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The evolution of the Portuguese university system reveals two contradictory trends. Higher education is at once sensitive to the strategic needs of the national state and drawn by the pressures of globalization to pursue transnational aspects of teaching, research, and community service. The doctrine of political centralism had long assimilated the university into a strategic doctrine for Empire, but as decolonization was completed, this was replaced by an emphasis on European networks. Over time, legitimacy drawn from the state and the church has been replaced by performance-based legitimacy resting on tangible results. At the dawn of the new millenium, the development of transnational networks has reinforced the institutional autonomy of the university and reinforced its sense of unique mission.