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

Elephants in the room, and all that: more ‘reactions’ to the Bologna Process Leuven Communiqué

Editor’s Note: As those of you following GlobalHigherEd well know, the big news story of April on the higher education calender was the release of the Leuven Communiqué following the the 6th Bologna  Ministerial Conference held in Leuven/Louvain-la-Neuve,  28-29th April, 2009.

46 Bologna countries gathered together to review progress toward realizing the objectives of the Bologna Process by 2010, and to establish the priorities for the European Higher Education Area.  Prior to the meeting there was quite literally an avalanche of stocktaking reports, surveys, analyzes and other kinds of commentary, all fascinating reading (see this blog entry for a listing of materials).

With the Communiqué released, and the ambition to take the Bologna Process into the next decade under the banner – ‘The Bologna Process 2010’, GlobalHigherEd has invited leading European actors and commentators to ‘react’ to the Communiqué.

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Last week  we posted some initial ‘reactions:  Pavel Zgaga’s Bologna: beyond 2010 and over the Ocean – but where to? and Peter Jones’ Was there a student voice in Leuven? In this entry, we add more. We invited Per Nyborg, Roger Dale, Pauline Ravinet and Anne Corbett to comment briefly on one aspect they felt warranted highlighting.

Per Nyborg was Head, Bologna Process Secretariat (2003-2005). Roger Dale, Professor of Sociology of Education, University of Bristol, UK, has written extensively on the governance of the European Higher Education Area and the role of Bologna Process in that. He recently published a co-edited volume on Globalisation and Europeanisation in Education (2009, Symposium Books). Pauline Ravinet is a post doctoral researcher at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. She completed her doctoral research at Sciences Po, Paris, and has published extensively on the Bologna Process.  Anne Corbett is Visiting Fellow, European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Dr. Corbett is author of Universities and the Europe of Knowledge Ideas, Institutions and Policy Entrepreneurship in European Union Higher Education 1955-2005 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

Susan Robertson

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“Bologna Toward 2010” – Per Nyborg

In 2005, halfway toward 2010, Ministers declared that they wished to establish a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) based on the principles of quality and transparency and our rich heritage and cultural diversity. They committed themselves to the principle of public responsibility for higher education. They saw the social dimension as a constituent part of the EHEA.

The three cycles were established, each level for preparing students for the labor market, for further competence building and for active citizenship. The overarching framework for qualifications, the agreed set of European standards and guidelines for quality assurance, and the recognition of degrees and periods of study, were seen as key characteristics of the structure of the EHEA.

What has been added four years later? Ministers have called upon European higher education institutions to further internationalize their activities and to engage in global collaboration for sustainable development. Competition on a global scale will be complemented by enhanced policy dialogue and cooperation based on partnership with other regions of the world. Global cooperation and global competition may have taken priority over solidarity between the 46 partner countries. But Bologna partners outside the European Economic Area region must not be left behind!  leuven 2

A clear and concise description of the EHEA and the obligations of the participating countries is what we should expect from the 2010 ministerial conference – at least if it shall be seen as the founding conference for the EHEA, not only a Bologna anniversary on the way to 2020.

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“Elephants in the Room, and All That”   Roger Dale

Reading the Leuven Communiqué, we can’t help but be impressed by the continuing emphasis on the public nature of and public responsibility for higher education that has characterized BFUG’s statements over the years. Indeed, the word ‘public’ appears 9 times.

However, at the same time we can’t help wondering about some other  words and connotations that don’t appear.

The nature of the ‘fast evolving society’ to which the EHEA is to respond implied by the Communiqué, seems rather different from that implied in some of these elephants in the room.

Quite apart from ‘private’ (which as Marek Kwiek has constantly reminded us is indispensable to the understanding of HE in many of the newer member states), we may cite the following:

  • First and foremost, ‘Lisbon’, with its dominant focus on Productivity and Growth;
  • Second, ‘European Commission’, the home and driver of Lisbon, and the indispensable paymaster and facilitator of the Bologna Process.
  • Third, the ‘European Research Area’; surely a report on European Universities/ERA would paint a rather different picture of the Universities over the next decade from that presented here.

It is difficult to see how complete and accurate a picture of Bologna, as it goes into its second phase, this ‘more of the same’ Communiqué provides. Perhaps the most pregnant phrase in the document is “Liaise with experts in other fields, such as research, immigration, social security and employment”,  a very mixed and interesting quartet, whose different demands may pose real problems of harmonization.

