Students: hitch up to Europe

Editors’ note: Anne Corbett‘s entry below was originally published in Open Democracy (19 January 2011). Our thanks to David Hayes for permission to repost it here.  Anne Corbett’s previous entries in GlobalHigherEd include ‘From the big picture to close ups: in Zagreb and Vienna the week the European Higher Education Area was launched‘ and ‘Fit for purpose’ within ‘Elephants in the room, and all that: more ‘reactions’ to the Bologna Process Leuven Communiqué’. Her views, inspired by the recent student protests across Europe, and in England in particular, contrast in interesting ways with Peter Jones’ 2009 entry ‘Was there a student voice in Leuven?‘.

Kris Olds & Susan Robertson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Must the British student protest, and the wider debate it is inspiring, remain insular? It is curious that while those in other parts of Europe have watched with horrified fascination the fate of the London government`s tuition-fees policy, British students and commentators appear to ignore related events across much of the continent.

This is a pity, for a complex and relevant story is being played out in the Europe of higher education, where many of the issues which provoked students to take to the streets in 2008-10 parallel those now animating their British counterparts: budget cuts, efficiency reforms, new ways of cost-sharing and of managing degrees, tuition-fee rises, privatisation, and selective strategies for excellence. European governments defend all these proposed changes to the university system as responses to a general context of austerity and global competition.

The ensuing protests – in Spain, in Italy and Greece against reform bills, in France (where lecturers were also deeply involved), in Holland, Denmark and Finland against cuts and/or fees, in Austria, Germany and Croatia where curriculum concerns were to the fore – were reported in the media as national events. Yet they share elements that cross national boundaries.

Among these is opposition to the alleged dumbing-down of the content of courses and degrees. For the protesters in these countries, the main culprit is the European Union’s “Bologna process”, a voluntary intergovernmental initiative launched in 1999 designed “to make European higher education more compatible and comparable, more competitive and more attractive for Europeans and for students and scholars from other continents”. The forty-seven signatory countries are committed to introducing the British-American bachelor-masters-doctorate degree structure, thus moving away from the system where a first diploma is awarded only after some original research has been completed. The opponents of this change see “Bologna” is junk – mere spag bol.

European dimensions

But there is another view. The elected student organisations have tended to see potential benefits in the Bologna process, such as lower drop-out rates and more attentive professors. More broadly, their appeal is that they offer a transnational political platform which allows students as well as politicians to show that cooperation can work across cultural and linguistic boundaries – a practice that has survived and developed over Europe’s last four decades, notwithstanding several political changes and occasional tensions with the European commission (see Universities and  the Europe of Knowledge [Palgrave Macmillan, 2005]).

The common “European higher-education area” which is being created under the Bologna rubric has over 4,000 universities and a student population of 30 million. It extends beyond the twenty-seven EU member-states and their immediate neighbours to Russia and Turkey and microstates like Andorra and the Vatican. All are committed both to instituting the tripartite degree system and to respecting common principles on fair recognition of foreign diplomas and quality assurance.

There are inevitable bumps along the way, especially among leading members. For example, England is recognised as having more world-class universities than its European partners, yet also shorter courses and lighter-weight loads on students; this has pushed British representatives to seek to devise measures which reflect learning outcomes rather than the time-inputs and course length.

This sort of adaptation is likely to continue, not least as Bologna is of great interest in regions beyond Europe. Three projects are underway in the United States to reproduce the process’s “accountability loop”; Australia is trying to meet an unexpected European challenge; southeast Asian higher education is looking at parallel forms of coordination; the Indian sector follows Bologna closely.

But in the European Union, Bologna is not the only game in town. A second and to an extent overlapping European dynamic, reflecting the wider Lisbon agenda / Europe 2020 strategy, sees heads of state and government advance the more instrumental view that – especially in times of austerity and global competition – the primary function of universities is to be engines of growth for the European economy (as well as making a large contribution to social stability). The three pillars of this “modernisation” which most concern universities are autonomy, curriculum and funding.

The European commission’s argument is that autonomy will allow universities to adapt their curriculum to a niche market, whether global or local; and to seek out supplementary (read non-state or private) funding. The argument has no legal force but is persuasive in that the commission can disburse incentive funds and wield institutional resources to strengthens links with other areas of policy (research, regional development and EU neighbourhood).

The student role in all this is represented within the Bologna rather than the commission-centred process. The relevant body is the federative European Students’ Union (ESU, formerly ESIB), whose elected executive has since 2001 been a consultative member of the Bologna process, alongside (for example) the European University Association and the Council of Europe. The ESU’s consistency and good preparation have made it more effective than many national delegations.

Its achievements include (as early as 2001) making clear that ministers and their officials were giving priority to process rather than values, and thus ensuring a commitment to the principle of higher education as a public good; resisting the potential inclusion of higher education within the General Agreement on Trade and Services (Gats); getting access and equity issues onto the Bologna agenda; and, in spring 2010, persuading ministers for the first time to recognise the concerns of protesting students.

The transnational challenge

But so far, an important element is missing from the “Europe of higher education”: a vision to inspire. At two other big moments in European university history, the creation of a Magna Charta for universities (1988) and the founding of the Bologna process (1998-99), some voices were able to transcend national boundaries and make the case that the work of universities and the interests of those within them (and society at large) would be better served by anchoring them more firmly to a European as well as a national dimension.

This might be about to change, in great part thanks to the former Dutch minister of education and current president of Maastricht University, Jo Ritzen. In June 2010, he published a book with the alluring title A Chance for European Universities (Amsterdam University Press). This unusual work combines far-sighted optimism with a collaborative approach that made its preparation an open process (a pre-publication version was available on the web). A manifesto alongside the finalised version was signed by some of the most active higher-education ministers of the Bologna decade, including Tessa Blackstone (a founder of the process, and now vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich) and several policy experts (as one of the latter I declare an interest).

Jo Ritzen’s activities have two main themes. First, and contrary to Europe’s dominant discourse in both the commission and economic think-tanks, that universities are about much more than providing for a global market; to recover some of their past glory, they have to be cherished and empowered as institutions. Second, that Europe is a “shining example” of reducing political costs at the national level, and thus a way of breaking domestic deadlocks.

Ritzen’s book may present students in rather administrative terms (index references are to grants, migration, mobility and student numbers), but he clearly wants to open a Europe-wide debate on the politics of higher education in which the more participants and the greater diversity of views the better. He is the sort of advocate who helps to push an issue along, and his ambition of being elected to the European parliament may increase his visibility further.

The European context of university reform and student protest suggests that some British students at least should consider going comparative and transnational to get this dimension into domestic debate – whether through the European Students’ Union or other sources. Two issues in particular cry out for some cross-national input: how other systems balance the private and public interest, not just on tuition-fees and loans but through tax and wealth-distribution policies; and (crucial for English universities) how to counter the government’s proposed treatment of arts and humanities as a matter of customer choice rather than intrinsic to the function of a university.

Can universities still be called the greatest creation of the European mind? I suggest that British students can help determine the answer.

Anne Corbett

The Global Bologna Policy Forum: a forum for the emerging global higher education and research space?

