Global regionalism, interregionalism, and higher education

The development of linkages between higher education systems in a variety of ‘world regions’ continues apace. Developments in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Gulf, and Latin America, albeit uneven in nature, point to the desire to frame and construct regional agendas and architectures. Regionalism -– a state-led initiative to enhance integration to boost trade and security — is now being broadened out such that higher education, and research in some cases, is being uplifted into the regionalism impulse/dynamic.

The incorporation of higher education and research into the regionalism agenda is starting to generate various forms of interregionalisms as well.  What I mean by this is that once a regional higher education area or research area has been established, at least partially, relations between that region, and other regions (i.e. partners), then come to be sought after. These may take the form of relations between (a) regions (e.g., Europe and Asia), (b) a region and components of another region (e.g., Europe and Brazil; Latin America and the United States; Southeast Asia and Australia). The dynamics of how interregional relations are formed are best examined via case studies for, suffice it to say, not all regions are equals, and nor do regions (or indeed countries) speak with singular and stable voices. Moreover some interregional relations can be practice-oriented, and involve informal sharing of best practices that might not formally be ‘on the books.’

Let me outline two examples of the regionalism/interregionalism dynamic below.

ALFA PUENTES

The first example comes straight from an 8 July 2011 newsletter from the European University Association (EUA), one of the most active and effective higher education institutions forging interregional relations of various sorts.

In their newsletter article, the EUA states (and I quote at length):

The harmonisation agenda in Central America: ALFA PUENTES sub-regional project launch (July 07, 2011)

 EUA, OBREAL, HRK and university association partners from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Mexico gathered in Guatemala City on 27-28 June both to discuss and formally launch the sub-regional project ‘Towards a qualifications framework for MesoAmerica’, one of the three pillars of the European Commission supported structural project ‘ALFA PUENTES’ which EUA is coordinating.

Hosted by sub-regional project coordinator CSUCA (Consejo Universitario CentroAmericana), and further attended by the sub-regional coordinators of the Andean Community (ASCUN), Mercosur (Grupo Montevideo), partners discussed current higher education initiatives in Central America and how the ALFA PUENTES project can both support and build upon them.

CSUCA, created in 1948 with a mission to further integration in Central America and improve the quality of higher education in the region, has accelerated its agenda over the past 10 years and recently established a regional accreditation body. This endeavour has been facilitated by project partner and EUA member HRK (in conjunction with DAAD) as well as several other donors. The association, which represents around 20 public universities in Central America, has an ambitious agenda to create better transparency and harmonisation of degrees, and has already agreed to a common definition of credit points and a template for a diploma supplement.

Secretary General Dr Juan Alfonso Fuentes Soria stated in a public presentation of the project that ALFA PUENTES will be utilised to generate a discussion on qualifications frameworks and how this may accelerate the Central America objectives of degree convergence. European experience via the Bologna Process will be shared and European project partners as well as Latin American (LA) partners from other regions will contribute expertise and good practice.

ALFA PUENTES is a three-year project aimed at both supporting Latin American higher education convergence processes and creating deeper working relationships between European and Latin American university associations. Thematic sub-regional projects (MesoAmerica, Andean Community and Mercosur) will be connected with a series of transversal activities including a pan-Latin American survey on change forces in higher education, as well as two large Europe-LA University Association Conferences (2012 and 2014).

This lengthy quote captures a fascinating array of patterns and processes that are unfolding right now; some unique to Europe, some unique to Latin America, and some reflective of synergy and complementarities between these two world regions.

TUNING the Americas

The second example, one more visual in nature, consists of a recent map we created about the export of the TUNING phenomenon. As we have noted in two previous GlobalHigherEd entries:

• TUNING USA: Echoes and translations of the Bologna Process in the US higher education landscape (26 January 2010)
• ‘Tuning USA’: reforming higher education in the US, Europe style (28 April 2009)

TUNING is a process launched in Europe to help build the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). As noted on the key TUNING website, TUNING is designed to:

Contribute significantly to the elaboration of a framework of comparable and compatible qualifications in each of the (potential) signatory countries of the Bologna process, which should be described in terms of workload, level, learning outcomes, competences and profile.

The TUNING logic is captured nicely by this graphic from page 15 of the TUNING General Brochure.

Over time, lessons learned about integration and educational reform via these types of mechanisms/technologies of governance have come to be viewed with considerable interest in other parts of the world, including Africa, North America, and Latin America. In short, the TUNING approach, an element of the building of the EHEA, has come to receive considerable attention in non-European regions that are also seeking to guide their higher educational reform processes, and as well as (in many cases) region-building processes.

As is evident in one of several ‘TUNING Americas’ maps we (Susan Robertson, Thomas Muhr, and myself) are working on with the support of the UW-Madison Cartography Lab and the WUN, the TUNING approach is being taken up in other world regions, sometimes with the direct support of the European Commission (e.g., in Latin America or Africa). The map below is based on data regarding the institutional take-up of TUNING as of late 2010.

Please note that this particular map only focuses on Europe and the Americas, and it leaves out other countries and world regions. However, the image pasted in below, which was extracted from a publicly available presentation by Robert Wagenaar of the University of Groningen, captures aspects of TUNING’s evolving global geography.

Despite the importance of EU largesse and support, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the EU is foisting TUNING on world regions; this is the post-colonial era, after all, and regions are voluntarily working with this European-originated reform mechanism and Europe-based actors. TUNING also only works when faculty/staff members in higher education institutions outside of Europe drive and then implement the process (a point Robert Wagenaar emphasizes). Or look, for example, at the role of the US-based Lumina Foundation in its TUNING USA initiative. Instead, what we seem to have is capacity building, mutual interests in the ‘competencies’ and ‘learning outcomes’ agenda, and aspects of the best practices phenomenon (all of which help explain the ongoing building of synergy between the OECD’s AHELO initiative with the European/EU-enabled TUNING initiative). This said, there are some ongoing debates about the possible alignment implications associated with the TUNING initiative.

These are but two examples of many emerging regionalisms/interregionalisms in the global higher education landscape; a complicated multiscalar phenomenon of educational reform and ‘modernization,’ and region building, mixed in with some fascinating cases of relational identity formation at the regional scale.

Kris Olds (with thanks to Susan Robertson & Thomas Muhr)

Euro-Asia university cooperation as a means to enrich academic quality

Editor’s note: The speech below was given by Alistair MacDonald (pictured to the right), Head of Delegation, European Union Delegation Manila. Mr. MacDonald kindly allowed us to reprint his speech below, which was delivered at the Best Practices in University Development through International Cooperation conference, Baguio City, Philippines, 2-4 February 2010.

