From Declan Butler in Nature:
Every autumn, politicians, university administrators, funding offices and countless students wait impatiently for the World University Rankings produced by Britain’s Times Higher Education(THE) magazine. A position in the upper echelons of the THEranking can influence policy-makers’ higher-education investments, determine which institutions attract the best researchers or students, and prompt universities to try to boost their ratings.
But academics and universities have long criticized what they describe as the outsized influence of the THE and other university rankings, saying that their methodology and data are problematic (see Nature447, 514–515; 2007). Many universities see wild swings in their rankings from year to year, for example, which cannot reflect real changes in quality; and many French universities’ ratings suffer because their researchers’ publications often list affiliations with national research agencies as well as the university itself, diluting the benefit for the university. Now, universities and other stakeholders are developing their own rankings to tackle these shortcomings.
“Rankings have outgrown the expectations of those who started them,” says Kazimierz Bilanow, managing director of the IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence, a Warsaw-based ranking quality-assurance body created in October 2009. “What were often exercises intended to boost newspaper circulation have come to have enormous influence on policy-making and funding of institutions and governments.”
For the article…
For a related Nature editorial…
From an editorial in Nature:
Young scientists at a Chinese genomics institute are foregoing conventional postgraduate training for the chance to be part of major scientific initiatives. Is this the way of the future?
The approach to extended postgraduate training varies from country to country. The United States and Europe, for example, have long believed that students need to finish a multiyear programme of postgraduate work before they can fully participate in the front rank of research, whether in industry or academia.
In Asia, scientific communities instead tend to value directed, practical research. In Japan, for example, industry accounts for a much higher proportion of the scientific budget than in the West, and managers there often say that they prefer university graduates who they can train in-house. As a result, relatively little emphasis is given to academic postgraduate training.
Perhaps the most extreme example of this approach is at the BGI in Shenzen, China — the genomic-sequencing juggernaut formerly known as the Beijing Genomics Institute …. Some 500 Chinese university students have already signed up to join the BGI after they graduate this summer. There they will help to piece together DNA data from an expanding set of sequences for microbes, plants and animals.
For the editorial…
From University World News
The European Union plans to publish a worldwide ranking of universities next year that it hopes will rival existing global league tables. The aim is to boost the place of European universities in the Shanghai Jiao Tong and Times Higher Education ranking systems, both dominated by US institutions.
In the last Shanghai Jiao Tong ranking, the whole of continental Europe had only 23 universities in the top 100. Yet Europe has some 4,000 universities and colleges that enrol more than 19 million students and employ1.5 million staff.
The new European rankings are being developed following acceptance early last year of a tender from a German, Dutch, Belgian and French consortium called CHERPA, a European network of leading institutions in this field.
To read more…
From Associated Press writer Holly Ramer:
CONCORD, N.H.—The president of the University of New Hampshire outlined a 10-year strategic plan Tuesday he says is necessary to keep the state’s flagship public university from eventually sinking.
If the current trend continues, the typical New Hampshire family will be paying 75 percent of its disposable income to send a child to UNH by 2020, compared to 40 percent in 1978 and 60 percent today, Mark Huddleston said in a speech in Durham. That’s unsustainable, he said, and it’s time to move beyond asking families to work more to pay tuition and asking faculty and staff to simply make do with less.
Public colleges and universities around the country have been cutting costs, laying off staff and passing on much of their state budget shortfalls to students through higher tuition. But the current paradigm of higher education isn’t equipped to withstand the turbulence created by economic, political and demographic forces, Huddleston said.
“Either we change the paradigm or we go out of business,” he said. “This is not simply another year-ahead worry about UNH’s budget. It is about our ability to remain viable in the face of a gap between cost and ability to pay that grows into a true chasm when one looks ahead more than a year or two.”
For the article in the Boston Globe…
From Andrew Trounson and Christian Kerr in The Australian
Australia is in denial on racially motivated attacks against international students and has failed to take action to deal with the issue, an internationally respected Australian academic has told a major conference in Switzerland.