As our readers likely know, the Bologna Process was launched in 1999 with the objective of constructing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 2010.  One increasingly important aspect of the evolution of the Bologna Process is its ‘external’ (aka ‘global’) dimension.  To cut a long story short, deliberations about the place of the EHEA within its global context have been underway since the Bologna Process was itself launched in 1999. But, as noted in one of our earlier 2007 entries (‘The ripple effects of the Bologna Process in the Asia-Pacific‘), the formalization of an external dimension to the Bologna Process was not spurred on until May 2005 when the Bergen Communiqué included the following statement:

The European Higher Education Area must be open and should be attractive to other parts of the world. Our contribution to achieving education for all should be based on the principle of sustainable development and be in accordance with the ongoing international work on developing guidelines for quality provision of crossborder higher education. We reiterate that in international academic cooperation, academic values should prevail.

We see the European Higher Education Area as a partner of higher education systems in other regions of the world, stimulating balanced student and staff exchange and cooperation between higher education institutions. We underline the importance of intercultural understanding and respect. We look forward to enhancing the understanding of the Bologna Process in other continents by sharing our experiences of reform processes with neighbouring regions. We stress the need for dialogue on issues of mutual interest. We see the need to identify partner regions and intensify the exchange of ideas and experiences with those regions.

The Bergen Communiqué led to the development of a more formal 2007 strategy document titled Looking Out: The Bologna Process in Global Setting: On the External Dimension of the Bologna Process and this associated strategy document European Higher Education in a Global Setting. A Strategy for the External Dimension of the Bologna Process, which was approved by the ministers in 2007. It was this strategy document that led to the delineation of five “core policy areas”:

• Improving information on the European Higher Education Area;
• Promoting European Higher Education to enhance its world-wide attractiveness and competitiveness;
• Strengthening cooperation based on partnership;
• Intensifying policy dialogue;
• Furthering recognition of qualifications.

Further background information, including all supporting documents, is available on this Bologna Process Follow-up Group website (European Higher Education in a Global Context) which the Bologna Secretariat sponsors.

Since 2007 we have seen a variety of activities come together to ensure that the fourth action item (“intensifying policy dialogue”) be implemented, though in a manner that cross-supports all of the other action items.  One key activity was the creation of a “policy forum” with select non-EHEA countries: see the figure below (with my emphasis) taken from the just issued EURYDICE report Focus on Higher Education in Europe 2010: The Impact of the Bologna Process to see where the inaugural 2009 forum, and its 2010 follow-up, fit within the overall Bologna Process timeline:

The First Bologna Policy Forum was held in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, on 29 April 2009, and brought together all 46 Bologna ministers in association with “Australia, Brazil, Canada, P.R. China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Tunisia, and the U.S., as well as the International Association of Universities.”

Representatives of the First Bologna forum sanctioned the following statement:

Statement by the Bologna Policy Forum 2009

Meeting, for the first time, at this Bologna Policy Forum held in Louvain-la-Neuve on April 29, 2009, we, the Ministers for Higher Education, heads of delegation from the 46 European countries participating in the Bologna Process and from Australia, Brazil, Canada, P.R. China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Tunisia, USA, along with the International Association of Universities and other international organizations and NGOs, have taken part in a constructive debate on world wide cooperation and partnership in higher education with a view to developing partnership between the 46 Bologna countries and countries from across the world.

We note, with satisfaction, that this Policy Forum has fostered mutual understanding and learning in the field of higher education, and has laid the ground for sustainable cooperation in the future.

We also note that there are shared values and principles underpinning higher education and a common understanding that it is fundamental to achieving human, social and economic development.

We consider that higher education constitutes an exceptionally rich and diverse cultural and scientific asset for both individuals and society.

We emphasize the key role that higher education plays in the development of our societies based on lifelong learning for all and equitable access at all levels of society to learning opportunities.

We underline the importance of public investment in higher education, and urge that this should remain a priority despite the current economic crisis, in order to support sustainable economic recovery and development.

We support the strategic role of higher education in the pursuit and advancement of knowledge and therefore advocate global sharing of knowledge through multi-national research and education projects and exchange programs for students and staff, in order to stimulate innovation and creativity.

We are convinced that fair recognition of studies and qualifications is a key element for promoting mobility and we will therefore establish dialogue on recognition policies and explore the implications of the various qualifications frameworks in order to further mutual recognition of qualifications.

We hold that transnational exchanges in higher education should be governed on the basis of academic values and we advocate a balanced exchange of teachers, researchers and students between our countries and promote fair and fruitful “brain circulation”.

We seek to establish concrete cooperation activities which should contribute to better understanding and long-term collaboration by organizing joint seminars on specific topics, like on quality assurance for example.

The next Bologna Policy Forum will be convened in Vienna on 12 March 2010.

Clearly the pros/benefits of sponsoring this rather complex event were perceived to be significant and the Second Bologna Policy Forum (sometimes deemed the Global Bologna Policy Forum) was held yesterday, on 12 March, at the end of the Bologna Ministerial Anniversary Conference 2010.

The Bologna Policy Forum has grown in size in that 73 countries attended the 12 March forum including the 46 EHEA countries as well as Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ghana, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan [invited to join the EHEA in 2010], Malaysia, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia, and the United States of America. In addition the following organizations sent representatives to the second forum: BUSINESSEUROPE, Council of Europe, Education International Pan-European Structure (EI), European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA), European Association of Institutions in Higher Education (EURASHE), European Commission, European Students’ Union (ESU), European University Association (EUA), International Association of Universities (IAU), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

It is interesting to compare the second official Forum Statement to the one above:

Bologna Policy Forum Statement, Vienna, March 12, 2010

1. Today, the European Higher Education Area has officially been launched. In this context, we note that the Bologna Process of creating and further developing this European Higher Education Area has helped redefine higher education in Europe. Countries outside the area will now be able to more effectively foster increased cooperation with Bologna countries.

2. We, the Ministers of Higher Education and heads of delegation of the countries, institutions and organisations participating in the Second Bologna Policy Forum, held a dialogue on systemic and institutional changes in higher education in the developing global knowledge society.

3. We focussed our debate on how higher education systems and institutions respond to growing demands and multiple expectations, discussed mobility of staff and students, including the challenges and opportunities of “brain circulation”, and the balance between cooperation and competition in international higher education.

4. To address the great societal challenges, we need more cooperation among the higher education and research systems of the different world regions. While respecting the autonomy of higher education institutions with their diverse missions, we will therefore continue our dialogue and engage in building a community of practice from which all may draw inspiration and to which all can contribute.

5. To facilitate policy debates and exchange of ideas and experience across the European Higher Education Area and between countries, institutions and organisations participating in the Second Bologna Policy Forum, we will each nominate a contact person and inform the Bologna Secretariat by May 31, 2010. These contact persons will also function as liaison points for a better flow of information and joint activities, including the preparation of the next Bologna Policy Forum at ministerial level.

6. We welcome the commitment of the European Bologna Follow-up Group to provide expertise on the Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area.

7. We welcome the initiatives of the institutions and organisations participating in the Second Bologna Policy Forum to promote dialogue and cooperation among higher educations institutions, staff and students and other relevant stakeholders across the world. In this context, we especially acknowledge the need to foster global student dialogue.

8. In September 2010 the OECD will be hosting an international conference on how the crisis is affecting higher education and how governments, institutions and other stakeholders can work towards a sustainable future for the sector. In 2011, a seminar on quality assurance will be organised with the support of the European Union.

9. Cooperation based on partnership between governments, higher education institutions, staff, students and other stakeholders is at the core of the European Higher Education Area. This partnership approach should therefore also be reflected in the organisation of the next Bologna Policy Forum at ministerial level in 2012.