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“The Bologna Process  – a New Institution? ” Pauline Ravinet

I have been particularly interested in my own research on early phases and subsequent institutionalization of the Bologna Process. In this work I have tried to recompose and analyze what happened between 1998–the year when the process began with unexpected Sorbonne declaration–and now, where the Bologna process has become the central governance arena for higher education in Europe. This did not happen in one day and was rather a progressive invention of a unique European structure for the coordination of national higher education policies.

Reading the Leuven Communiqué with the institutionalization question in mind is extremely interesting. Presenting the achievements of the 2000s and defining the priorities for the decade to come, this text states more explicitly than any Bologna document before, that the process has gone much further than a ten-year provisory arrangement for the attainment of common objectives.

The Bologna process is becoming an institution. It is first an institution in its most formal meaning: the Bologna process designates an original organizational structure, functioning according to specific rules, and equipped with innovating coordination tools which will not perish but on the contrary enter a new life cycle in 2010. The Bologna Policy Forum, which met on the 29th April, will be the formal group that engages with the globalization of Bologna. This represents a further new expression of the institutionalization of Bologna.  leuven bologna policy forum

But it is also an institution in a more sociological sense. The Bologna arena has acquired value and legitimacy beyond the performance of specific tasks, it embeds and diffuses a policy vision which frames the representations and strategies of higher education actors of all over Europe, and catches the interest of students, academia, and HE experts world wide.

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“Fit For Purpose? ”  Anne Corbett

The European Higher Education Area is the New Decade, has European Ministers responsible for higher education, declaring (para 24) that

[t]he present organisational structure of the Bologna Process is endorsed as being fit for purpose’.

You may think this to be a boring detail. However as a political scientist, I’d argue that this is the most theoretically and politically interesting phrase in the Communiqué. In policy making terms, the Bologna decade has been about framing issues, negotiating agendas, developing policies and testing out modes of cooperation which can be accepted throughout a Europe re-united for the first time for 50 years.

These are the sorts of activities typically carried out by experts and officials who are somewhat shielded from the political process. For a time they enjoy a policy monopoly (Baumgartner and Jones 1993 – see reference below).

In terms of policy effectiveness this is all to the good. The people who devote time and thought to these issues have to build up relations of trust and respect. They don’t need politicians to harry them over half-thought out ideas.

The Bologna Follow-up Group, which devises and delivers on a work programme which corresponds to the wishes of ministers, have produced an unprecedented degree of voluntary cooperation on instruments as well as aims (European Standards and Guidelines in Quality Assurance, Qualifications Frameworks, and Stocktaking or national benchmarking), thanks to working groups which recruit quite widely, seminars etc. Almost every minister at the Leuven conference started his/her 90 second speech with tributes to the BFUG.

But there comes a time in every successful policy process when political buy-in is needed. The EHEA-to-be does not have that. Institutionally Bologna is run by ministers and their administrations, technocrats and lobbyists. Finance (never ever mentioned in any communiqué) is provided by the EU Commission, EU presidencies and the host countries of ministerial conferences (up to now EU). Records of the Bologna Process remain the property of the ministries providing the secretariat in a particular policy cycle. “It works, don’t disturb it,” is the universal message of those insiders who genuinely want advance.

Students in the streets (as opposed, as Peter Jones’ entry reminds us, to those in the Brussels-based European Student Union) are a sign that a comfortably informal process has its limits once an implementation stage is reached. It is such a well known political phenomenon that it is astonishing that sophisticated figures in the BFUG are not preparing to open the door to the idea that an EHEA needs arenas at national and European level where ministers are answerable to the broad spectrum of political opinion. Parliamentarians could be in the front line here. Will either of the European assembles or any of the 46 national parliaments take up the challenge?

Baumgartner, F. and B. Jones (1993). Agendas and instability in American politics. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

University associations and the enhancement of capabilities for a globalizing era

prague21march20091I recently returned from Prague, where I attended the 5th annual conference of the European University Association (EUA).  It was very well run by the EUA, professionally hosted by Charles University (Universitas Carolina), and the settings (Charles University, Municipal Hall, Prague Castle) were breathtaking.

My role was to contribute to EUA deliberations on the theme of Global Outreach – Europe’s Interaction with the Wider World.  I’ll develop a summary version of my presentation for GlobalHigherEd in the next week once I catch up on some duties here in Madison.

Some aspects of the meeting discussions complemented some recent news items (see below), as well as our 9 March entry ‘Collapsing branch campuses: time for some collective action?’ The thread that ties them all together is capability.