Melbourne University professor Simon Marginson, delivering a keynote address to the World Universities Forum in Davos, said the Australian government was trying to spin itself out of crisis following this month’s murder of Indian accountancy graduate Nitin Garg in a west Melbourne park. “The Australian government is in denial,” Professor Marginson told the high-powered meeting of academics. “Racist targeting is involved (in the attacks). Indian students do have a special problem. And there isn’t enough official and civil concern about international student security in Australia.”
Garg’s unsolved murder has sparked diplomatic, government and public protests in India, further weakened one of Australia’s most important education export markets and prompted a defensive response from Australia’s political leaders and Victoria Police.
To read more…
From Craig Lambert, in Harvard Magazine
Near the University of Bologna—the world’s oldest, founded in 1088—is a medieval museum displaying carved memorial plaques that honor great professors of the past. “They all show the professor on the podium, with the students below,” says Thomas Forrest Kelly, Knafel professor of music. “Often the students are asleep, playing dice or cards, or fornicating.”
Much has changed since the Middle Ages, but one thing that persists is the lecture. The medieval university invented lecturing—the word comes from the Latin verb legere, to read—to cope with the scarcity of books: a lecturer would read the only available copy of a book to the gathering of students. “That was high technology in the thirteenth century,” says Kelly, “but not high technology for the twenty-first century!”
To read more…
From Alan Osborn, in University World News
European universities have less ability to manage their own affairs than is generally realised and less than is desirable, according to a new survey by the European University Association. The report covers 33 countries and finds that genuine autonomy is lacking in several critical sectors, above all in that of finance.
This could have worrying consequences for the future of many institutions. The EAU said that at a time when the overall levels of public funding in education were stagnating and universities were increasingly being asked to look for alternative funding sources, the lack of autonomy was a real threat for the sustainability of Europe’s universities.
The report noted that many governments, the university sector itself and the European Commission had recognised increased autonomy for universities would be a crucial step towards modernisation in the 21st century. In practice, however, “public authorities still play too central a role in the regulation of the higher education system and, in a large number of countries, still exert direct control”.
To read more…
From Sarah King Head, University World News.
Although a recent report applauded the fact that the number of foreign students attending American colleges and universities hit a new peak in 2008, a disaggregation of the data reveals worrisome underlying trends in undergraduate and graduate student numbers.
More than 670,000 foreign students enrolled in American colleges and universities in 2008-09, an 8% increase from the previous year, according to the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors 2009 report. Not only is this the largest percentage increase since 1980-81, it is the third consecutive year significant growth has occurred.
According to IIE president and CEO Allan E Goodman, “American higher education continues to be highly valued throughout the world. US campuses offer unparalleled opportunities for creativity, flexibility, and cultural exchange. Students from all over the world contribute substantially to their host campuses and to the US economy.”
To Read More…
A new book by Amanda H. Goodall says, “Yes.” Dr. Goodall is a Leverhulme Fellow at Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick in the UK. Her book is Socrates in the Boardroom: Why Research Universities Should Be Led by Top Scholars (Princeton University Press, 2009). To quote an article in Inside Higher Education,
Goodall … bases her work on analysis of the research records of those who have led top universities, and also on interviews with a number of presidents of top American and British universities.
Her book builds on research she has published previously in which she uses citation rankings (in which scholars are rated by the frequency with which their work is cited by others) as a proxy for academic quality of a scholar. While Goodall acknowledges that such measurements aren’t perfect, she said that they do give a sense of the impact of a given researcher. She has documented more movement to the top ranks (of national and international rankings, which she acknowledges as well are not perfect measures) — both of universities and business schools — at institutions that are led by presidents or deans with high citation rankings.
Ultimately, she says, research universities should be led by those who share a passion for what the institution is about — producing knowledge.
From Wagdy Sawahel, in University World News.
The 57 Islamic states have approved a plan to upgrade their universities as a means of achieving world-class status, as well as reforming them to become “functional developmental institutes” providing valuable resources for business, industry and society.
The plan was announced at a workshop, Achieving Excellence in Higher Education, in Ifrane in Morocco earlier this month. It was organised by the Islamic development bank of the 57 members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and Al-Akhawayn University. The conference consists of countries from the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, Caucasus, Balkans, Southeast Asia and South Asia.