It is too early to determine how effective the [Global] Bologna Policy Forum will be, and some bugs (e.g., the uncertain role of national research sector actors; the uncertain role of sub-national actors in countries (e.g., Canada, Germany, the US) where provinces/states/regions have principal jurisdiction over higher education matters; the incredible diversity of agendas and capabilities of non-EHEA countries vis a vis the forum) will eventually have to be worked out.

This said, it is evident that this forum is serving some important purposes, especially given that there is a genuine longing to engage in supra-national dialogue about policy challenges regarding the globalization of higher education and research. The blossoming of ‘global’ fora sponsored by international organizations (e.g., the OECD, UNESCO), new ‘players (e.g., Qatar Foundation’s World Innovation Summit for Education), key associations of universities (e.g., the International Association of Universities, the European University Association), and universities themselves (e.g., via consortia like the Worldwide Universities Network or the Global Colloquium of University Presidents), are signs that something is up, and that a global higher education and research space is in the process of being constructed.

Over time, of course, the topography of this supra-national landscape of regional, interregional and global fora will evolve, as will the broader topography of the global higher education and research space.  In this context it is critically important to pay attention to how this space is being framed and constructed, for what purposes, and with what possible effects. Moreover, from an organizational perspective, there is no template to follow and much learning is underway. The organization of modernity, to use John Law’s phrase, is underway.

Kris Olds

Celebrating, protesting and reflecting about the 10th anniversary of the launch of the Bologna Process

Deliberations and background documentation are blossoming this week given that the Bologna Ministerial Anniversary Conference 2010 will be held 11-12 March in Budapest and Vienna, and the Second Global Bologna Policy Forum will be held on 12 March in Vienna. As most of our readers know, the Bologna Process was launched in 1999 with the objective of constructing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by 2010.

For those of you interested in the nature of the transformation of the European higher education system over the last 10 years, link here to access a series of informative reports about the evolution and impact of the Bologna Process. Three of these reports were recently flagged via our GlobalHigherEd Twitter service this way:

• An Account Of Ten Years Of European Higher Education Reform. New report (PDF) by European Students’ Union: http://bit.ly/ay7gXL
• Trends 2010: A decade of change in European Higher Education (new report by European University Association): http://bit.ly/aTMVdK
• New European Commission report focusing on the state of European higher education after a decade of major reforms: http://bit.ly/alIaiy

Some associated media releases (e.g., see the EUA’s ‘A decade of the Bologna Process: Major new EUA report underlines impact of Bologna reforms on Europe’s universities‘) and videos (e.g., see the European Commission’s technical briefing video) have also been rolling out this week:

An anti-Bologna Process movement (Bologna Burns) is also planning a series of demonstrations and alternative meetings between 11-14 March:

In closing, it is worth reminding readers that non-Bologna Process stakeholders are also watching these debates with considerable interest. Why? Because the Bologna Process has concurrently unleashed a series of significant debates and transformations at a range of national (e.g., Australia, US), regional (e.g., African, Southeast Asian) and interregional (e.g., Latin America-Europe; Asia-Europe) scales; a point Pavel Zgaga (one of the 1999 ‘anniversary’ signatories on behalf of Slovenia) made last May in his entry ‘Bologna: beyond 2010 and over the Ocean – but where to? On new Bologna reports and C. Adelman’s last essay‘.

More broadly, then, the emerging global higher education and research space will be impacted by the outcome of deliberations about the future of the EHEA, as well as the linked European Research Area (ERA). It is for this reason that we all need to pay attention to the celebrations, protests and reflections underway in Budapest and Vienna. If the last decade is a benchmark, then the next decade will be associated with further changes, new interregional alignments, and a myriad of expected and unexpected impacts.

Kris Olds

Europe 2020: what are the implications of Europe’s new economic strategy for global higher ed & research?

This week marks the launch of the EU’s EUROPE 2020: A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. As noted in EurActiv (‘Brussels unveils 2020 economic roadmap for Europe‘) on 3 March:

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, called ‘Europe 2020’, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010”. The new agenda puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

The European Commission’s plan includes a variety of agenda items (framed as thematic priorities and targets) that arguably have significant implications for European higher education and research. Furthermore several of the plan’s Flagship Initiatives (“Innovation Union”; “Youth on the Move”; “A Digital Agenda for Europe”; “An industrial policy for the globalisation era”; “An Agenda for new skills and jobs”) also have implications for how the EU frames and implements its agenda regarding the global dimensions of both the European Research Area (ERA) and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). For example, Flagship initiative: “Youth on the move” (p. 11) includes the following statement:

The aim is to enhance the performance and international attractiveness of Europe’s higher education institutions and raise the overall quality of all levels of education and training in the EU, combining both excellence and equity, by promoting student mobility and trainees’ mobility, and improve the employment situation of young people.

At EU level, the Commission will work:
– To integrate and enhance the EU’s mobility, university and researchers’ programmes (such as Erasmus, Erasmus Mundus, Tempus and Marie Curie) and link them up with national programmes and resources;
– To step up the modernisation agenda of higher education (curricula, governance and financing) including by benchmarking university performance and educational outcomes in a global context.

Please see below for a summary of some of the key elements of EUROPE 2020: A European strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as well as a YouTube video of José Manuel Barroso’s launch of the plan at a media event in Brussels:

See here for the EU’s Press pack: Europe 2020 – a new economic strategy. EurActiv also has a useful LinksDossier (‘Europe 2020’: Green growth and jobs?) for those of you seeking a concise summary of the build-up to the new 2020 plan.

It is also worth noting that EU member states, and as well as non-governmental organizations, are attempting to push their own innovation agendas in the light of the 2020 economic roadmap for Europe. Link here, for example, to a Lisbon Council e-brief (Wikinomics and the Era of Openness: European Innovation at a Crossroads) that is being released today in Brussels. European Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn also spoke at the same event.

The ‘innovation’ agenda and discourse is deeply intertwined with higher education and research policy in Europe at the moment. While the outcome of this agenda has yet to be determined, supporters and critics alike are being forced to engage with this amorphous concept; a 21st century ‘keyword’ notably absent from Raymond Williams’ classic text Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society.

Kris Olds

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

TUNING USA: Echoes and translations of the Bologna Process in the US higher education landscape

As noted in two earlier GlobalHigherEd entries (‘Bologna: beyond 2010 and over the Ocean – but where to? On new Bologna reports and C. Adelman’s last essay‘ by Pavel Zgaga; ‘Tuning USA’: reforming higher education in the US, Europe style‘ by Susan Robertson) the US-based Lumina Foundation is sponsoring an action-oriented project (TUNING USA) on the relevancy of Europe’s Tuning process for the US higher education system. Lumina is working in association with the states of Indiana, Minnesota, and Utah.

As noted on the key Tuning website (run by Bologna Process follow-up group members at Universidad de Deusto and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen but sponsored by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture):

TUNING Educational Structures in Europe started in 2000 as a project to link the political objectives of the Bologna Process and at a later stage the Lisbon Strategy to the higher educational sector. Over time Tuning has developed into a Process, an approach to (re-)designing, develop, implement, evaluate and enhance quality first, second and third cycle degree programmes. The Tuning outcomes as well as its tools are presented in a range of Tuning publications, which institutions and their academics are invited to test and use in their own setting. The Tuning approach has been developed by and is meant for higher education institutions.