At a broad regional scale, the EUA, and its many partners, have had the capability to bring the 46 country European Higher Education Area (EHEA) into being. Of course the development process is very uneven, but the sweep of change over the last decade, brought to life from the bottom (i.e. the university-level) up, is really quite astonishing, regardless of whether you agree with the aims or not.

Now, capabilities in the case of the EHEA, relates to the capacity of universities, respective national ministries, the EU, and select stakeholders to work towards crafting an “overarching structure”, with associated qualifications frameworks, that incorporates these elements:

  • Three Degree Cycle
  • The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS)
  • The Diploma Supplement
  • Quality Assurance
  • Recognition [of qualifications]
  • Joint Degrees

Ambitious, yes, but the distributed capabilities have clearly existed to create the EHEA, as will become abundantly clear next month when the Ministerial Conference is held at Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium.

columbiauCapabilities have also been evident this week in the case of Columbia University, which just announced that it was opening up a network of “Global Centers”, with the first two located in Beijing and Amman. As the press release puts it:

While some U.S. universities have built new branch campuses and degree-granting schools abroad, Columbia is taking a different path. Columbia Global Centers will provide flexible regional hubs for a wide range of activities and resources intended to enhance the quality of research and learning at the University and around the world. The goal is to establish a network of regional centers in international capitals to collaboratively address complex global challenges by bringing together scholars, students, public officials, private enterprise, and innovators from a broad range of fields.

“When social challenges are global in their consequences, the intellectual firepower of the world’s great universities must be global in its reach,” said Kenneth Prewitt, vice president of Columbia Global Centers and Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs. “Columbia’s network of Global Centers will bring together some of the world’s finest scholars to address some of the world’s most pressing problems.”

And in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Prewitt had this to say:

“We’re trying to figure out how to go from a series of very strong bilateral relationships and take that to the next phase, not replace it,” said Kenneth Prewitt, director of Columbia’s Office of Global Centers.

As the world becomes more interconnected, many of the most pressing issues of the day are best approached not within a bilateral framework, but by groups of scholars and researchers from diverse backgrounds bringing their expertise to bear in novel ways, Mr. Prewitt said.

See a brief slideshow on the Amman center here, and download the inaugural program launch poster here

columbiaamman

The Columbia story is worth being viewed in conjunction with our previous entry on ‘Collapsing branch campuses’ (an indicator of limited capability), ‘NYU Abu Dhabi: realizing the global university?’ (an indicator of strong capability, albeit enabled by the oil-induced largesse of Abu Dhabi), and a series of illuminating entries by Lloyd Armstrong in Changing Higher Education on the Columbia story and some associated entries on ‘modularity’ in higher education and research:

As Armstrong notes:

“Modularity” is an ill-defined concept as used in discussing globalization of the modern corporation, in that it may mean very different things to different organizations at different times.  Generally, however, it has to do with breaking a process into separable blocks (modules) that have sufficiently well defined inputs and outputs that the blocks can later be fit together and  recombined into a complete process. “Globalization” then has to do with accessing resources world-wide to produce those modules in the most effective and efficient manner.

Now, in some future entries we will be exploring the uses and limitations of concepts like scale, networks, chains, modularity, and so on.  But what I’d like to do now, is think in a n-1 way, and beg the question: do universities have the capability to think beyond their comfort zones (e.g., about modularity; about academic freedom in distant territories; about the strategic management of multi-sited operations; about the latest advances in technology for capacity building abroad or international collaborative teaching; about double and joint degrees; about the implications of regionalism and interregionalism in higher education and research), especially when their resources are constrained and ‘mission creep’ is becoming a serious problem?

Most universities, I would argue, do not. Columbia clearly does, as does NYU, but few universities have the material, political, and relational (as in social and cultural capital) resources that these elite private universities do.

Perhaps the EHEA phenomenon, the role of the EUA in shaping it, can generate some lessons about the critically important dimension of capability, especially when universities are not resourced like a Columbia.

euaplenary1The framing and implementation of ambitious university visions to internationalize, to globalize, at a university scale, arguably needs to be better linked to the resources and viewpoints provided by associations and consortia, at least the better staffed and well run ones. There are other options, of course, including private consultants, ad-hoc thematic expert groups, and so on, but the enhancement of capabilities is evident in the case of the EUA, especially with respect to the construction of the EHEA on behalf of its constituent members, the creation of fora for the sharing of best practices, and the creation of new institutions (e.g., the EUA Council for Doctoral Education). It might be worth noting, too, that the EUA clearly benefits from having the European Commission‘s backing on regarding a variety of initiatives, and that the Commission is a key stakeholder in the Bologna Process.

