A primer on international partnerships

One notable challenge for many universities is moving beyond the superficial rhetoric of internationalization. Of course every university, and its leaders, are in favor of internationalizing: the signs are everywhere, from refashioned mission statements, to the building of some institutional capacity to understand and support internationalization, to the inclusion of the rhetoric of internationalization in speech after speech by university leaders.

Yet, in the end, the process of enhancing the territorial spread of institutional networks, and sometimes architectures, is not so simple: it requires the initiation and implementation of a strategic planning process, and the subsequent bringing to life of new linkages, partnerships, programs, and projects. All of these elements, of course,  are more than technical issues. They are highly political, not just in what linkages with whom, but how they are advanced.  For some, this involves a top-down led process of almost turning the university inside out (e.g., NYU), while for others it involves the slow and steady development of an infrastructure of support to enable units within a university to go at their own speed, in their own ways, free of formal managerialism where one unit (and often person) is deemed the defacto czar of internationalization.

Regardless of approach, one of the noteworthy aspects of this phenomenon is its formalization. What I mean by this is institutions of higher education are increasingly attempting to become more strategic in a comprehensive and legible way. Audits of international teaching and research activities are being conducted, and universities are ramping up their coordination capabilities via advisory councils, task forces, ad-hoc working groups and the use of specialist consultants. The best universities build in accountability and outcome measures to see what is really happening over time. This sometimes involves more staff versus additional resources for faculty and students, for good and for bad (see, for example, the vigorous debate about the rise of ‘deanlets’ and ‘deanlings’ in ‘The Fall of the Faculty‘, Inside Higher Ed, 14 July 2011).

In any case, the effort to become more strategic, and formal, about internationalization is abundantly evident in a new report released yesterday by the UK Higher Education International and Europe Unit. This report — A Guide to UK Higher Education and Partnerships for Overseas Universities  — is designed to serve as a “starting point for overseas institutions interested in establishing collaborations with UK higher education institutions.” As noted in the report’s executive summary:

Partnerships between academic institutions have tended to be the product of working relationships between individual academics; but more recently, as the potential benefits and risks from overseas collaborations have increased, universities and colleges have begun to manage their international partnerships portfolio more effectively.

Increasing competition is affecting the way UK universities think about their aspirations and how to maintain their international competitiveness. A strategic shift is underway – away from a focus on international student recruitment (at which the UK sector has been successful) and toward a longer-term and more partnership based conceptualisation of internationalisation.

Governments around the world are increasingly encouraging their universities to embrace the international agenda and to internationalise their institution. They are doing this by supporting and facilitating their higher education sectors to engage at an institutional level with global partners through teaching and research collaboration.

The free 52 page report, which is available in PDF format in English, Arabic and Chinese, is worth reading –  for even if you are not interested in partnering with UK universities, the report helpfully sets out a series of issues worth thinking about in general at both the university level (i.e. how to frame and implement partnerships) as well as the larger system-wide scale.

For example, the report prompted me to reflect on the issue of what associations of universities could do to better communicate about, in summary form, the taken-for-granted factors shaping the national systems of higher education and research their own universities are embedded in. And if this were to happen, what language(s) should this form of communications occur in? What format should these types of ‘primers’ be available in, and at what cost (if any)? And whom should we be communicating with as we lay out some of the groundwork for the hoped for formation of partnerships? Similarly, do we, at the university scale, provide sufficient analytically-oriented information, in one place on our websites, about the history, nature of, and entry points (with respect to governance), regarding our universities that prospective overseas partners would find beneficial to read prior to visits and negotiations?

Of course partnerships, in the end, need to be brought to life at the university-to-university level, but keep it in mind that the diversity of systems out there mean that many universities need approval from ministries or government departments before they can engage in partnerships, especially if year-on-year resource expenditures are to be factored in. Given this, many government officials, ministers (or equivalents), and some unexpected others, have power to shape relationship-building outcomes even though they frequently do not have an understanding of issues, like academic freedom, quality assurance, institutional governance, research and teaching outcome expectations, etc. All the more reason for communicating about who we are, and are not.

While hardly comprehensive, or  perfect, my read of A Guide to UK Higher Education and Partnerships for Overseas Universities leads me to believe that its authors and sponsors are attempting to provide a primer of this type; one for ‘overseas universities’ as well as the other actors who will have an impact on the partnership relationship-building process. It is also a reflexive piece; one that is  reminding those guiding UK universities to think about the taken-for granted factors that shape their practices and expectations. In the end, these kinds of communications objectives cannot but be positive, for failed or unrealized partnerships (and there are many the higher education sector) generate ample opportunity costs that we can scarcely afford.