The conference rationale was framed this way:

Saint Louis University and Benguet State University are organizing an international conference to cap 10 years of fruitful partnership under the Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad (Flemish Interuniversity Council)-Philippines Institutional University Cooperation Program. The collaboration between SLU and BSU is the only one of its kind among all the Flemish IUC programs, in that it involves two universities in a single partnership. Despite the differences in structure and development objectives, SLU and BSU worked successfully together in various projects covering Institutional Management, ICT, Library Services, Socio-Economics, and Health and Environment. Thus in this conference, the VLIR, SLU and BSU aim to share best practices in university development cooperation based on the PIUC experience which could serve as a model for other institutions. This will also bring views from all over the globe on the opportunities and challenges of international university development cooperation.

The EU Delegation to the Philippines was established in 1990, as a “fully-fledged diplomatic mission, with the task of officially representing the European Union in the Philippines (in close cooperation with the Embassies of the EU Member States)”. Our thanks to Mr. MacDonald for shedding light on the logics and practices that are shaping the transformation of higher education systems within, as well as linkages between, European and Asian systems of higher education.

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University Cooperation as a Means to Enrich Academic Quality

Remarks by Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, European Union

Baguio, 3 February 2010

Chairman Angeles, Professor Supachai, Fr Hechanova and Dr Tagarino, our visitors from the Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad and other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning, magandang umaga, gooie morgen.

Thank you for inviting me to join you at the opening of your conference – a conference which is an excellent example of cooperation between the Philippines and Belgium, between the EU and Asia. Having been an academic before I became a bureaucrat, higher education remains a subject very close to my heart. Though I must say, having been out of academia for more than 30 years, that I feel pretty nervous speaking in front of such an audience of university presidents, deans, and professors.

At least that means that I don’t need to convince you just how important higher education is to the future of any country, and indeed how important a role higher education plays in building and cementing international relations and international cooperation. International partnerships are becoming increasingly important in the context of globalisation, and the EU sees higher education as a strategic sector for strengthening our partnership and our cooperation with Asia.

I would just like to look today at two main themes – how we have attempted to strengthen higher education across Europe, through the Bologna process, and how we have sought to promote cooperation with third countries in higher education.

1) The Bologna Process

I should underline first that in the EU, the primary responsibility for education rests with the individual Member States, and in some cases (like in Scotland or I believe Belgium, with the national or regional authorities within these States). But the EU has for many years sought to promote cooperation among European universities, through the exchange of students and faculty or the exchange of best practices, and through joint research and degree programmes. The European Commission, as the executive arm of the EU, has played an active part in developing such programmes .

The foundations of our current efforts in this field were laid back in 1999, when Education Ministers from 29 European countries met in Bologna, and committed themselves to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010, in which students can choose from a wide range of high quality courses and benefit from smooth recognition procedures. Our Education Ministers were concerned to make European higher education more compatible and comparable, promoting free movement across the EU, and at the same time to ensure that it would remain competitive and attractive, both for Europeans and for students and researchers from elsewhere in the world. That was how the so-called “Bologna Process” was born.

Why was it called the Bologna Process? The simple answer is that this meeting was held in Bologna. But at the same time this recognised Bologna’s place in history, as the oldest university in Europe (though not the oldest in the world, which distinction is held in Morocco, I believe). The University of Bologna was founded in 1088, well before Paris, Oxford, etc. My own alma mater, Glasgow University, was a relative latecomer, being established in 1451.

The Bologna Process, from its birth in 1999, had the objective of  making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible across Europe, so that :

• it will be easy to move from one country to the other (within the European Higher Education Area) – for the purpose of further study or employment;
• European higher education will become more attractive to students and researchers from outside Europe
• and in particular that the European Higher Education Area will provide us with a high-quality university network, helping to ensure Europe’s future as a stable, peaceful and tolerant community;

The priorities of the Bologna process are:

• to introduce the three cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate) across Europe
• to set standards for quality assurance and thus of comparability;
• and to facilitate the mutual recognition of qualifications and periods of study
• all of this through the creation of a European Higher Education Area

Twenty-nine countries signed the Bologna Declaration in 1999 (including Iceland, Norway and Switzerland), but a total of forty-six countries have now joined the Bologna Process, ranging from Russia to the Holy See. The criteria for accession to the process are simple :

• being a signatory to the European Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe.
• and giving a clear commitment to the objectives of the Bologna Process, and presenting a reform programme for that country’s higher education system.

I should underline that the Bologna Process is not in fact an EU process, but an intergovernmental process, whose membership stretches far beyond the EU. Nevertheless, the European Commission is a full member of the Bologna Process, beside the 46 signatory countries. Consultative members include bodies such as the Council of Europe and UNESCO.

In parallel with the the Bologna Declaration, though, and just one year later, the EU also adopted the Lisbon Agenda, setting the objective that Europe should by 2010 become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth, with more and better jobs, and greater social cohesion.

Underlying these parallel initiatives were two main concerns – we needed to protect and promote European competitiveness, ensuring that our young people would be able to find their place in a caring, sharing and dynamic society – and we needed to encourage academic mobility across Europe, breaking down national barriers.

The Bologna Process has already achieved considerable results. There is clearly a strong commitment at national, regional and institutional levels to maintain this momentum, especially following last April’s Ministerial meeting in Belgium (in Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve), where the Ministers responsible for higher education in the 46 countries of the Bologna Process met to establish the priorities for the European Higher Education Area until 2020. They highlighted in particular the importance of lifelong learning, of widening access to higher education, and of mobility. And they set the goal that by 2020, at least 20% of those graduating in the European Higher Education Area should have had a study or training period abroad.

At the same time, I have to underline that our educational perspectives were not limited to internal European requirements. The Bologna Ministers also agreed upon an external dimension strategy, focusing on information, promotion, cooperation, recognition and policy dialogue. The EC supports the external dimension strategy through a number of policies and programmes, which I will come to later.

Indeed the international openness of the Bologna Process is a key priority for the EU, especially as there seems to be a great interest in the Bologna reforms from countries outside Europe. Twenty non-European countries attended the first ‘Bologna Policy Forum’, which took place last year in Belgium. This Forum serves as a platform for developing a closer relationship with other regions of the world, and provides an opportunity to promote global cooperation in higher education. The second such Forum will be held in Vienna in March (12 March), and I was very happy to hear that the Philippines has been invited to take part.

2) International academic cooperation

The second main topic I’d like to look at is the manner in which the EU works to promote international academic cooperation, whether through student or faculty exchanges, or through research cooperation, or through inter-university cooperation more generally. Indeed the EU’s policy work in the field of education and training is backed up by a variety of funding programmes implemented by the European Commission. I’m not going to try to be exhaustive here, particularly since I’m sure our colleagues from Flanders will be able to speak of their own experiences under EU-funded programmes in this area, so I’ll just comment briefly on some of our main programmes in this field.