The aim of the plan is to build a critical mass of world-class scientists and technologists in targeted science and technology areas, while also promoting relevant research and development outcomes for the private sector.
Fifteen institutions, five from Africa, Asia and the Arab world, were identified to carry out the upgrades and reform, and to promote scientific research in agriculture, nanotechnology and information and communication technologies.
The institutions were selected using international and regional university rankings, as well as their readiness to meet the demands and their likely impact on the development of knowledge-based economy.
To read more…
From Geoff Maslen, in University World News.
American universities again dominate the latest Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings as they have for the past six years. Released last Friday, almost a week earlier than expected, the rankings place US universities in all but three of the top 20 spots with Harvard, Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley in first, second and third spot, and the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Tokyo the only outsiders at fourth, 10th and 20th respectively. The top 10 universities are unchanged this year from the rankings drawn up in 2008.
Of the top 50 universities, 36 are US institutions although University College, London, came in at 21, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at 23, Japan’s Kyoto University at 24, Imperial College, London at 26, Toronto at 27, British Columbia at 36, Pierre and Marie Curie University - Paris 6 at 40, Manchester at 41, Copenhagen equal 43 with University of Paris Sud (Paris 11) and Sweden’s Karolinska Institute at number 50.
Read more…
By Fazal Rizvi, Bob Lingard Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
List Price: $45.95
- ISBN: 978-0-415-41627-6
- Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
- Published by: Routledge
- Publication Date: 13/08/2009
- Pages: 240
About the Book
Rizvi and Lingard’s account of the global politics of education is thoughtful, complex and compelling. It is the first really comprehensive discussion and analysis of global trends in education policy, their effects - structural and individual - and resistance to them. In the enormous body of writing on globalisation this book stands out and will become a basic text in education policy courses around the world.
- Stephen J Ball, Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education, Institute of Education, University of London, UK
In what ways have the processes of globalization reshaped the educational policy terrain?
How might we analyse education policies located within this new terrain, which is at once local, national, regional and global?
Over the past two decades, educational systems throughout the world have undergone significant changes as systems continue to interpret and respond to the ever-changing economic, social and political contexts within which education takes place. Educational policies have been deeply affected by these developments, as national governments have sought to re-align their educational priorities to what they perceive to be the imperatives of globalization.
In Globalizing Education Policy, the authors explore the key global drivers of policy change in education, and suggest that these do not operate in the same way in all nation-states. They examine the transformative effects of globalization on the discursive terrain within which educational policies are developed and enacted, arguing that this terrain is increasingly informed by a range of neo-liberal precepts which have fundamentally changed the ways in which we think about educational governance. They also suggest that whilst in some countries these precepts are resisted, to some extent, they have nonetheless become hegemonic, and provide an overview of some critical issues in educational policy to which this hegemonic view of globalization has given rise, including:
More….
Jan Petter Myklebust from University World News reports…
The Swedish Presidency of the European Union has organised a major conference starting this week and titled The Knowledge Triangle: Shaping the future of Europe. Ministers from Sweden, Finland and the UK, together with high-ranking EU Commission officers including two commissioners and 350 university presidents, researchers, students and policy-makers and some high level industry leaders will meet in the university town of Gothenburg.
The conference is a follow-up of the “Lund declaration” from the EU Presidency conference in July - New Worlds: New Solutions - which called for “grand challenges” in European research during the coming decade.
The Lund declaration has been a success with regard to agenda-setting for research concentration. But most observers are asking how the Swedes are going to implement their grand visions. More…
Recently, the World Bank released a report by Jamil Salmi.
In September 2005, the new world ranking published by the Times Higher Education
Supplement was received like a bomb shell in Malaysia when it showed the country’s top
two universities slipping by almost 100 places compared to the previous year.
Notwithstanding the fact that the big drop was mostly due to a change in the ranking
methodology, the news was so traumatic that there were widespread calls for the
establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the matter. This strong
reaction was not out of character in a nation whose current Ninth Development Plan aims
at shaping the transformation of the country into a knowledge-based economy with
emphasis on the important contribution of the university sector.