The protection of the rich diversity of European education has been paramount in Tuning and in no way seeks to restrict the independence of academic and subject specialists, or undermine local and national authority.

Tuning focuses not on educational systems, but on educational structures with emphasis on the subject area level, that is the content of studies. Whereas educational systems are primarily the responsibility of governments, educational structures and content are that of higher education institutions and their academic staff.

As a result of the Bologna Process the educational systems in all European countries are in the process of reforming. This is the direct effect of the political decision to converge the different national systems in Europe. For Higher Education institutions these reforms mean the actual starting point for another discussion: the comparability of curricula in terms of structures, programmes and actual teaching. This is what Tuning offers. In this reform process the required academic and professional profiles and needs of society (should) play an important role.

The Tuning process is a fascinating lens through which to examine multiple dimensions of global regionalisms (including interregionalism) and the transformation of higher education. It is through ‘echoes’ like TUNING USA that the process unfolds in all its complexity. One component of this is the translation process, with new translations of the Tuning process emerging (e.g., see Anne Corbett’s take on this in ‘A European view of the new Adelman report on the Bologna Process‘). As Corbett notes, and as is evident in European policy debates, these translations feed back across the Atlantic to key centres of calculation (especially Brussels), helping to legitimize the Bologna process, while also generating ideas for its refinement. The feedback process is occurring via workshops on both sides of the Atlantic, the circulation of reports, international collaborative research projects, and also the consumption of complementary forms of communication including this illuminating 10 minute video titled Tuning: A Tale of Adventures in Learning (link to it via the title in my sentence, not the screengrab below):

In this context it is worth thinking about how the Lumina Foundation has translated Europe’s Tuning process, and how this “Indianapolis-based, private, independent foundation” is pushing forward its US-focused reform agenda through the use of Tuning, though adapted (hence the state-based pilot projects) to take into account the unique nature of the US higher education landscape.

The “echoes” noted in the Zgaga report (Looking out: The Bologna Process in a Global Setting) continue apace, making any examination of Bologna’s field of influence and relations a rather complicated yet entirely worthwhile endeavor.

Kris Olds

 

CHERPA-network based in Europe wins tender to develop alternative global ranking of universities

Finally the decision on who has won the European Commission’s million euro tender – to develop and test a  global ranking of universities – has been announced.

The successful bid – the CHERPA network (or the Consortium for Higher Education and Research Performance Assessment), is charged with developing a ranking system to overcome what is regarded by the European Commission as the limitations of the Shanghai Jiao Tong and the QS-Times Higher Education schemes. The  final product is to be launched in 2011.

CHERPA is comprised of a consortium of leading institutions in the field within Europe; all have been developing and offering rather different approaches to ranking over the past few years (see our earlier stories here, here and  here for some of the potential contenders):

• CHE – Centre for Higher Education Development (Gütersloh, Germany)
• Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the University of Twente (Netherlands)
• Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University (Netherlands)
• Research division INCENTIM at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium)
• Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques (OST) in Paris
• European Federation of National Engineering Associations (FEANI)
• European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD)
  

Will this new European Commission driven initiative set the proverbial European cat amongst the Transatlantic alliance pigeons? 

As we have noted in earlier commentary on university rankings, the different approaches tip the rankings playing field in the direction of different interests. Much to the chagrin of the continental Europeans, the high status US universities do well on the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Ranking, whilst Britain’s QS-Times Higher Education tends to see UK universities feature more prominently.

CHERPA will develop a design that follows the so called ‘Berlin Principles on the ranking of higher education institutions‘. These principles stress the need to take into account the linguistic, cultural and historical contexts of the educational systems into account [this fact is something of an irony for those watchers following UK higher education developments last week following a Cabinet reshuffle – where reference to ‘universities’ in the departmental name was dropped.  The two year old Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills has now been abandoned in favor of a mega-Department for Business, Innovation and Skills! (read more here)].

According to one of the Consortium members website –  CHE:

The basic approach underlying the project is to compare only institutions which are similar and comparable in terms of their missions and structures. Therefore the project is closely linked to the idea of a European classification (“mapping”) of higher education institutions developed by CHEPS. The feasibility study will include focused rankings on particular aspects of higher education at the institutional level (e.g., internationalization and regional engagement) on the one hand, and two field-based rankings for business and engineering programmes on the other hand.

The field-based rankings will each focus on a particular type of institution and will develop and test a set of indicators appropriate to these institutions. The rankings will be multi-dimensional and will – like the CHE ranking – use a grouping approach rather than simplistic league tables. In contrast to existing global rankings, the design will compare not only the research performance of institutions but will include teaching & learning as well as other aspects of university performance.

The different rankings will be targeted at different stakeholders: They will support decision-making in universities and especially better informed study decisions by students. Rankings that create transparency for prospective students should promote access to higher education.

The University World News, in their report out today on the announcement, notes:

Testing will take place next year and must include a representative sample of at least 150 institutions with different missions in and outside Europe. At least six institutions should be drawn from the six large EU member states, one to three from the other 21, plus 25 institutions in North America, 25 in Asia and three in Australia.

There are multiple logics and politics at play here. On the one hand, a European ranking system may well give the European Commission more HE  governance capacity across Europe, strengthening its steering over national systems in areas like ‘internationalization’ and ‘regional engagement’ – two key areas that have been identified for work to be undertaken by CHERPA.

On the other hand, this new European ranking  system — when realized — might also appeal to countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia who currently do not feature in any significant way in the two dominant systems. Like the Bologna Process, the CHERPA ranking system might well find itself generating ‘echoes’ around the globe.

Or, will regions around the world prefer to develop and promote their own niche ranking systems, elements of which were evident in the QS.com Asia ranking that was recently launched.  Whatever the outcome, as we have observed before, there is a thickening industry with profits to be had on this aspect of the emerging global higher education landscape.

Susan Robertson

Mapping out Europe’s progress towards a knowledge-based economy

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research has just published an informative and data-laden report titled Science, Technology and Competitiveness Key Figures Report 2008/2009. As the press release notes, the main findings are:

1. Research is a key competitive asset in a globalised world.

Major S&T players have emerged, notably in Asia. Knowledge is more and more evenly distributed with the EU now accounting for a share of less than 25%. The ERA must become more attractive, open and competitive on the global scene.

2. The overall EU R&D intensity is stagnating but this hides diversity at the national level.

All EU Member States have increased their expenditure in R&D from 2000 to 2006, which shows their commitment to the Lisbon strategy. However, GDP experienced the same rate of growth over the period, which meant that R&D intensity stayed at around 1.84% since 2005. Between 2000 and 2006, 17 Member States, mainly those which are catching up, have increased their R&D intensity, but 10, representing 47% of EU GDP, have seen their R&D intensities decrease. Japan has increased its R&D intensity from 3.04% to 3.39%, Korea from 2.39% to 3.23% and China is catching up fast, going from 0.90% to 1.42%.

3. Private Sector Investment intensity still too low.

The main reason for the R&D intensity gap between the EU and its competitors is the difference in business sector R&D financing, which decreased in the EU from 2000 to 2005 while it increased substantially in the US, Japan and China. This is mostly due to the smaller size of the research-intensive high-tech industry in the EU. Building the knowledge intensive economy requires structural changes towards higher R&D intensities within sectors and a greater share of high-tech sectors in the EU economy. This requires framework conditions that favour the development of fast-growing high-tech SMEs, the development of innovation-friendly markets in Europe and cheaper access to EU-wide patenting.