Erasmus Mundus

Just as our flagship programme in the field of student exchanges within the EU is the Erasmus programme – commemorating of course the famous Dutch humanist scholar of the Reformation era, who himself studied and taught in Paris, Leuven, Cambridge, Turin and Basel – so our flagship programme for international academic exchanges is the Erasmus Mundus programme.

Erasmus Mundus was launched in 2004 with a view to promoting the quality, visibility and attractiveness of European higher education by supporting partnerships with non-EU universities in relation to the joint masters’ courses established under the Erasmus progrmme (and including more than one hundred such courses offered by consortia including over 230 European universities). The Erasmus Mundus programme offers scholarships to graduate students and academics from outside the EU to follow these courses, and so far some 6000 students and 660 academics worls-wide have followed these courses. The global budget for the first phase of the programme (2004-2008) was €230 million, 90% of which went into scholarships. In 2005, special regional windows were created under the Erasmus Mundus programme by using additional funds coming from the Community’s development cooperation budget.

Over the period 2004-09, there were about 100 Filipinos who have received such scholarships – and I am delighted to say that all who have completed their training have returned to the Philippines, as ambassadors for European education, just as they were ambassadors for the Philippines when studying in Europe. The returning scholars have also established a very active Alumni Association, with their own website, which also works  to provide information and advice to students thinking of studying in Europe.

Then in 2006 the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window (EMECW) was established, building on the existing Erasmus Mundus programme to promote academic partnerships and institutional cooperation between higher education institutions in Europe and in partner countries, and including a mobility scheme addressing Erasmus-style student and academic exchanges. Under this programme, calls for proposals were organised in 2007, 2008 and 2009, with total funding for Asia amounting to almost €30 million.

A second phase of the Erasmus Mundus programme was adopted at the end of 2008, covering the period 2009-2013, and building on and extending the scope of the first phase. Erasmus Mundus II covers joint masters and joint doctorate programmes, including scholarships for EU and non-European students and academics (Action 1); partnerships between European universities and universities in specific world regions (former EMECW, now Action 2); and measures to enhance the world-wide appeal of Europe as an education destination (Action 3). New elements of the programme are the inclusion of non-EU institutions as full partners in Erasmus Mundus consortia, the offer of full study scholarships to EU students and the extension of Erasmus Mundus joint programmes to doctoral level.

Erasmus Mundus II has a budget of € 950 million, much higher than in the first phase of the programme. The first joint initiatives under the new actions of Erasmus Mundus II started in academic year 2009/10, but the mobility under the new actions will take place as of 2010/11.

Jean Monnet

Quite apart from the Erasmus programme, and established earlier (in 1990), is the Jean Monnet programme. This specifically supports studies in the field of European integration, and builds on the work of the network of 54 national European Studies Associations. Such associations exist in most of the EU Member States and in several non-EU countries (such as the United States, Canada, Japan, China, India, Korea, Brazil, Argentina …).

The Jean Monnet Programme is intended to enhance knowledge and awareness on European integration, increase the visibility of the EU in the world, stimulate academic excellence in European integration studies, and allow policy-makers to benefit from academic insight. The programme is now part of the Lifelong Learning Programme and funds Jean Monnet chairs, centres of excellence and teaching modules, as well as information and research activities.

Such programmes now exist in 61 countries around the world, with more than 100 Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence, and more than 750 Jean Monnet Chairs. They reach an audience of 250.000 students every year. The highest number of Jean Monnet teaching projects outside the EU can be found in Canada, China, the United States and Turkey.

Research cooperation

Turning to more research-orientated cooperation, the EU has for many years devoted significant resources to supporting applied and pure research in many fields, both within the EU and externally. We are currently implementing the 7^th Framework Programme in Research and Technology, covering the period from 2007 to 2013, and with a total budget of over €50 billion. This funding is used to support research, technological development and demonstration projects. Grants are determined on the basis of calls for proposals and peer review, and the selection process is highly competitive. A number of Philippine universities have participated in such programmes, as members of consortia under FP7 and its predecessors – I’m thinking for example of UP, Ateneo, DLS, San Carlos and Siliman.

Apart from our funding possibilities under the Framework Programmes, we have also funded some specific research activities under our classical development cooperation budget. One example is the Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN), addressing the digital divide by connecting universities and research institutions in Europe and Asia by means of high-capacity dedicated Internet networks. Currently the third phase of this programme, TEIN3, covers 19 countries in Asia (China, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea in East Asia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in ASEAN, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia, and Australia). TEIN3 receives an EC grant of over €11 million covering some 60% of the project costs; the remaining funds are provided by the partners on a cost-sharing basis.

3) Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, it is evident that a growing concern of policy makers in Europe and around the world is to ensure that our higher education institutions and systems are “fit for purpose” for the 21^st century. This is as much a concern in Asia in general, and the Philippines in particular, as it is in Europe. Globalisation makes it essential for universities to open up to international cooperation, to send and receive more students from abroad, and to ensure that the quality of their teaching and research meets domestic needs and international standards.

These concerns are at the heart of the move to establish a European Higher Education Area in the context of the Bologna process, ensuring that higher education in Europe is fully competitive in the global context, and is able to meet the teaching, research and employment needs of the 21^st century. Within the EU, the Lisbon Agenda of 2000, and its likely successor the “EU 2020” programme which the Commission will shortly present, have these concerns at their core. Here in the Philippines, with its long tradition of academic excellence, it is no less essential that the Universities are able to respond to society’s needs – producing the teachers, researchers, skilled workers and entrepreneurs that will drive the country forward, at the same time as the Universities keep alight the value of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. And now more than ever, international university cooperation has a key role to play in promoting mutual understanding, mutual cooperation, and mutual respect.

Thank you for your attention, maraming salamat po, en hartelijk bedankt.

ANNEX

Past Programmes in Asia

• The Asia Link Programme supported regional networking among higher education institutions in Europe and Asia from 2002 until 2006 (and has since been integrated in the Erasmus Mundus). It included support for joint research work, for curriculum development, and for staff and student exchanges. Nine AsiaLink projects have been implemented in the Philippines, with EC funding totalling some €2.6m (PHP 160m) – in sectors as diverse as mathematics teaching, urban planning, agro-forestry, and biomedical engineering.
• In past years, we have also funded the EU-ASEAN University Network Programme (2000-06) supporting research and teaching cooperation between universities in ASEAN and their counterparts in Europe, and including two substantial projects with Philippine universities, in mariners’ education and in spatial planning.
• I can even stretch my mind back to earlier programmes in the 1990s, such as our support for the establishment of a European Studies Consortium in Manila, and for an EU-ASEAN Scholarship programme.