The other side of this equation is, though, the need for universities to actually engage with, support, feed, draw in, and respect their associations. Given the denationalization process, associations and consortia are also being stretched. Some are having to cope with resource limitations vis a vis mission creep, and the uneven involvement of certain types of member universities. I might be wrong, but it seems as if some sub-national, national and regional associations around the world have a challenging time drawing in, and therefore representing, their better off universities.  This is a problematic situation for it has the potential to generate ‘middling zone’ outcomes at a collective level.

Yet, is it not in the interest of higher education systems to have very strong, effective, and powerful associations of universities? And if the elite universities in any system do not look out for their system, versus take the university view, or a segmented view (e.g., a selective association or consortia), the broader context in which elite universities operate may become less conducive to operate within.

euasummaryThe globalization of higher education and research is generating unprecedented challenges for universities, and higher education systems, around the world. This means we need think through the evolving higher education landscape, and the role of associations and consortia in it, for the vast majority of universities simply cannot act like Columbia University.

If capabilities are limited, then associations and consortia have the capacity to enable reflective thinking, and broader and more powerful university voices to emerge.  Indeed, it might also be worth thinking through how all of the world’s associations and consortia relate (or not) to each other, and what might be done to transform what is really a national/international architecture into a more global architecture; one associated with strategic inter-association and inter-consortia dialogue and sustained collective action.

And in a future entry, I’ll explore how some universities are seeking to enhance capabilities via the creation of new joint centers and experimental laboratories with distant universities and non-university stakeholders. While this process has to be managed carefully, the bringing together of complementary resources (e.g., human and otherwise) on campuses can unsettle, though with positive effects, and thereby build capabilities.

But for now, I’ll close off by highlighting the International Association of Universities’ (IAU) 3rd Global Meeting of Associations of Universities (GMAIII) in Guadalajara, Mexico, 20-22 April 2009. This event is shaping up to provide plenty of food for fodder regarding the capabilities issue, as well as many other topics. University associations are being tasked, and are tasking themselves, to enhance capabilities for a globalizing era. Yet, for many, this is relatively uncharted terrain.

Kris Olds

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

erareportcoverThe 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.

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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

Ranking – in a different (CHE) way?

uwe_brandenburg_2006-005nl GlobalHigherEd has been profiling a series of entries on university rankings as an emerging industry and technology of governance. This entry has been kindly prepared for us by Uwe Brandenburg. Since 2006 Uwe has been project manager at the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE) and CHE Consult, a think tank and consultancy focusing on higher education reform.  Uwe has an MA in Islamic Studies, Politics and Spanish from the University of Münster (Germany),  and an MscEcon in Politics from the University of Wales at Swansea.

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Talking about rankings usually means talking about league tables. Values are calculated based on weighed indicators which are then turned into a figure, added and formed into an overall value, often with the index of 100 for the best institution counting down. Moreover, in many cases entire universities are compared and the scope of indicators is somewhat limited. We at the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE) are highly sceptical about this approach. For more than 10 years we have been running our own ranking system which is so different to the point that  some experts  have argued that it might not be a ranking at all which is actually not true. Just because the Toyota Prius is using a very different technology to produce energy does not exclude it from the species of automobiles. What are then the differences?

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Firstly, we do not believe in the ranking of entire HEIs. This is mainly due to the fact that such a ranking necessarily blurs the differences within an institution. For us, the target group has to be the starting point of any ranking exercise. Thus, one can fairly argue that it does not help a student looking for a physics department to learn that university A is average when in fact the physics department is outstanding, the sociology appalling and the rest is mediocre. It is the old problem of the man with his head in the fire and the feet in the freezer. A doctor would diagnose that the man is in a serious condition while a statistician might claim that over all he is doing fine.

So instead we always rank on the subject level. And given the results of the first ExcellenceRanking which focused on natural sciences and mathematics in European universities with a clear target group of prospective Master and PhD students, we think that this proves the point;  only 4 institutions excelled in all four subjects; another four in three; while most excelled in only one subject. And this was in a quite closely related field.

uwe2

Secondly, we do not create values by weighing indicators and then calculating an overall value. Why is that? The main reason is that any weight is necessarily arbitrary, or in other words political. The person weighing decides which weight to give. By doing so, you pre-decide the outcome of any ranking. You make it even worse when you then add the different values together and create one overall value because this blurs differences between individual indicators.