Kris Olds

Words, £s, and the UK higher ed budget cuts

These are two Worldle ‘word clouds’ derived from the same UK Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) section (pp. 51-53) of the UK Government’s Spending Review (2010), which was just released an hour ago on 20 October. The messages should be viewed in conjunction with the actual text (of course), along with the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance (released on 12 October 2010). Deliberations about the tangible implications of the outlined budget cuts can be gleaned from the Times Higher Education site, the Guardian‘s spending review site, and the Universities UK site. Times Higher Education notes, ominously:

Government funding for higher education is to be cut by 40 per cent over four years, suggesting that public funding for teaching in the arts, humanities and social sciences may come to an end.

The Comprehensive Spending Review unveiled today includes a reduction in the higher education budget of £2.9 billion – from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion – by 2014-15.

The Treasury says in a statement that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which oversees higher education, will “continue to fund teaching for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects”.

However, no mention is made of other subjects.

Cuts, and types of cuts, that don’t exactly match up to the frequency of positive terms in the above word cloud. On this note I was discussing the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance with a very senior London-based corporate leader the other day and he told me:

Yes, the outlook for UK universities is grim. Given that they are one of the few remaining areas where the UK is world class (and excluding the now tarnished financial sector), even accepting that the government deficit needs to be reduced, I question the rationale for these cuts.

As well put as it could be.

Kris Olds

The role of the university in city/regional development: a view from a Vice-Chancellor in Bristol

The entry has been kindly prepared for us by Professor Eric Thomas, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol.  Professor Thomas has been Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bristol since 2001.  Prior to that he was  Head of the School of Medicine, and later Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Biological Sciences, University of Southampton.  Professor Thomas is currently a member of the Board of the South-West Regional Development Agency. He is Chair of the Research Policy Committee of Universities UK and a member of its Board.

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

The United Kingdom is the classic high added-value, knowledge economy. We don’t dig anything out of the ground anymore and we don’t make anything in any great quantity anymore. Our economic success depends upon us providing high intellectual and creative skills, and on technological and service innovation.

Universities are at the heart of that in both providing the intellectual workforce and in technological innovation. It is said that in medieval times villages and towns were built around the manor house, in the Victorian era they were built around the factories and that, if we were building new towns and villages now, they would be built around universities. Certainly when the UK Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) put out a call for locations without higher education to apply for a new facility,  the 35 who applied would support the thesis.

I often compare the City of Bristol in 1961 with the City today. In 1961 Bristol was dominated by heavy engineering and manufacturing industry. The aerospace industry employed tens of thousands of people as did both tobacco and Fry’s chocolate. At that time, the University of Bristol had about 3000 students and 300 academic staff. It was a small consideration in the economy of Bristol and could exist, almost as an ivory tower, up the hill in Clifton and unengaged with the ambitions of the city.

If you now fast forward to 2009, all that industry except aerospace has gone. And yet, the University of Bristol is the largest independent employer in the city, responsible for 5500 jobs and a further 4500 from indirect employment. A study some years ago in the South West Region reported the economic impact of a university as 1.74 times turnover. A more recent study of London South Bank University by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which took into account the economic impact of the added value from the graduates through their lifetime, concluded that the impact was approximately six times turnover. Viewed like this, it would make the University of Bristol’s impact on the local and national economy in excess of £2 billion per year and higher education in general in the UK in the order of £100 billion per year or over 8% of GDP.

Of course, such figures will provoke dispute. However the general message of the importance of higher education to the local and national economies is now, I would argue, beyond question. How, therefore, does a university like Bristol respond to such a role which is relatively new?

The first important action is to ensure that working with the city is right at the center of your current public strategy. This is so for the current University Strategy, and will be strengthened in our Plan for 2009–2016.

Secondly the head of the institution must articulate that ambition clearly and become personally engaged with the city and region. For example, I am a member of the Partnership Board for the Bristol City Council which advises the Leader and Chief Executive. For six years I was a member of the Board of the South-West Regional Development Agency. I have been a trustee of an important local charity. Perhaps most importantly I assiduously attend all city social events and network with the other key players in the city and always articulate our desire to assist the city-region. I have also opened up the university for the use of many partners and organizations in the city.

More practically, we have a large Research and Enterprise Directorate which works closely with local businesses. Their aim is to ensure the most rapid transfer of knowledge and technology generated in the university and the easiest access possible for businesses to our skills and technical expertise. This is not only for big businesses. We have set up the Bristol Enterprise Network to assist knowledge transfer among the high tech, high growth SMEs in the Bristol sub-region. This currently has 1500 members. This not only provides networking opportunities but also news and information and training in business skills.