Programmes in other regions

And since this is an international conference I would also like to mention very briefly the international cooperation programmes for higher education and training the European Commission implements in the other regions of the world:

• Tempus contributes to the building of cooperation in the field of higher education between the EU and partner countries in neighbouring regions, namely in Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. The latest phase of the programme, Tempus IV, started in 2008. The annual Tempus budget amounts to around €50 million, and individual projects receive funding between €0.5 and €1.5 million.
• Edulink fosters capacity building and regional integration in higher education in the Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific region and countries. It also promotes higher education as a means of reducing poverty. This programme is addressed only to institutions, hence individuals can not apply. Between 2006 and 2008 the total funding amounted to €14 million.
• Alfa is a cooperation programme between higher education institutions in the EU and in Latin America, having as objectives to improve the quality, relevance and accessibility of Higher Education in Latin America; and to contribute to the process of regional integration of Latin America, fostering progress towards the creation of a joint Higher Education area in the region and exploiting its synergies with the EU. The third phase of the programme, ALFA III (2007-2013), has an EU budget of €85m.

Brazil’s new Latin American and global integration universities launched

As 2009 drew to a close, Brazil’s Senate granted official authorization for the establishment of a new, very different kind of university in Brazil – the Federal University for Latin America Integration, otherwise known as UNILA.

Unanimously passed on December 16^th 2009, the Bill now enables UNILA to formally announce itself as a university, instead of a fledging project under the banner of the Institute for Advanced Studies, with oversight by the University of Parana, in the Brazilian state of Parana.

UNILA is one of three regional integration universities launched by Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2006 to advance Brazil’s interests within the region and globally. The other two university projects are UNILAB – the Afro-Brazilian University of Integration, and UNIAM – the University of Amazonian Integration.

These Brazilian initiatives were the latest addition to a rapidly changing higher education landscape around the globe, and one that is set to continue in 2010 (as implied in a recent NY Times report about the implications of the collapse of Dubai’s overheated economy for branch campuses such as Michigan State University and Rochester Institute of Technology).

Dubai’s spectacular meltdown in December was matched by a stunning $61m launch party for Saudi Arabia’s ‘House of Wisdom’ – the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST which Kimberly Coulter covered for GlobalHigherEd.

As Kris Olds wrote in his introduction to Coulter’s entry:

KAUST is a unique experiment in how to organize an institution to facilitate innovation in scientific knowledge production, a secure and efficient compound (hence Saudi Aramco’s involvement), a defacto sovereign wealth fund, a demonstration effect for new approaches to higher education in Saudi Arabia, and many other things (depending on standpoint).

So what do these initiatives have in common? Money aside (KAUST has an endowment of around US$11bn), but like KAUST, Brazil’s three new universities reflect a shared ambition: to use international higher education networks to advance cultural, political and economic projects.

However while KAUST is aimed at developing a world class national university in Saudi Arabia via the recruitment of global talent (academics and students), state of the art buildings and cutting edge development projects, UNILA, UNILAB and UNIAM are aimed at creating a ‘supranational’, ‘global’ and ‘regional’  university respectively, drawing upon staff and students from within the wider region, or from across south-south networks (UNILAB) – though each,  as I will show below, have distinctive visions and territorial reaches with UNILAB the most global.

In August of 2009, I had the privilege of attending the official launch of UNILA.  Close to the fabulous Iguacu Falls,  in Foz, Parana, UNILA is being developed on a 43 hectare site granted by Itaipu Binacional, the bi-national energy company running the huge hydro-electric dam providing energy to Paraguay and the southern cone of Brazil.

The objectives of UNILA are to pursue inter-regional trans-disciplinary research and teaching in areas of joint interest of the MERCOSUL member countries (Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay) focusing, for example, upon use of natural resources, trans-border biodiversity, social sciences and linguistic research, international relations as well as relevant disciplines for strategic development.

Unlike KAUST, however, whose model is US-oriented (in becoming the MIT of the East, the ‘Stanford by the Seashore’), UNILA’s mission and approach to knowledge is shaped by a distinctive Latin American commitment. Each course has a Patron and a Founder.

The first Patrons have been chosen for being Latin American names who have left relevant academic-scientific contributions associated to a field of knowledge , while course founders have been appointed for the high academic prestige in their respective fields of knowledge as well as renowned international competence in their specialities.

10 Professorial Chairs have been appointed to UNILA. Each Chair has a mandate to develop courses in ways that are inspired by, and advance, the intellectual legacy of the Patron. For instance, in the area of science, technology and innovation,  founding Chair, Hebe Vessuri, will draw inspiration from the patron Amilcar Herrerra (1920-1995) – an Argentinean geologist who valued inter-disciplinary knowledge and who have argued that the solution to problems lay not with science as progress, but in the interface with policy and politics.

These patrons are clearly not the organic intellectuals of the ruling classes. Many of these patrons, such as the Chilean writer Francisco Bilbao (1823-65), and Paraguay’s Augusto Roa Bastos (1917-2005), have spent years in exile.

The target student population for UNILA is 10,000 students enrolled in undergraduate and post-graduate programmes leading to MA and PhD degrees. Entrants will be required to sit a university entry examination that will be offered in two versions: one with a Portuguese language requirement for Brazilian citizens and a Spanish Language for the foreign candidates of eligible member countries. Lectures will be offered in both Portuguese and Spanish, as it is expected that half of the teaching staff will be from the regional member countries.

By way of contrast with UNILA, UNILAB is the most global in ambition. This unilateral Portuguese-speaking Afro-Brazilian University of Integration will have  campuses in various  Portuguese speaking countries (Brazil, Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sâo Tomé and Príncipe, and East Timor). Expected to open for enrolment in the beginning of   2010, UNILAB is hailed as a political-pedagogic innovation project (see here for information on UNILAB developments).

The principal aim of UNILAB is to encourage and strengthen co-operation, partnerships, and cultural, educational and scientific exchanges between Brazil an member states of   the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) listed above. UNILAB will also focus on collaboration with the African countries of the CPLP,  aiming to contribute to these nations’ socio-economic development, including reducing ‘brain drain’ problems currently experienced by African countries.

UNILAB is intended to become an integrated multi-campus institution with campuses in all the   African member countries of the CPLP. Each of these campuses will also be integrated within the regions where they are located. Its main campus will be established in the city of Redenção in Brazil’s North-Eastern state of Ceará, approximately 60 kilometres from the city of Fortaleza. Redenção has been selected to host the main campus because it was the first municipality that had abolished slavery in Brazil, and because the region currently does not yet host a university. The main campus is also expected to function as an instrument for the strategic social-economic development of the North-East of Brazil.

In a report carried by the Observatory for Borderless Higher Education on these initiatives, Brazil’s Minister of Education, Fernando Haddad, commented:

We will not offer traditional programmes, but instead we will construct a common identity between the countries, that makes it possible to contribute to the social-economic development of each of the countries involved.