4. Excellence in research: a growing pool of researchers a still lower capacity of knowledge exploitation than competitors.

The number of researchers has grown twice as fast in the EU as in the US and Japan since 2000, even if the share of researchers in the labour force is still lower. As regards impact of research, the EU still ranks as the world’s largest producer of scientific knowledge (measured by publications), but contributes less than the US to high impact publications.

5. An increased attractiveness to foreign investments and S&T professionals.

The EU has been attracting a growing share of private R&D investments from the US despite the rise of Asia as a new R&D location. In 2005, US affiliates made 62.5% of their R&D investments in the EU and only 3.3% in China. It has also been attracting a growing number of S&T professionals from third countries.

This 169 page report is a multi-scalar mapping of sorts; a distillation of the agendas and impacts associated with efforts to (a) integrate the European Research Area (ERA), while also (b) deepening collaborative relations with select geographies of the global research landscape. As some sample figures from the ‘international’ section of the report indicate, this is indeed a very uneven global research landscape on a number of axes, yet a fast changing one too.

Science, Technology and Competitiveness Key Figures Report 2008/2009 should be read in association with Europe’s new (2008) Strategic Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation, as well as the very important Council ‘Conclusions concerning a European partnership for international scientific and technological cooperation‘ (2 December 2008).

In addition, please recall our 4 August 2008 entry (‘Globalizing research: forces, patterns, and collaborative practices‘), which also refers to some related research reports.

We’ll be returning to the topic of the global dimensions of the ERA over the next few months, and we’re also planning a series of entries related to regionalism, interregionalism, and the complex relationship between higher education and research.

Kris Olds

European ambitions: towards a ‘multi-dimensional global university ranking’

Further to our recent entries on European reactions and activities in relationship to global rankings schemes:

• International university rankings, classifications & mappings – a view from the European University Association
• The global obsession with rankings: how should Ireland respond?
• Multi-scalar governance technologies vs recurring revenue: the dual logics of the rankings phenomenon
• ‘University Systems Ranking (USR)’: an alternative ranking framework from EU think-tank
• Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings (2008): a niche industry in formation?
• Euro angsts, insights and actions regarding global university ranking schemes

and a forthcoming guest contribution to SHIFTmag: Europe Talks to Brussels, ranking(s) watchers should examine this new tender for a €1,100,000 (maximum) contract for the ‘Design and testing the feasibility of a Multi-dimensional Global University Ranking’, to be completed by 2011.

The Terms of Reference, which hs been issued by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Education and Culture, is particularly insightful, while this summary conveys the broad objectives of the initiative:

The new ranking to be designed and tested would aim to make it possible to compare and benchmark similar institutions within and outside the EU, both at the level of the institution as a whole and focusing on different study fields. This would help institutions to better position themselves and improve their development strategies, quality and performances. Accessible, transparent and comparable information will make it easier for stakeholders and, in particular, students to make informed choices between the different institutions and their programmes. Many existing rankings do not fulfil this purpose because they only focus on certain aspects of research and on entire institutions, rather than on individual programmes and disciplines. The project will cover all types of universities and other higher education institutions as well as research institutes.

The funding is derived out of the Lifelong Learning policy and program stream of the Commission.

Thus we see a shift, in Europe, towards the implementation of an alternative scheme to the two main global ranking schemes, supported by substantial state resources at a regional level. It will be interesting to see how this eventual scheme complements and/or overturns the other global ranking schemes that are products of media outlets, private firms, and Chinese universities.

Kris Olds

Multi-scalar governance technologies vs recurring revenue: the dual logics of the rankings phenomenon

Our most recent entry (‘University Systems Ranking (USR)’: an alternative ranking framework from EU think-tank‘) is getting heavy traffic these days, a sign that the rankings phenomenon just won’t go away.  Indeed there is every sign that debates about rankings will be heating up over the next 1-2 year in particular, courtesy of the desire of stakeholders to better understand rankings, generate ‘recurring revenue’ off of rankings, and provide new governance technologies to restructure higher education and research systems.

This said I continue to be struck, as I travel to selective parts of the world for work, by the diversity of scalar emphases at play.

In France, for example, the broad discourse about rankings elevates the importance of the national (i.e., French) and regional (i.e., European) scales, and only then does the university scale (which I will refer to as the institutional scale in this entry) come into play in importance terms. This situation reflects the strong role of the national state in governing and funding France’s higher education system, and France’s role in European development debates (including, at the moment, presidency of the Council of the European Union).

In UK it is the disciplinary/field and then the institutional scales that matter most, with the institutional made up of a long list of ranked disciplines/fields. Once the new Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) comes out in late 2008 we will see the institutional assess the position of each of their disciplines/fields, which will then lead to more support or relatively rapid allocation of the hatchet at the disciplinary/field level. This is in part because much national government funding (via the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) and the Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland (DEL)) to each university is structurally dependent upon the relative rankings of each university’s position in the RAE, which is the aggregate effect of the position of the array of fields/disciplines in any one university (see this list from the University of Manchester for an example). The UK is, of course, concerned about its relative place in the two main global ranking schemes, but it doing well at the moment so the scale of concern is of a lower order than most other countries (including all other European countries). Credit rating agencies also assess and factor in rankings with respect to UK universities (e.g. see ‘Passing judgment’: the role of credit rating agencies in the global governance of UK universities‘).

In the US – supposedly the most marketized of contexts – there is highly variably concern with rankings.  Disciplines/fields ranked by media outlets like U.S. News & World Report are concerned, to be sure, but U.S. News & World Report does not allocate funding. Even the National Research Council (NRC) rankings matter less in the USA given that its effects (assuming it eventually comes out following multiple delays) are more diffuse. The NRC rankings are taken note of by deans and other senior administrators, and also faculty, albeit selectively. Again, there is no higher education system in the US – there are systems. I’ve worked in Singapore, England and the US as a faculty member and the US is by far the least addled or concerned by ranking systems, for good and for bad.

While the diversity of ranking dispositions at the national and institutional levels is heterogeneous in nature, the global rankings landscape is continuing to change, and quickly. In the remainder of this entry we’ll profile but two dimensions of the changes.

Anglo-American media networks and recurrent revenue

First, new key media networks, largely Anglo-American private sector networks, have become intertwined.  As Inside Higher Ed put it on 24 November:

U.S. News & World Report on Friday announced a new, worldwide set of university rankings — which is really a repackaging of the international rankings produced this year in the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. In some cases, U.S. News is arranging the rankings in different ways, but Robert Morse, director of rankings at the magazine, said that all data and the methodology were straight from the Times Higher’s rankings project, which is affiliated with the British publication about higher education. Asked if his magazine was just paying for reprint rights, Morse declined to discuss financial arrangements. But he said that it made sense for the magazine to look beyond the United States. “There is worldwide competition for the best faculty, best students and best research grants and researchers,” he said. He also said that, in the future, U.S. News may be involved in the methodology. Lloyd Thacker, founder of the Education Conservancy and a leading critic of U.S. News rankings, said of the magazine’s latest project: “The expansion of a business model that has profited at the expense of education is not surprising. This could challenge leaders to distinguish American higher education by providing better indicators of quality and by helping us think beyond ranking.”

