification can often mean in reality restriction and replacement. Also, the new institutions often try, after only a year of existence, to continue to expand in size and range to be attractive for new sources of sponsorship.
Expansion can, however, also increase their dependence on external agencies.
The new innovative efforts in higher education are competing for increasingly scarce sources of support, given the overall economic crisis in the respective countries. The need for sponsorship and funds may be one important reason for using political networks, relying on existing academic sources, having few full-time employees, and building small elite programs. Beyond these general trends, the examined institutions differ in what they consider to be the optimal strategy. Our analysis has helped to gain a few insights into what seems to be less preferred by the institutional leaders. Since the state budgets and public policies are in the process of restructuring, continued reliance on the predominantly public subsidies may not necessarily promise long-term sustainability for new institutions.