The third, more regional, initiative, Universidade Federal da Integração Amazônica, or UNIAM, will be established as a public multi-campus university, with a main campus in the Brazilian city of Santarém, and three satellite campuses in the cities Itaituba, Monte Alegre and Oriximiná, all located in Brazil’s state of Pará.

The main aim of UNIAM will be to encourage social-economic integration of the Amazon region, which includes not only parts of Brazil, but also areas of eight surrounding countries.

UNIAM’s  main campus will be established in the Brazilian city of Santarém, and three satellite campuses in the cities Itaituba, Monte Alegre and Oriximiná, all located in Brazil’s state of Pará. The aim of the new institution will be to encourage social-economic integration of the Amazon region, which includes not only parts of Brazil, but also areas of eight surrounding countries.

While it is unclear at the moment when the new university will open for enrolment, by 2013 UNIAM is expected to offer 41 programmes at Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral levels.  The Brazilian government will reportedly cover the US$107 million budget that will be needed to pay for the establishment and personnel costs of the new university until 2012.

Described by the Brazilian Ministry of Education as particular ‘political-pedagogic innovation projects’, these three new universities are intended to enhance national, regional and global integration, and demonstrate to the world that it may be possible to unite different countries through education.

These are fascinating initiatives likely to liven up the global higher education landscape in 2010. They reflect not only emerging regionalisms, but potential shifts in the sites and stakes of global and regional knowledge production and power.

Susan Robertson

Higher education and collaboration in a global context: a new UK/US (Atlantic) perspective

The global higher ed world is associated with a variety of novel initiatives that mix and mingle players operating at a range of scales, while forging and deepening new networks. The rationale and timing for each of these initiatives varies, of course, as does each initiative’s potential for “success” when it comes to the implementation phase.

Today marks the release Higher Education and Collaboration in a Global Context, a noteworthy report published by the UK/US Study Group, which is made up of:

United Kingdom

• Rick Trainor, Principal, King’s College London and President, Universities UK. Trainor serves as co-chair of the UK/US Study Group
• Shaun Curtis, Head of the UK Higher Education International Unit
• Dame Janet Finch, Vice-Chancellor, Keele University
• Christopher Snowden, Vice-Chancellor, University of Surrey
• Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor, University of Bristol
• Nigel Thrift, Vice-Chancellor, Warwick University

United States:

• John Sexton, President, New York University. Sexton serves as co-chair of the UK/US Study Group
• Robert Berdahl, President, Association of American Universities
• Molly Corbett Broad, President, American Council on Education
• Katherine Fleming, Vice Chancellor, New York University
• Jane D. McAuliffe, President, Byn Mawr College
• Shirley Tilghman, President, Princeton University

This report was commissioned by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown in the Spring of 2008, and was completed in January 2009 (though not released until today).

The authors of Higher Education and Collaboration in a Global Context make the case for a much deeper transatlantic relationship; one institutionalized in a strategic sense via the creation of:

• The Atlantic Trust (a foundation)
• The Atlantic Scholars (enhanced student mobility)
• The Atlantic Researchers (enhanced collaborative research initiatives with at least one UK and one US partner)
• The Atlantic Partners (a public service scheme)

In a future entry I will examine the content of the report, and put this content (and the report’s development process) into greater context.  For now, though, see below for a copy of the summary of the report, link here for the press release, and link here (Higher Education and Collaboration in a Global Context) for a copy of the full report.

Summary

This report makes the case for a new model for UK/US collaboration, one that will develop multilateral partnerships and bring the longstanding UK/US partnership in higher education to bear in third locations. It argues that if the UK and the USA are to continue to assert their primacy in the realm of higher education (HE) within an increasingly competitive global context, they will best do so collaboratively. The emergent global HE picture represents a challenging but ultimately promising framework for newly-envisioned UK/US collaboration.

Now, more than ever, collaboration across borders among our leading universities is absolutely necessary. The strength of the UK/US partnership, the longstanding preeminence of the two countries in the HE sector, and, more recently, the unfolding of the global economy, validate the case for deepened – and internationalised – collaboration. Furthering the UK/US collaborative HE relationship can no longer have as its sole goals mobility and partnership between the two, nor the advancement only of UK and US interests. The biggest challenge ahead is to focus on ways of extending the UK/US model to third locations. This will enrich immensely the universities of both countries, foster the growth of an open, competitive and accessible HE sector in other nations, and constitutes a vitally important form of soft diplomacy and power. Most critically, it will foster – if framed by ambitious initiatives – the development of a ‘global civil society’ which will bind universities and countries together through common values and principles, and counter the centripetal forces of the globalised era.

The report provides an account of the origins and purpose of the group that produced it; assesses the history of UK/US higher education partnership, its strengths and weaknesses, and current context; and gives a forecast of developments with which the partnership must engage. Most critically, it makes a case for the absolute centrality of higher education in this emerging world, and provides ideas that capitalise on that centrality and begin to orient the longstanding UK/US partnership toward the globalised world before us for the creation of a global civil society.

Kris Olds

Debate: Asia vs Europe: which region is more geopolitically incompetent?

Can regions think and act strategically? In which ways are Europe and Asia geopolitically (in)competent? How does one speak for “Asia” and “Europe”? Why do Mahbubani and Emmott seek to speak for “Asia” and “Europe”? Link here for a National University of Singapore (NUS) webcast of this recent debate, and here for a lecture synopsis.

Global higher ed players, regional ambitions, and interregional fora

How do dominant national and regional players in global higher ed speak to, and engage with, other parts of the world, especially when these parts are viewed as ‘less developed’? This is a complicated question to start answering (not that it is possible, in fact!).

History matters, for it has laid a foundational path, including taken-for-granted assumptions that shape the tone, mechanisms, and power dynamics of bilateral and/or interregional relationships. Times change, of course, and the rationale and logics behind the relationship building cannot help but evolve. The end of the Cold War, for example, enabled the building of relationships (e.g., the 46 country European Higher Education Area) that were previously impossible to imagine, let alone create.

The structure of higher education systems matter too. How does a nation ‘speak’ (e.g., the USA) when there is no senior minister of higher education, and indeed no national system per se (such as that in Germany)? It is possible, though content and legitimacy are derived out of a relatively diverse array of stakeholders.

In this context we have seen new forms of engagement emerging between Europe and the Global South, and between the USA and the Global South. I am wary that the ‘Global South’ concept is a problematic one, but it is used enough to convey key aspects of the power/territory nexus that I’ll stick with it for the duration of this brief entry.

What are the driving forces underlying such new forms of global higher ed engagement?

Clearly the desire to engage in capacity building, for a myriad of reasons, is a driving force.