This is an unexpected initiative, in some ways, given that the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings are already available on line and US New and World Report is simply repackaging these for sale in the American market. Yet if you adopt a market-making perspective this joint venture makes perfect sense. Annual versions of the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings will be reprinted in a familiar (to US readers) format, thereby enabling London-based TSL Education Ltd., London/Paris/Singapore-based QS Quacquarelli Symonds, and Washington DC-based U.S. News and World Report to generate recurring revenue with little new effort (apart from repackaging and distribution in the US). The enabling mechanism is, in this case, reprint rights fees. As we have noted before, this is a niche industry in formation, indeed.

More European angst and action

And second, at the regional level, European angst (an issue we profiled on 6 July in ‘Euro angsts, insights and actions regarding global university ranking schemes‘) about the nature and impact of rankings is leading to the production of critical reports on rankings methodologies, the sponsorship of high powered multi-stakeholder workshops, and the emergence of new proposals for European ranking schemes.

See, for example, this newly released report on rankings titled Higher Education Rankings: Robustness Issues and Critical Assessment, which is published by the European Commission Joint Research Centre, Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen, Centre for Research on Lifelong Learning (CRELL)

The press release is here, and a detailed abstract of the report is below:

The Academic Ranking of World Universities carried out annually by the Shanghai’s Jiao Tong University (mostly known as the ‘Shanghai ranking’) has become, beyond the intention of its developers, a reference for scholars and policy makers in the field of higher education. For example Aghion and co-workers at the Bruegel think tank use the index – together with other data collected by Bruegel researchers – for analysis of how to reform Europe’s universities, while French President Sarkozy has stressed the need for French universities to consolidate in order to promote their ranking under Jiao Tong. Given the political importance of this field the preparation of a new university ranking system is being considered by the French ministry of education.

The questions addressed in the present analysis is whether the Jiao Tong ranking serves the purposes it is used for, and whether its immediate European alternative, the British THES, can do better.

Robustness analysis of the Jiao Tong and THES ranking carried out by JRC researchers, and of an ad hoc created Jiao Tong-THES hybrid, shows that both measures fail when it comes to assessing Europe’s universities. Jiao Tong is only robust in the identification of the top performers, on either side of the Atlantic, but quite unreliable on the ordering of all other institutes. Furthermore Jiao Tong focuses only on the research performance of universities, and hence is based on the strong assumption that research is a universal proxy for education. THES is a step in the right direction in that it includes some measure of education quality, but is otherwise fragile in its ranking, undeniably biased towards British institutes and somehow inconsistent in the relation between subjective variables (from surveys) and objective data (e.g. citations).

JRC analysis is based on 88 universities for which both the THES and Jiao Tong rank were available. European universities covered by the present study thus constitute only about 0.5% of the population of Europe’s universities. Yet the fact that we are unable to reliably rank even the best European universities (apart from the 5 at the top) is a strong call for a better system, whose need is made acute by today’s policy focus on the reform of higher education. For most European students, teachers or researchers not even the Shanghai ranking – taken at face value and leaving aside the reservations raised in the present study – would tell which university is best in their own country. This is a problem for Europe, committed to make its education more comparable, its students more mobile and its researchers part of a European Research Area.

Various attempts in EU countries to address the issue of assessing higher education performance are briefly reviewed in the present study, which offers elements of analysis of which measurement problem could be addressed at the EU scale. [my emphasis]

While ostensibly “European”, does it really matter that the Times Higher Education-QS World University Ranking is produced by firms with European headquarters, while the Jiao Tong ranking is produced by an institution based in China?

The divergent logics underlying the production of discourses about rankings are also clearly visible in two related statements. At the bottom of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre report summarized above we see “Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged”, while the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, a market-making discourse, is accompanied by a lengthy copyright warning that can be viewed here.

Yet do not, for a minute, think that ‘Europe’ does not want to be ranked, or use rankings, as much if not more than any Asian or American or Australian institution. At a disciplinary/field level, for example, debates are quickly unfolding about the European Reference Index for the Humanities (ERIH), a European Science Foundation (ESF) backed initiative that has its origins in deliberations about the role of the humanities in the European Research Area. The ESF frames it this way:

Humanities research in Europe is multifaceted and rich in lively national, linguistic and intellectual traditions. Much of Europe’s Humanities scholarship is known to be first rate. However, there are specifities of Humanities research, that can make it difficult to assess and compare with other sciences. Also,  it is not possible to accurately apply to the Humanities assessment tools used to evaluate other types of research. As the transnational mobility of researchers continues to increase, so too does the transdisciplinarity of contemporary science. Humanities researchers must position themselves in changing international contexts and need a tool that offers benchmarking. This is why ERIH (European Reference Index for the Humanities) aims initially to identify, and gain more visibility for top-quality European Humanities research published in academic journals in, potentially, all European languages. It is a fully peer-reviewed, Europe-wide process, in which 15 expert panels sift and aggregate input received from funding agencies, subject associations and specialist research centres across the continent. In addition to being a reference index of the top journals in 15 areas of the Humanities, across the continent and beyond, it is intended that ERIH will be extended to include book-form publications and non-traditional formats. It is also intended that ERIH will form the backbone of a fully-fledged research information system for the Humanities.

See here for a defense of this ranking system by Michael Worton (Vice-Provost, University College London, and a member of the ERIH steering committee).  I was particularly struck by this comment:

However, the aim of the ERIH is not to assess the quality of individual outputs but to assess dissemination and impact. It can therefore provide something that the RAE cannot: it can be used for aggregate benchmarking of national research systems to determine the international standing of research carried out in a particular discipline in a particular country.

Link here for a Google weblog search on this debate, while a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article (‘New Ratings of Humanities Journals Do More Than Rank — They Rankle’) is also worth reviewing.

Thus we see a new rankings initiative emerging to enable (in theory) Europe to better codify its highly developed humanities presence on the global research landscape, but in a way that will enable national (at the intra-European scale) peaks (and presumably) valleys of quality output to be mapped for the humanities, but also for specific disciplines/fields. Imagine the governance opportunities available, at multiple scales, if this scheme is operationalized.

And finally, at the European scale again, University World News noted, on 23 November, that:

The European Union is planning to launch its own international higher education rankings, with emphasis on helping students make informed choices about where to study and encouraging their mobility. Odile Quintin, the European Commission’s Director-General of Education and Culture, announced she would call for proposals before the end of the year, with the first classification appearing in 2010.

A European classification would probably be compiled along the same lines as the German Centre for Higher Education Development Excellence Ranking.

European actors are being spurred into such action by multiple forces, some internal (including the perceived need to ‘modernize European universities in the context of Lisbon and the European Research Area), some external (Shanghai Jiao Tong; Times Higher QS), and some of a global dimension (e.g., audit culture; competition for mobile students).

This latest push is also due to the French presidency of the Council of the European Union, as noted above, which is facilitating action at the regional and national scales. See, for example, details on a Paris-based conference titled ‘International comparison of education systems: a european model?’ which was held on 13-14 November 2008. As noted in the programme, the:

objective of the conference is to bring to the fore the strengths and weaknesses of the different international and European education systems, while highlighting the need for regular and objective assessment of the reforms undertaken by European Member States by means of appropriate indicators. It will notably assist in taking stock of:
– the current state and performance of the different European education systems:
– the ability of the different European education systems to curb the rate of failure in schools,
– the relative effectiveness of amounts spent on education by the different Member States.

