Monthly Archive for September, 2010

GLOBAL: Harvard Toppled in New QS Ranking

Published on September 30, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

qsBy David Jobbins, in University World News

A university from outside the United States has topped the QS World University rankings for the first time since their appearance in 2004. The University of Cambridge tops the global ranking, edging aside Harvard which has led the table since the rankings were inaugurated. Over that time Cambridge has never been rated lower than third and was runner-up in 2006, 2007, and 2009.

In a year when the methodology remained largely unaltered, the change at the top captured international media headlines for the first QS ranking since its dramatic parting of ways in late 2009 from The Times Higher Education, the UK newspaper with which it had been associated since 2004.

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Trinity College Dublin – The Porous University

Published on September 30, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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From Times Higher Education

For many years, Ireland’s oldest third-level institution has been finding novel and dynamic ways to engage with the world, but the latest example is its most significant to date. The Trinity Long Room Hub, the university’s new arts and humanities research institute, represents a promising synergy between arts and humanities and several globally significant industrial partners that, at first glance, looks improbable. In development for the past seven years, it was grant-aided €10.8 million (£8.87 million) by the Irish government, enabling Trinity College to erect a new building to house the project.

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GLOBAL: Shanghai Rankings: Shifting Research Landscape

Published on September 20, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

From Richard Holmes, in University World News

In recent years, something like a small-scale industry has developed with commentators earnestly trying to read long-term trends into the rise and fall of various universities in the former THE-QS rankings. Such efforts have been largely futile.

There have been too many methodological changes and QS has made too many mistakes and then rectified them. Meanwhile, the geographical distribution of respondents to the academic and employer surveys, which together account for 50% of the total score, has fluctuated from year to year. Trying to discern long-term changes is next to impossible.

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GLOBAL: University Rankings – It’s About Jobs, Stupid!

Published on September 18, 2010 in News. 0 Comments

university-rankingsFrom John O’Leary, in University World News

International study has been one of the global phenomena of the current millennium. The numbers going abroad to university have jumped from fewer than two million in 2000 to more than three million this year. Until now, most of the traffic has been from Asia to Western universities, but there may be a new direction of travel this year, as students squeezed out of British and American universities look overseas in much larger numbers.

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OECD: How Higher Education Can Help Economic Recovery

Published on September 16, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

oecdFrom Mary-Louise Kearney and Richard Yelland

Against the background of the most synchronised recession in developed countries in over half a century, the upcoming conference of the OECD’s Institutional Management in Higher Education (IMHE) programme will focus on how the higher education sector – governments, institutions and individuals – can help contribute to sustainable recovery.

The biennial IMHE General Conference, titled Higher Education in an World Changed Utterly: Doing more with less, will take place at the OECD in Paris from 13 to 15 September 2010. University World News is a media partner to the event.

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Declining by Degree

Published on September 14, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

declining-by-degreeFrom The Economist

Fifty years ago, in the glorious age of three-martini lunches and all-smoking offices, America’s car companies were universally admired. Everybody wanted to know the secrets of their success. How did they churn out dazzling new models every year? How did they manage so many people so successfully (General Motors was then the biggest private-sector employer in the world)? And how did they keep their customers so happy?

Today the world is equally in awe of American universities. They dominate global rankings: on the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy’s list of the world’s best universities, 17 of the top 20 are American, and 35 of the top 50. They employ 70% of living Nobel prizewinners in science and economics and produce a disproportionate share of the world’s most-cited articles in academic journals. Everyone wants to know their secret recipe.

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Shi Jinghuan to Join as Plenary Speaker for WUF

Published on September 2, 2010 in Conference. 0 Comments

Please welcome Dr. Shi Jinghuan as a plenary speaker for the 2011 World Universities Forum

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SHI JINGHUAN

Dr. Shi Jinghuan is a professor and the Executive Dean of the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University. She also works as the Chairperson of Beijing Association of Women Professors and is a member of the 10th and 11th Beijing Municipal Political Council.

Dr. Shi Jinghuan has worked as a professor, the Deputy Department Chair and the Director of Research Institute of Education and Cultural History in Beijing Normal University for quite a number of years. She worked as a Fulbright professor in the University of Maryland at College Park, US in 1996 and as a specially Appointed Professor at the Center for Research and Development of Higher Education at Hokkaido University in Japan in 2006. She currently serves as an oversea Auditor, Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). She has broad academic publications in higher education, international and comparative education and history of education.

Dr. Shi Jinghuan has a rich experience in working with international organizations. She worked as the consultants for the projects of the World Bank, the UNDP, the UNESCO and the UNICEF.

For more information and additional speakers please visit our website.

New Speaker for 2011 World Universities Forum

Published on September 2, 2010 in Conference. 0 Comments

We are pleased to announce that Tapio Varis will be joining us as a plenary speaker for the World Universities Forum:

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TAPIO VARIS

Professor of Professional Education, with particular reference to global learning environments at the University of Tampere, Finland, Research Centre for Vocational Education, and UNESCO Chair in global e-Learning with applications to multiple domains. Principal research associate of UNESCO-UNEVOC. Governing Board Member of UNESCO-IITE. Acting President of Global University System (GUS). Former Rector of the University for Peace in Costa Rica. Expert on media and digital literacy to the European Union. Communication and Media Scholar at the University of Helsinki and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. and the University of Lapland, Finland, Published over 200 scientific contributions. Visiting Professor and Lecturer in many countries in Europe, North and South America, and other regions of the world.

For more information and additional speakers please visit our website.