A second force is concern about what the other dominant players are doing; a form of global engagement inspired or spurred on by the competitive impulse.

A third and related driving force is the amorphous desire to project ‘soft power‘ – the externalization of values, the translation of agendas, the enhancement of the attraction dimension, and so on, such that transformations align with the objectives of the projecting peoples and systems.

All three driving forces are evident is a spate of events and initiatives underway in 2008, and especially this October.

Europe Engages Asia

For example, the logics of capacity building, the need to enhance ties to select regions (e.g., East, South, and Southeast Asia), and the projection of soft power, enticed Europe to forge new relations across space via the ASEM framework. The inaugural meeting of ASEM’s Ministries of Education, which was hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and titled ‘Education and Training for Tomorrow: Common Perspectives in Asia and Europe’, took place in Berlin from 5-6 May 2008. The three official ‘public’ documents associated with this event can be downloaded here, here, and here.

This initiative, as we noted earlier (‘Ministers of Education and fora for thinking beyond the nation‘), is part of an emerging move to have ministers of education/higher education/research play a role in thinking bilaterally, regionally, and indeed globally. One interesting aspect of this development is that ministries (and ministers) of education are starting, albeit very unevenly, to think beyond the nation within the institutional structure of the nation-state. In this case, though, a regional voice (the European Union) is very much present, as are other stakeholders (e.g., the European University Association).

A linked event – the 1st ASEM Rectors’ Conference: Asia-Europe Higher Education Leadership Dialogue “Between Tradition and Reform: Universities in Asia and Europe at the Crossroads” – will be held from 27-29 October in Berlin as well, while other related late-2008 schemes include:

• the European Higher Education Fair and Symposium in New Delhi, India (12-14 November);
• a Roundtable on Autonomy, Governance and Management in Hanoi, Vietnam (25-26 November); and,
• a Workshop on Doctoral/Graduate Education in Europe and Asia in Beijing China (8-9 December).

More broadly, link here for information about the new (2008) EU-Asia Higher Education Platform (EAHEP).

The US Engages Asia

Moving across the Atlantic, to the USA, we have seen the logics of capacity building, the need to enhance ties to select regions (e.g., Asia and Africa), and the projection of soft power, guiding some new initiatives. The US Government, for example, sponsored the Asia Regional Higher Education Summit in Dhaka, Bangladesh, between 6-9 October 2008.  As the official press release from the US Embassy in Dhaka puts it, the:

Asia Regional Higher Education Summit is sponsored by the United States Government through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and co-hosted by the University of Dhaka and the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. This Summit is a follow-up to the Global Higher Education Summit recently held in Washington, DC. The Washington summit was convened by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, and USAID Administrator and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Henrietta Fore. The Summit’s objective was to expand the role and impact of U.S. and foreign higher education institutions in worldwide social and economic development.

It is worth noting that countries representing ‘Asia’ at the Summit include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, the United States and Vietnam.

The US Engages Africa

And this week we see the US Government sponsoring the Africa Regional Higher Education Summit in Kigali, Rwanda. This summit is also, like the US-linked Asia event noted above, a follow-on initiative of the Global Higher Education Summit (29–30 April 2008).

According to the official program, the Africa Regional Higher Education Summit is a three-day event:

that will address innovative approaches to meet the challenges of the higher education community in Africa; to learn from each other by sharing best practices in partnering; and to foster mutually beneficial partnerships initiated before and during the summit. In this regionally focused forum, speakers and participants will discuss how higher education influences human and institutional capacity development, and plays a role in preparing Africa for economic growth and global competitiveness.

The summit is designed to focus on developing partnerships between higher education institutions, foundations and the private sector at the national and regional levels, although consideration will also be given to international and cross-continental levels.

Summit participation will be limited to presidents, chancellors, and rectors representing African and American universities, and foundation and corporate leaders to ensure maximum interaction and sharing of perspectives between and among decision makers and authorized agents. The working sessions and organized breaks will be structured to maximize input and interactions between summit participants.

The summit aims to provide opportunities for participants to:

• Reinforce the goals of the initial Higher Education Summit for Global Development within the context of the African continent for the purpose of moving to concrete actions;
• Raise awareness about and generate interest in the objectives of the first World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Education Alliance (GEA) in Africa and the Global Development Commons (GDC);
• Highlight the importance of higher education in African development;
• Add to the body of knowledge and further the discussion about the link between higher education and development;
• Share successes and generate actual partnerships and alliances with universities, corporations, foundations and non-governmental organizations participating in the summit;
• Generate ideas and recommendations to share with universities, corporations, foundations and non-governmental organizations;
• Generate a progress report on the Africa-U.S. Higher Education Initiative and planning grants.

The open press events are outlined here, while the detailed program is here. See here too for an example of a recently announced EU-Africa higher ed initiative.

‘Soft Power’ and Global Higher Ed

The soft power dimension behind the formation of linkages with regions like Asia and Africa is not always made explicit by Europe nor the USA. Yet two aspects of soft power, as it is sought after, are worth noting in today’s entry.

First, the intertwining of both soft and ‘hard’ power agendas and players is more evident in the case of the USA.  For example Henrietta H. Fore (Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and Administrator, USAID, and pictured below) is speaking at the higher education summit in Africa, as well as at the Pentagon about the establishment of the AFRICOM initiative:

Secretary Gates has spoken powerfully and eloquently on many occasions about the need for the United States to enhance its non-military as well as military instruments of national power in service of our foreign policy objectives. The Department of State and USAID are proud to play their respective primary roles in diplomacy and development.

Thus AFRICOM, which is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, effectively has an Africa-focused global higher ed initiative associated with it (under the control of AFRICOM partner USAID).

Source and photo caption from AFRICOM:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Left to right, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Admiral Mike Mullen; Henrietta H. Fore, administrator of U.S. Agency for International Development and director of U.S. Foreign Assistance; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; flag bearer; General William E. Ward, Commander of U.S. Africa Command; and U.S. Africa Command Sergeant Major Mark S. Ripka stand together after the unfolding of the flag during the U.S. Africa Command Unified Command Activation ceremony in the Pentagon, October 1, 2008. (DoD photo by U.S. Petty Officer 2nd Class Molly A. Burgess)

AFRICOM Photo ID 20081003133444

Clearly the USA and Europe have adopted very different approaches to global higher ed in strategic ‘less developed’ regions vis a vis the links being made to hard power agendas.

Second, many of the US-led initiatives with USAID support are associated with political appointees (e.g., U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings), or leaders of more autonomous stakeholder organizations (e.g., Peter McPherson, President, NASULGC) who are publicly associated with particular political regimes.  In McPherson’s case, it is the Bush/Cheney regime, as profiled in Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone by The Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran. But what happens when elections occur?  Is it a coincidence that the rush of US events is happening a month before the US federal election?  Will these key players regarding Africa (and Asia) be as supported by the new regime that comes to power in early 2009?