The programme and list of speakers is worth perusing to acquire a sense of the broad agenda being put forward.

Multi-scalar governance vs (?) recurring revenue: the emerging dual logics of the rankings phenomenon

The rankings phenomenon is here to stay. But which logics will prevail, or at least emerge as the most important in shaping the extension of audit culture into the spheres of higher education and research?  At the moment it appears that the two main logics are:

• Creating a new niche industry to form markets and generate recurrent revenue; and,
• Creating new multi-scalar governance technologies to open up previously opaque higher education and research systems, so as to facilitate strategic restructuring for the knowledge economy.

These dual logics are in some ways contradictory, yet in other ways they are interdependent. This is a phenomenon that also has deep roots in the emerging centres of global higher ed and research calculation that are situated in London, Shanghai, New York, Brussels, and Washington DC.  And it is underpinned by the analytical cum revenue generating technologies provided by the Scientific division of Thomson Reuters, which develops and operates the ISI Web of Knowledge.

Market-making and governance enabling…and all unfolding before our very eyes. Yet do we really know enough about the nature of the unfolding process, including the present and absent voices, that seems to be bringing these logics to the fore?

Kris Olds

‘University Systems Ranking (USR)’: an alternative ranking framework from EU think-tank

One of the hottest issues out there still continuing to attract world-wide attention is university rankings. The two highest profile ranking systems, of course, are the Shanghai Jiao Tong and the Times Higher rankings, both of which focus on what might constitute a world class university, and on the basis of that, who is ranked where. Rankings are also part of an emerging niche industry. All this of course generates a high level of institutional, national, and indeed supranational (if we count Europe in this) angst about who’s up, who’s down, and who’s managed to secure a holding position. And whilst everyone points to the flaws in these ranking systems, these two systems have nevertheless managed to capture the attention and imagination of the sector as a whole. In an earlier blog enty this year GlobalHigherEd mused over why European-level actors had not managed to produce an alternate system of university rankings which might counter the hegemony of the powerful Shanghai Jiao Tong (whose ranking system privileges the US universities) on the one hand, and act as a policy lever that Europe could pull to direct the emerging European higher education system, on the other.

Yesterday The Lisbon Council, an EU think-tank (see our entry here for a profile of this influential think-tank) released which might be considered a challenge to the Shanghai Jiao Tong and Times Higher ranking schemes – a University Systems Ranking (USR) in their report University Systems Ranking Citizens and Society in the Age of Knowledge. The difference between this ranking system and the Shanghai and Times is that it focuses on country-level data and change, and not  individual institutions.

The USR has been developed by the Human Capital Center at The Lisbon Council, Brussels (produced with support by the European Commission’s Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency) with advice from the OECD.

The report begins with the questions: why do we have university systems? What are these systems intended to do? And what do we expect them to deliver – to society, to individuals and to the world at large? The underlying message in the USR is that “a university system has a much broader mandate than producing hordes of Nobel laureates or cabals of tenure – and patent bearing professors” (p. 6).

So how is the USR different, and what might we make of this difference for the development of universities in the future? The USR is based on six criteria:

1. Inclusiveness – number of students enrolled in the tertiary sector relative to the size of its population
2. Access – ability of a country’s tertiary system to accept and help advance students with a low level of scholastic aptitude
3. Effectiveness – ability of country’s education system to produce graduates with skills relevant to the country’s labour market (wage premia is the measure)
4. Attractiveness – ability of a country’s system to attract a diverse range of foreign students (using the top 10 source countries)
5. Age range – ability of a country’s tertiary system to function as a lifelong learning institution (share of 30-39 year olds enrolled)
6. Responsiveness – ability of the system to reform and change – measured by speed and effectiveness with which Bologna Declaration accepted (15 of 17 countries surveyed have accepted the Bologna criteria.

These are then applied to 17 OECD countries (all but 2 signatories of the Bologna Process). A composite ranging is produced, as well as rankings on each of the criteria. So what were the outcomes for the higher education systems of these 17 countries?

Drawing upon all 6 criteria, a composite figure of USR is then produced. Australia is ranked 1st; the UK 2nd and Denmark 3rd, whilst Austria and Spain are ranked 16th and 17th respectively (see Table1 below). We can also see rankings based on specific criteria (Table 2 below).

There is much to be said for this intervention by The Lisbon Council – not the least being that it opens up debates about the role and purposes of universities. Over the past few months there have been numerous heated public interventions about this matter – from whether universities should be little more than giant patenting offices to whether they should be managers of social justice systems.

And though there are evident shortcomings (such as the lack of clarity about what might count as a university; the view that a university-based education is the most suitable form of education to produce a knowledge-based economy and society; what is the equity/access etc range within any one country, and so on), the USR does, at least, place issues like ‘lifelong learning’, ‘access’ and ‘inclusion’ on the reform agenda for universities across Europe. It also sends a message that it has a set of values that currently are not reflected in the two key ranking systems that it would like to advance.

However, the big question now is whether universities will see value in this kind of ranking system for its wider systemic, as opposed to institutional, possibilities, even if it is as a basis for discussing what are universities for and how might we produce more equitable knowledge societies and economies.

Susan Robertson and Roger Dale

Europe’s new Strategic Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation

Over the course of the last several years, it has become abundantly clear that the people guiding the future-oriented development strategies of many universities, virtually all national funding agencies, and most ministries of higher education and research (or equivalent), are seeking to facilitate the creation of global research imaginations and networks. This is a theme we have incrementally addressed in GlobalHigherEd, including in ‘Globalizing research: forces, patterns, and collaborative practices’. Since this 4 August 2008 entry was posted, Brandeis University kindly let us know about a related event (a 2008 symposium titled ‘The Global: Implications for Research and the Curriculum‘), which highlights one of the more exemplary examples of rethinking underway right now at the university level.

A global research imagination, and its associated research practices and networks, are posited to enable ‘global challenges’ to be addressed, to bring together complimentary expertise (which is not always distributed evenly across space), and to facilitate greater innovation in the research process. The forging of global research networks also enables ties to be created, maintained, or perhaps rekindled; a process that ostensibly brings concepts like ‘brain circulation’, versus ‘brain drain’, to life, as well as geographically dispersed virtual communities.

A new Strategic European Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation

It is in such a context that we need to view the European Union’s 29 September 2008 Communication, titled A Strategic European Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation. For the non-European readers of this entry, a Communication is a paper produced by the European Commission (EC), most often to the key institutions (e.g., Council of the European Union or the European Parliament). It is generally the outcome of a series of initiatives that might follow this sequence: the production of (i) a staff working paper, (ii) the development of a consultation paper that asks for wider inputs and views, and then, if it keeps proceeding it is in the form of (iii) a Communication. The decision to move to this stage is generally if the EC thinks it can get some traction on an issue to be discussed by these other agencies. This is not the only pattern or route, but it does register that issue has wider internal EC backing (that is in the nerve centres of power), and a sense that it might get traction with the Member States.

