Risk Management as an Ontological Characteristic of the Modern University

This article conceptualizes risk management not as a technical or administrative function but as an ontological condition of the contemporary university. Building on the works of Ulrich Beck, Niklas Luhmann, Ronald Barnett and post-digital educational philosophy, it argues that modern universities operate within regimes of permanent uncertainty, systemic complexity and institutional liminality. Within such environments, risk is not an external disturbance but a constitutive element of academic life, knowledge production and institutional agency. The university emerges as a risk-bearing institution whose mission—producing knowledge about an unpredictable world—structurally embeds uncertainty into its mode of existence. The paper develops a philosophical framework that explains how risk-oriented governance generates new forms of resilience, adaptability and antifragility. Methodologically, the study employs conceptual analysis supported by a reflective examination of the Ukrainian higher education system functioning under wartime conditions. Ukraine serves as an extreme case that reveals the deeper ontological structure of the university as a system capable of self-reorganization under radical uncertainty. The article concludes that risk management should be understood not as a set of managerial procedures but as a foundational ontological characteristic shaping the future trajectories of universities in a rapidly transforming world.