Say a discipline is publishing a lot but nobody reads it. If you give publications a weight of 2 and citations a weight of one, it will look like the department is very strong. If you do it the other way, it will look pretty weak. If you add the values you make it even worse because you blur the difference between both performances. And those two indicators are even rather closely related. If you summarize results from research indicators with reputation indicators, you make things entirely irrelevant.

Instead, we let the indicator results stand for their own and let the user decide what is important for his or her personal decision-making process. e.g., in the classical ranking we allow the users to create “my ranking” so they can choose the indicators they want to look at and in which order.

Thirdly, we strongly object to the idea of league tables. If the values which create the table are technically arbitrary (because of the weighing and the accumulation), the league table positions create the even worse illusion of distinctive and decisive differences between places. They then bring alive the impression of an existing difference in quality (no time or space here to argue the tricky issue of what quality might be) which is measurable to the percentage point. In other words, that there is a qualitative and objectively recognizable measurable difference between place number 12 and 15. Which is normally not the case.

Moreover, small mathematical differences can create huge differences in league table positions. Take the THES QS: even in the subject cluster SocSci you find a mere difference of 4.3 points on a 100 point scale between league rank 33 and 43. In the overall university rankings, it is a meager 6.7 points difference between rank 21 and 41 going down to a slim 15.3 points difference between rank 100 and 200. That is to say, the league table positions of HEIs might differ by much less than a single point or less than 1% (of an arbitrarily set figure). Thus, it tells us much less than the league position suggests.

Our approach, therefore, is to create groups (top, middle, bottom) which are referring to the performance of each HEI relative to the other HEIs.

uwe3

This means our rankings are not as easily read as the others. However,  we strongly believe in the cleverness of the users. Moreover, we try to communicate at every possible level that every ranking (and therefore also ours) is based on indicators which are chosen by the ranking institution. Consequently, the results of the respective ranking can tell you something about how an HEI performs in the framework of what the ranker thinks interesting, necessary, relevant, etc. Rankings therefore NEVER tell you who is the best but maybe (depending on the methodology) who is performing best (or in our cases better than average) in aspects considered relevant by the ranker.

A small, but highly relevant aspect might be added here. Rankings (in the HE system as well as in other areas of life) might suggest that a result in an indicator proves that an institution is performing well in the area measured by the indicator. Well it does not. All an indicator does is hint at the fact that given the data is robust and relevant, the results give some idea of how close the gap is between the performance of the institution and the best possible result (if such a benchmark exists). The important word is “hint” because “indicare” – from which the word “indicator” derives – means exactly this: a hint, not a proof. And in the case of many quantitative indicators, the “best” or “better” is again a political decision if the indicator stands alone (e.g. are more international students better? Are more exchange agreements better?).

This is why we argue that rankings have a useful function in terms of creating transparency if they are properly used, i.e. if the users are aware of the limitations, the purpose, the target groups and the agenda of the ranking organization and if the ranking is understood as one instrument among various others fit to make whatever decision related to an HEI (study, cooperation, funding, etc.).

Finally, modesty is maybe what a ranker should have in abundance. Running the excellence ranking in three different phases (initial in 2007, second phase with new subjects right now, repetition of natural sciences just starting) I am aware of certainly one thing. However strongly we aim at being sound and coherent, and however intensely we re-evaluate our efforts, there is always the chance of missing something; of not picking an excellent institution. For the world of ranking, Einstein’s conclusion holds a lot of truth:

Not everything that can be counted, counts and not everything that counts can be counted.

For further aspects see:
http://www.che-ranking.de/cms/?getObject=47&getLang=de
http://www.che-ranking.de/cms/?getObject=44&getLang=de
Federkeil, Gero, Rankings and Quality Assurance in Higher Education, in: Higher Education in Europe, 33, (2008), S. 209-218
Federkeil, Gero, Ranking Higher Education Institutions – A European Perspective., in: Evaluation in Higher Education, 2, (2008), S. 35 – 52
Other researchers specialising in this (and often referring to our method) are e.g. Alex Usher, Marijk van der Wende or Simon Marginson.

Uwe Brandenburg

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.

eiffeleu1In 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

ustheFirst, 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.

ecjrccoverSee, 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).

eurankingsprogThis 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

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.

euflagsA 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

era-logoscreenThe 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.

eufp7The 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.

euusworkshoplogo2One 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.

euusworkshoplogoWorkshops 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

Kris Olds & Susan Robertson