Over the last 10 years, the regular functioning of Greek universities has been disrupted several times due to various reforming governmental efforts by major Greek political parties. Actors inside (academics, students) and outside (policy-makers and analysts, experts, journalists) university resist the implementation of certain European education policies, such as the establishment of a quality assurance mechanism, at a national level. In order to analyse this resistance the advocacy coalition theoretical framework, developed by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, is used. Therefore, Greek universities are considered as a policy subsystem where actors, inside or outside universities, form coalition networks that share policy core beliefs and values, engaging in coordinated action in order to translate these into public policy. The beliefs of the key actors presented here are derived mainly through semi-structured interviews but also through the analysis of the parliamentary proceedings, articles published in scientific magazines and the press and specialised material posted on the internet. This article investigates and analyses the intense process that led to a policy change in the subsystem with the establishment and implementation of an institutionalised quality assurance system.