Multidisciplinary research – an essential driver for innovation

Editor’s note: today’s entry was written by Professor Jill Trewhella (pictured to the right), Deputy Vice Chancellor – Research, University of Sydney, Australia. It was originally delivered at the Australian Financial Review Higher Education Conference, 9 March 2009. Our thanks to Nicholas Haskins, Program Manager (International Networks), Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International), for bringing [...]

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Finland’s Aalto University (est. 2010): institutionalizing interdisciplinary thinking for innovation in the knowledge economy

Yesterday’s Financial Times included an informative story (‘Merger with innovation at its heart‘) on the development process of Aalto University in Finland.  Aalto University is being created through the merger of three existing institutions – the Helsinki School of Economics, the University of Art and Design Helsinki and the Helsinki University of Technology – and [...]

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The US – India ‘knowledge’ relationship: the sleeping giant stirs!

Editor’s Note: This entry has been kindly prepared by Tim Gore, now Director of The Centre for Indian Business, University of Greenwich, London, UK.  Prior to this, Tim was Director of Education at the British Council in India, where he was responsible for growing the knowledge partnership between India and the UK. Tim also [...]

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Strategic actors in the Eurolandscape: meet ‘The Lisbon Council’

Earlier this week we posted an entry on a new European Commission ‘Communication’ – a Strategic Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation.
In working up this entry it became clear to us that some of the state-crafting language to describe different stages of the policy process in the construction of Europe [...]

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The UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI): reflections on ‘the complexities of global partnerships in higher education

This entry has been kindly prepared by Tim Gore, Director of The Centre for Indian Business, University of Greenwich, London, UK. Tim has worked closely with educationalists, institutions, companies and governments to improve bilateral and multilateral educational links in Hong Kong, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and India over a 23 year period. His most [...]

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Do young ‘innovators’ flourish in universities?

After nearly a year in existence, one of the regular themes we have been profiling in GlobalHigherEd is the relative weight, or presence, of universities in the global research landscape. See, for example, the 4 August entry ‘Globalizing research: forces, patterns, and collaborative practices‘. Of course universities matter – as they should and always will [...]

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Thomson Reuters, China, and ‘regional’ journals: of gifts and knowledge production

Numerous funding councils, academics, multilateral organizations, media outlets, and firms, are exhibiting enhanced interest in the evolution of the Chinese higher education system, including its role as a site and space of knowledge production. See these three recent contributions, for example:

‘Chinese City Partners with New York School‘, National Public Radio, 28 May 2008
‘Documenting China’s [...]

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The Bologna Process in Africa: a case of aspiration, inspiration, or both?

The original Bologna Process architects must surely rub their eyes on occasions, and wonder quite how ‘they’ managed to let a genie ’so big’ out of a bottle that is more often characterized as a ‘bottleneck of bureaucracy’.
The Bologna Process is not only one of the biggest news stories in higher education in Europe [...]

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Mobility and knowledge as the “Fifth Freedom” in Europe: embedding market liberalism?

Europe has undoubtedly become a more mobile space. Borders have been erased, and people, capital, services and goods (factors of production, more generally) can theoretically move, unimpeded, across European space.
Apart from legal and regulatory shifts to enhance mobility, taken-for granted infrastructure systems are being constructed that enable people and their ideas to travel at [...]

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The NSF’s ‘cool’ project: a charrette assesses interdisciplinary graduate education, with surprising results

Editor’s note: today’s entry has been written by Kimberly Coulter, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s new Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) administrative coordinator. Kim will be developing entries for GlobalHigherEd from time to time, which we are very happy about given her knowledge base. Today’s entry links most closely to be previous entries by Gisèle Yasmeen (‘Articulating [...]

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New UK report: ‘How Knowledge is Reshaping the Economic Life of Nations’

The London-based Work Foundation released a new 92 page report on 11 March titled The Knowledge Economy: How Knowledge is Reshaping the Economic Life of Nations.
Report highlights include:

Work: knowledge-based industries and knowledge-related occupations have provided most of the new jobs over the past decade.
Trade: The UK has emerged as a world leader in trade [...]

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Autonomous foundations and the reduction of barriers to innovation in higher education

Over the last decade some noteworthy initiatives have emerged within the US to remake science and engineering degree structures and offerings, often with a focus on speeding up the time to graduation, enhancing and broadening the skill make-up of graduates, and building deeper information channels between academia and industry. Yesterday’s Washington Post had an insightful [...]

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