These forms of ‘white paper’ style policy documents are fascinating, but sometimes challenging to make sense of given all of the messages they need to convey. One vehicle to do so is to simply identify the sections and subsections for they themselves send out a message about what really matters. In the case of this 14 page long Communication, we see the following structure presented:

Key strategic goal for international cooperation in science and technology and universal access to ICTs

1. PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING THE EUROPEAN FRAMEWORK FOR INTERNATIONAL S&T COOPERATION AND THE NEW INFORMATION SOCIETY PARTNERSHIPS

Widening the ERA and making it more open to the world

Ensuring coherence of policies and complementarity of programmes

Fostering strategic S&T cooperation with key third countries

Developing the attractiveness of Europe as a research partner

Launching results-oriented partnerships on information society regulation

The European Community and Member States working together

2. ORIENTATIONS FOR ACTION TO MAKE THE ERA MORE OPEN TO THE WORLD

2.1. Strengthening the international dimension of the ERA
• Integrating Europe’s neighbours into the ERA
• Fostering strategic cooperation with key third countries through geographic and thematic targeting

2.2. Improving the framework conditions for international S&T cooperation
• Tackling scientific challenges through global research infrastructures
• Mobility of researchers and global networking
• More open research programmes
• Intellectual Property Issues
• Pre-standardization

3. IMPLEMENTING A SUSTAINABLE PARTNERSHIP

The Communication, which is designed to help advance the development of the European Research Area (ERA), speaks to Member and Associated States, but also the rest of the world. This said, it is our sense that the core audiences of this document are Member States, which are being asked to work with the Commission in a much more coordinated manner, and select countries that have a significant presence in the global research landscape.

While this is not the place to outline the historical path that led to the creation of the Communication, it is important to note that it was developed in the aftermath of:

• The emergence (2000), review, and relaunch (2005) of the Lisbon strategy, all of which provide impetus and traction for a more expansive research imagination and development agenda;
• A broad 2007-2008 consultative process to rethink the ERA, some seven years after it was formally established in 2000 (readers interested in this consultative process should see this site, and the associated Green Paper, for further details).

The Communication also ties into related initiatives that we have profiled on GlobalHigherEd, including the so-called “Fifth Freedom” (see ‘Mobility and knowledge as the “Fifth Freedom” in Europe: embedding market liberalism?’), and is a follow up, of sorts, to the 2006 Commission Communication “Towards a Global Partnership in the Information Society” and the public consultation launched in July 2007 regarding how to open up new global markets for Europe’s ICT industry.

Now, the broad tenor of this well crafted Communication is in some ways nothing new. For years the EU has sought to facilitate a global research imagination, and enhance researcher mobility and expansive networks. Related initiatives like ERA-Link have been developed to forge ties with the many expatriate European researchers who reside around the world, especially in countries like the US. But, and this is a key but, the Communication deepens and refines thinking about how to build a global research imagination, and extend research networks:

• inside Member States;
• out to “Neighbouring countries” to build a “broader ERA”;
• out to “Developing countries” to build “S&T capacity, sustainable development, global initiatives”, and
• out to “Industrialised” and “emerging economies” to enhance “mutual benefit” and better address “global challenges”,

all of which theoretically provides feedback loops that simultaneously build the ERA and Europe’s standing in the global research landscape. It is not for nothing that Brussels released a summary of the Communication titled ‘Putting Europe high on the global map of science and technology: Commission advocates new international strategy‘ (24 September 2008).

While many elements of the Communication are worth noting, we will only focus on one right now – the principle of reciprocity. In a subsequent entry we will focus on the issue of how such region-derived frameworks for international science and technology cooperation generate structural pressure on less-developed countries to create supra-national regional structures when engaging about such issues.

The principle of “reciprocity”

What this means is that the EU will actually open up its research largesse to non-Europeans if their funding agencies do the same, subject to negotiations that end in consensus. As the Communication (p. 13) puts it:

EC bilateral S&T agreements are based on the principles of equitable partnership, common ownership, mutual advantage, shared objectives and reciprocity. While these principles have not always been fully implemented, reciprocal access to research programmes and funds should be pursued to enhance the mutual benefit of international S&T cooperation. FP7 [Seventh Research Framework Programme] is open to third country partners. Funding is normally limited to participants from international cooperation partner countries. However, since open competition promotes excellence in research, funding for collaborative projects could be extended to include research organisations and researchers located in industrialised third countries where reciprocal funding is made available for European researchers.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison, for example, received a 30 September notice that profiled the new Communication. In this notice, the Delegation of the European Commission in Washington DC stated:

US research teams are eligible to receive EC funding when the research component is deemed essential for the success of the project.

This is a significant shift in policy and especially practice. And while the specific details of what “reciprocity” means remain to be formally developed, it highlights a willingness to use material resources to create and/or deepen new transnational research networks. Thus foreign researchers, and research teams, will be enrolled in European networks much more easily. Yet, it is also important to be cognizant that the criteria underlying the granting of access to said monies are first and foremost those of an intellectual nature, and only if the EU views the projects to be associated with strategically important themes/sectors. It is also worth noting that the elevation of reciprocity enables the European Commission to create Europe-led virtual research teams; a strategy that helps overcome the ongoing challenges of creating the Blue Card scheme in Europe, a scheme somewhat similar to the US’ Green Card (a card Kris holds, which grants permanent residence, and virtually all rights except for voting). In other words, this initiative weaves together intellectual and labour market logics in some creative and realpolitik ways given intra-European debates about immigration and mobility (even of skilled labour).

In closing, A Strategic European Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation is a strategy document that seeks to enhance international cooperation in science and technology, and thereby facilitate the creation of a global research imagination and associated research practices. “Strategic cooperation” with third countries, this said, needs to be enhanced through much more that fashioning frameworks: cooperation needs to be brought to life at a range of levels, and in a variety of forms, and this involves bodily presence and face-to-face.

One mechanism to do so is the sponsorship of policy dialogues. One of us will be attending such a dialogue – the EU/US Research and Education Workshop: Internationalization of Research and Graduate Studies and its Implications in the Transatlantic Context – which will be held in Atlanta Georgia on 17-18 November. This workshop will deal with a range of transatlantic development topics, including the new framework, the Global Dimensions of the Bologna Process, and other related issues.

Workshops such as these get the word out about the various dimensions of new frameworks, and build trust and mutual understanding between stakeholders about opportunities for cooperation.

In the light of Barack Obama’s recent election, and abundant evidence of European support for him at the end of eight years of strained Europe/US relations, it will be interesting to see how the discussions unfold. The US is, after all, a key element of the global research landscape; one of the few countries with capacity to create the so-called “global research infrastructures” that are needed for “major scientific advances”. Yet this is also a time of considerable financial turmoil on both sides of the Atlantic, and the new fiscal austerity realities that will inevitably emerge cannot help but dampen the euphoria that is sure to be in evidence.

In an experiment of sorts, an attempt will be made to provide some insights about the deliberations in Atlanta. For now, though, take a read of A Strategic European Framework for International Science and Technology Cooperation, for it is an important document that reflects new thinking about the logics and strategies associated with furthering collaboration across space; collaboration that, the Commission hopes, will put Europe “high on the global map of science and technology”.

Additional links

• European Community Legal Instruments Glossary
• Cordis (Community Research & Development Information Service)
• Cordis ERA Watch
  
• Delegation of the European Commission to the USA
• Directorate-General for Research (DG-Research)
• ERA Green Paper
• ERA Infrastructure
• European Partnership for Researchers
• European Research Area (EuroActiv.com Links Dossier)
• INCO infodesk (Research Enquiry Service)
  
• International Scientific Cooperation Policy
• Joint Programming
• Management of Intellectual Property
• Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7)

Kris Olds & Susan Robertson