Another perspective is that such US initiatives don’t really matter in the end, for the real projectors of soft power are hundreds of autonomous, highly ranked, active, and well-resourced US universities. Last week’s Chronicle of Higher Education, for example, highlighted the latest stage of Cornell’s work in South Asia, while the rush of US universities to establish campuses and programs in the Middle East was done irrespective of people like Spellings, and institutions like USAID (and the US Government more generally). In other words these universities don’t need ministerial talk shops in places like Berlin or DC to open doors and do their stuff. Of course many European universities are just as active as a Cornell, but the structure of European higher education systems is vastly different, and it cannot help but generate a centralizing impulse in the projection of soft power.

As a phenomenon, the actions of key players in global higher ed regarding in developing regional initiatives are well worth illuminating, including by the sponsors and participants themselves. Regions, systems, and international relations are being constructed in a conceptual and programmatic sense. As we know from any history of bilateral and interregional relations, frameworks that help generate a myriad of tangible outcomes are being constructed, and in doing so future development paths, from all perspectives, are being lain down.

Yet it is also important not to read too much into this fora-intensive agenda. We need to reflect upon how geo-strategic visions and agendas are connected to and transformative of the practices of day-to-day life in the targeted regions. How do these visions and agendas make their mark in lecture halls, hiring procedures, curricula, and course content? This is not a development process that unfolds, in a seamless and uni-directional way, and it is important to think about global higher ed players, regional ambitions, and interregional fora at a series of interrelated scales to even begin understanding what is going on.

Kris Olds

Globalizing research: forces, patterns, and collaborative practices

The de-nationalization of research, and the creation of bi-lateral, interregional, and global frameworks for research cooperation, is increasingly becoming an object of desire, discussion, debate, and study.

The overall drive to encourage the de-nationalization of research, and create novel outward-oriented frameworks, has many underlying motives, some framed by scientific logics, and some framed by broader agendas.

Scientific logics include a sense that collaboration across borders generates more innovative research outcomes, higher citation impacts (see, for example, the Evidence Ltd., report below), and enhanced capacity to address ‘global challenges’.

Broader agenda logics include a desire to forge linkages with sites of relatively stronger research capacity and/or funding resources, to create and ideally repatriate expatriate researchers, to boost knowledge economies, to elevate status on the global research landscape, and to engage in scientific diplomacy. On this latter point, and with reference to our 16 June entry ‘Surveying US dominance in science and technology for the Secretary of Defense‘), see last week’s EurActiv profile of the new US Center for Science Diplomacy.

Over the next several months we intend on profiling various aspects of this topic in GlobalHigherEd. The early autumn will see, for example, the emergence of a formal Communication (in EU parlance) that outlines a strategic framework on the “coordination of international science and technology cooperation”. This Communication, and some associated reports, are currently being put together by officials at the Directorate-General for Research (DG Research) in Brussels. Meanwhile, down in Paris, the OECD’s Global Science Forum is sponsoring a variety of initiatives (and associated publications) that seek to “identify and maximise opportunities for international co-operation in basic scientific research” in OECD member countries.

Today’s entry is a very basic one: it simply provides links to some of the most recent reports that outline the nature and/or impact of international cooperation in research and development (R&D).

If any of you have recommendations for additional reports, especially those focused on non US and UK contexts, or fields (especially the humanities and social sciences) often absent from such reports, please let me know <kolds@wisc.edu> and I will add them to the list.

It is worth noting that some reports focus on academic R&D, while others focus on other producers of R&D (primarily the private sector). Both foci are included as focused reports often include broad relevant data, because of the emerging global agenda to bring together universities and the private sector (via the foment of university-industry linkages, for good and for bad), and because we recognize that the proportion of R&D conducted by academics versus the private sector or non-profit labs varies across time and space (e.g., see one proxy measure – academic versus total national output of patents from 2003-2007 within 10+ countries – here).

I/we are very wary that this is but a start in compiling a comprehensive list. The geographies of these reports is hardly global, as well. This said, the globalizing aspects of these uneven research geographies are undoubtedly fascinating, and full of implications for the evolution of research agendas and practices in the future.

2008 Reports

CREST (2008) Facing the Challenges of Globalisation: Approaches to a Proactive International Policy in S&T, Summary Report, Brussels, January.

Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills (2008) International Research Collaboration in UK Higher Education Institutions, DIUS Research Report 08 08, London.

European Commission (2008) Opening to the World: International Cooperation in Science and Technology, Report of the ERA Expert Group, Brussels, July.

Committee on International Collaborations in Social and Behavioral Sciences Research, U.S. National Committee for the International Union of Psychological Science, National Research Council (2008) International Collaborations in Behavioral and Social Sciences Research:  Report of a Workshop, Washington, DC: National Academies.

National Science Board (2008) International Science and Engineering Partnerships: A Priority for U.S. Foreign Policy and Our Nation’s Innovation Enterprise, Washington, DC, February.

National Science Board (2008) Research and Development: Essential Foundation for U.S. Competitiveness in a Global Economy, Arlington, VA (NSB 08-03), January.

National Science Board (2008) National Science and Engineering Indicators 2008, Arlington, VA (NSB 08-01; NSB 08-01A), January

OECD (2008) The Internationalisation of Business R&D: Evidence, Impacts and Implications, Paris: OECD.

Universities UK (2008) International Research Collaboration: Opportunities for the UK Higher Education Sector, Research Report, London, May.

2007 and Earlier Reports

CREST Working Group (2007) Policy Approaches towards S&T Cooperation with Third Countries, Analytical Report, Brussels, December.

European Commission (2007) Europe in the Global Research Landscape, Brussels: European Commission.

Evidence, Ltd. (2007), Patterns of International Collaboration for the UK and Leading Partners, Summary Report, A report commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation, London, June.

OECD (2007) OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard 2007: Innovation and Performance in the Global Economy, Paris: OECD.

UNCTAD (2005) World Investment Report 2005: Transnational Corporations and the Internationalization of R&D, New York and Geneva: United Nations.

Kris Olds

Note: Thanks to Jonathan Adams (Evidence, Ltd.), Mary Kavanagh (European Commission), and Kathryn Sullivan (National Science Foundation) for their advice.

Ministers of Education and fora for thinking beyond the nation

One of the features of the globalization of higher education and research is the bringing together of ministers of education from various countries to think beyond the nation at regional, inter-regional, and global scales, as well as in a comparative sense. Thus we are seeing the nation-state creating internal competencies for statecraft via extra-territorial fora.