Preoccupations about university rankings reflect the general recognition that economic
growth and global competitiveness are increasingly driven by knowledge, and that
universities can play a key role in that context. Indeed, rapid advances in science and
technology across a wide range of areas from information and communication
technologies (ICTs) to biotechnology to new materials provide great potential for
countries to accelerate and strengthen their economic development. The application of
knowledge results in more efficient ways of producing goods and services and delivering
them more effectively and at lower costs to a greater number of people.
The full report may be download as a PDF here.
From Geoff Maslen at University World News
Changes to Australia’s immigration rules affecting foreign students who apply for permanent residency could cause a collapse in the booming export education market. The tighter restrictions are likely to have a profound impact on the number of students from India and China whose main purpose in coming to Australia is to obtain permanent residency. Take that lure away and the main reason why tens of thousands are prepared to outlay up to $20,000 (US$16,000) every year disappears.
Estimates by the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest that foreign students contribute more than A$15 billion a year to the national economy. But this does not take account of the money students earn working in Australia and if that sum is deducted, the total is believed to be far less. More…
From Keith Nuthall at University World News
A €3.2 billion programme of research spending that will try to pull Europe out of recession and into a sustainable economic recovery has been launched by the European Commission. At a ceremony in Brussels witnessed by more than 800 senior researchers and industrialists, the commission put scientists on notice that millions of research euros would soon start to pour out of three private-public partnerships funding R&D projects across Europe.
They will last until 2013 and will cover three topics:
* Developing innovative manufacturing technologies, materials and processes to produce more while consuming fewer materials, less energy, and producing less waste.
* Creating more energy-efficient buildings, improving new construction design and greening existing buildings through new materials and construction techniques.
* Building greener cars and smarter transport systems, including the electrification of road and urban transport, and research into hybrid technologies. More…
Mark C. Taylor writes in the New York Times for 27 April 2009 about a sharply different organizational and procedural structure for the Academy in the present period of challenge and change. His op-ed piece is entitled End the University as We Know It.
After describing the current crisis, Taylor offers an alternative.
If American higher education is to thrive in the 21st century, colleges and universities, like Wall Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely restructured. The long process to make higher learning more agile, adaptive and imaginative can begin with six major steps: 1. Restructure the curriculum … 2. Abolish permanent departments … 3. Increase collaboration among institutions … 4. Transform the traditional dissertation … 5. Expand the range of professional options for graduate students … 6. Impose mandatory retirement and abolish tenure ….
For many years, I have told students, “Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with it what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.” My hope is that colleges and universities will be shaken out of their complacency and will open academia to a future we cannot conceive.
“A small rise in funding for higher education in Wales has been announced, but some institutions will see a cut. Grants of £433.8m, up 1.66%, will be made by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) for 2009/10. Aberystwyth University will receive around £1.5m more, but Lampeter will have its grant cut by 9%.” - BBC
You can read more of this article on the BBC website here.
The question of grade inflation, and the conflict that often results, is nothing new to those who work in higher education (at least in the United States). A New York Times article discusses some possible reasons for why students expect such high grades: www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/education/18college.html.
World Universities Forum 2010
Welcome to the website of the World Universities Forum. In 2010, the conference will be held at the Congress Center Davos, Switzerland.
The Forum examines the role and future of the University in a changing world. The 2009 Forum follows our highly successful inaugural conference in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2008. It is ambitious in its intellectual and practical, agenda-setting scope, and broad in its themes.
The program for the World Universities Forum 2010 will be structured around five keynote sessions that will deal with the following topics:
Participants are also welcome to submit a presentation proposal either for a 30-minute paper, 60-minute workshop, a jointly presented 90-minute colloquium session or a virtual session. Parallel sessions are loosely grouped into streams reflecting different perspectives or disciplines. Each stream also has its own talking circle, a forum for focused discussion of issues.
Presenters may choose to submit written papers to the The Journal of the World Universities Forum, a fully refereed academic Journal. virtual participation also have the option to submit papers for consideration by the Journal. All registered Conference participants receive a complimentary online subscription to the Journal when registration is finalised. This subscription is valid until one year after the Conference end date.
If you would like to know more about this Conference, bookmark the World Universities Forum site and return for further information ? the site is regularly updated. You may also wish to subscribe to the Conference and Journal Newsletter.
For all inquiries, please contact the Conference Secretariat.