This is, of course, nothing new in some ways: ministries of trade and industry, or ministries of immigration, have done this for decades. But this is really the first era when ministers of education have become much more involved in strategizing about how to adjust education systems, especially the higher education and research elements, so as to engage with broader shifts in economy and society.

Here are links to some recent meetings, with associated reports:

• APEC Education Ministerial Meeting (AEMM), 11-12 June 2008
  (pictured above)
• Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Biennale on Education in Africa, 5-9 May 2008
• ASEM Conference of Ministers for Education, 5-6 May 2008
• Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) Council Conference, 13-14 March 2008
• Meeting of Ministers of Education under the auspices of the Inter-American Council on Integral Development of the Organization of American States, 12–14 November 2007
• Bologna Process Ministerial Conference, 17-18 May 2007
• Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM), 11 to 14 December 2006

Let me know if you know of any more that I should include – I am happy to add them to the list above.

Scaling up need not only work at the regional or interregional scale. In Latin America, for example, five higher education ministers from Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Nicaragua, Venezuela signed the Cochabamba Declaration to further ALBA – the “Bolivarian Alternative for the peoples of Our America”, a regional intergration initiative that is anti-capitalist in nature, for the most part.

Or in Canada, the Council of Ministers of Education of Canada (CMEC), made up on all provincial ministers of education (as education, including higher education, is a provincial responsibility), frames its international activities along a variety of other regional, interregional, and multilateral axes:

CMEC’s international activities have traditionally involved three major international organizations, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the Commonwealth. While other partnerships have been formed with the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Education Forum, the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Summit of the Americas process, both OECD and UNESCO, as well as the Commonwealth, continue to play a prominent role.

Assessments of the efficacy of such fora in facilitating new ways of thinking, innovative forms of statecraft, and extended networks of support, are lacking.  Yet it is clear that some, such as the biannual Bologna Process summit (the London 2007 event is pictured to the left), are effective in facilitating action.

In conclusion, we are seeing, via the lens of such fora:

1. Enhanced extra-territorial agendas and networks being built up by ministries that have not traditionally been so interested, nor obligated, in thinking beyond the nation, nor even beyond the province/state scale, in some countries.
2. Meeting agendas and joint concluding statements that are framed around adjusting education systems to mediate and especially advance economic interdependence.
3. Evidence of the enhanced intertwining of higher education with regional and interregional R&D strategies (especially with respect to science and technology).
4. The desire to continue advancing longstanding social and cultural agendas (given the core nation-building function of higher education), though these socio-cultural agendas brush up against economic and international migration dynamics.
5. The inclusion of some associated voices in the ministerial-centred deliberations, and the exclusion, by design or accident, of others that have clearly not started to think beyond the nation. On this point I see the voices of some students (e.g., the European Students’ Union) included, but faculty voices (via associations, unions, etc), are remarkably absent.

In the end, it is uncertain how far these initiatives will go. The addition of new mandates is perhaps to be expected in these globalizing times, but the challenges of thinking beyond the nation for the nation (and the region) is not a simple one to face, conceptually nor organizationally. This said, these are noteworthy events, and well worth engaging with on a number of levels.

Kris Olds

Interregionalism and the globalization of higher education: new Euro-Asia initiatives

One of the interesting aspects of change in higher education systems is how they are being denationalized; reshaped, as it were, by forces and actors that are thinking at, and operating at, scales other than the national. In social science terms (e.g., see the work of Neil Brenner) this is often deemed the “relativization of scale”; the process whereby actors operating at the global scale, the inter-regional (e.g., Europe-Asia) scale, the supranational regional (e.g., European, Asian) scale, the national scale (e.g., Germany), the subnational regional (e.g., Silicon Valley) scale, and the urban scale, all come to play increasingly important roles in shaping a “multiscalar” development process. See, for example, these two recent reports by the European University Association (EUA) and the OECD on higher education for regional development in a globalizing era:

In this case we have a regional stakeholder organization (the EUA), and a multilateral organization (the OECD), both framing development processes simultaneously at the urban, regional, and global scales, with the national scale present, though clearly not dominant. Don’t forget, as well, that the OECD is a creation of member states, and its global thinking is therefore animated by, and mediated by, the nation-state. This is a point Saskia Sassen has insightfully driven home, most recently in Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton University Press, 2006).

On the higher education and research policy front one emerging phenomenon worth taking note of is interregional dialogue. For example there is a now a decade long series of formal Transatlantic Dialogues, anchored by the American Council on Education (ACE), the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), and the European University Association (EUA). These meetings are always framed by ‘global’ thinking, but focus on achieving interregional objectives and enhanced understandings of what is going on on both sides of the Atlantic.

In this context the EUA announced, on 21 February, that it is partnering with the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education (Nuffic), to “establish an EU-Asia Higher Education Platform for European and Asian academics and policy makers”. This initiative is being facilitated by the European Commission’s Asia Link programme. As the EUA puts it, the purpose of the two-year project is to:

• Provide a means for enhancing information exchange, dialogue, and cooperation in higher education and research between the two regions;
• Develop best practices for institutional development and cooperation, and foster mobility of students and academics between the two regions;
• Draw attention to the role and situation of universities in developing countries.

Throughout the course of 2008-9, a series of workshops and round tables in Asia and Europe will be organised, targeting institutional development and cooperation issues. Amongst the themes that are expected to be covered will be higher education governance and management, decentralisation, cooperation in graduate education, and interregional and inter-institutional cooperation in quality assurance.

While this is a complement to other forms of engagement also underway, and it is only targeted at parts of Asia, it is a noteworthy one.

First, and most importantly, there is much to learn in Asia about European developments over the last ten years given that Europe is grappling with the ‘modernization’ of its higher education system at a regional scale, though in a manner that blurs scales of action and intent, and takes into account national sensitivities and differential capacities for statecraft.

Second, it differs from the nature of North America-Asia and Australasia-Asia engagement, both of which tend to be relatively more person to person (e.g., the Australian Scholarships, the Fulbright awards) or event-oriented (e.g., student recruitment fairs, the US University Presidents’ Delegation to Southeast Asia).

In contrast, the EU-Asia Higher Education Platform is a truly post-national/interregional initiative, of a programmatic nature, and with an associated development agenda that focuses on systemic change.

In addition, and tying back to the start of this entry, note the presence of the nation-state in enabling EU-Asia relations to be forged, both directly and indirectly. This initiative is one that will also inevitably be forced to grapple with huge national variations in Asian higher education systems, and the lack of institutional capacity to operate at a regional scale in Asia, with respect to higher education. Yet while nation-states in Asia have not (yet) prioritized the construction of a regional higher education imaginary, it is only a matter of time given the structural forces that are reshaping Asian societies and economies. The complexion of the changes that will eventually emerge, and the nature of the intra-Asia and Asia-Other dialogue(s) facilitating them, have really yet to be determined.

Kris Olds