We need to work with key partners in the city particularly the National Health Service. The university provides nearly 200 medical staff for health care in the city and must work very closely with local health trusts, not only to ensure the best health care but also the best teaching and research opportunities for our professionals.

The university also provides most of the local teacher training and thus a very important set of professionals for the future of Bristol. Over a period of ten years or so, the University will have invested over £500 million in infrastructure which has knock-on effects in the local planning, architectural, building and legal services, to name but a few.

However it is not only in business that the university works with the city. Many of our staff are school governors or trustees of charities. We are working very closely on the development of a new school which opened in 2008,  Merchants’  Academy Withywood, in South Bristol. We have enormous numbers of cultural events and lectures which are open to the public. It is often overlooked that our academics travel all over the world. The people most commonly putting up Powerpoint presentations with the word ‘Bristol‘ in the title are the staff of the University.

Furthermore, our staff are massively networked internationally not only with other academics but also business and government. I get at least four “Google Alerts” a day about the University of Bristol from press all over the world. Stories about the University carry the name Bristol to all parts of the globe and all that PR and advertising comes free.

To some observers, the pressure on universities to increasingly be more global in ambition comes at a price.  However, I do not see any essential or intrinsic conflict,  between being an international, outward facing organization, and working to ensure that the local society gains as much as possible from its university. The two ambitions can be made to be completely compatible, though as I have argued above, both need to be championed and advanced together.

However, I would say that the role of the university in its local city and sub-region is one of the most enjoyable parts of leading a great university in 2009.

Eric Thomas

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

This entry has been kindly prepared by Tim Gore, Director of The Centre for Indian Business, University of Greenwich, London, UK. Tim has worked closely with educationalists, institutions, companies and governments to improve bilateral and multilateral educational links in Hong Kong, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Jordan and India over a 23 year period. His most recent role was Director, Education at the British Council in India, where he was responsible for growing the knowledge partnership between India and the UK. Tim also led the establishment of the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) that is profiled in this blog entry.

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

Building sustainable global partnerships

Partnership is a word that is often used but difficult to define. Many claim to have meaningful partnerships but in reality I suspect good partnerships are rare. Partnerships between academic institutions across national and cultural frontiers are especially challenging. In the first place, the institutions themselves are complex, multi-dimensional and resistant to being led in the traditional sense. On the other hand, there is language, the subtle nuances of unspoken cultural expectations and distance! UKIERI – the UK India Education and Research Initiative – was established with the aim of rebuilding the lapsed educational relationship between the UK and India. It was to focus on building academic partnerships that were meaningful and sustainable.

India and the UK

India emerged from its colonial period according to some commentators with the newfound national pride as the growth of their economy and their nuclear and space sciences established their national credibility (see Mohan, 2006). Since the economic reforms of 1991, India had opened its doors and witnessed a dizzying growth. But to fuel this growth, education became more important and with it an interest in partnership with amongst others the UK. The UK also recognised the need of knowledge to fuel its growth and set up several institutions such as the Science and Innovation Council to achieve this. India and China were obvious partners with their rapidly growing academic and research capabilities.

The UK government put the initial funds into UKIERI to start it up closely followed by industry sponsors and later as trust was built, the Indian Government. A number of consultations in India and UK gathered views from the sector about how to achieve the goals. The result was a carefully balanced funding mechanism that encouraged competitive bids across a range of academic collaborations but with similar criteria of impact, relevance, high quality standards and sustainability. The funding was mainly mobility money to break down the difficulty of distance and encourage partners to spend time together. Bids needed to demonstrate that the activities of the partnership were of strategic importance to the institutions involved and that matching funding was available.

The concept of ‘strategic alliances’ has quickly evolved over the last few decades from a position where they were little mentioned in strategy textbooks. Michael Porter, for example, in his work on market forces in the seventies and eighties was more concerned with firms as coherent entities in themselves made up of strategic business units but conceptually sealed from competing firms in the market. Since then, alliances have become crucially important to the extent that a product such as the iPod is the product of a very complex set of strategic relationships where its brand owner, Apple, does not directly produce any part of the iPod or its content.

A variety of writers have looked at alliances from different perspectives. Economic and managerial perspectives see alliances as ways of reducing risk or exerting power and influence in a market. However, social capital and network analyses are far more subtle and see alliances as ways of accessing complex tacit knowledge that is not easy to build or acquire in other ways. Here, the concept of trust plays a big role and we come back to human interaction.

Academic institutions could be concerned with market share and can definitely be concerned about costs. So an analysis such as’ resource based theory’ or ‘transaction cost analysis’ may describe their motivations for partnership well. However, such institutions are complex and exhibit complex goals.

Studies in Norway (see Frølich, 2006) have shown that academic ambition and status is the main driver for researchers seeking overseas links rather than financial or institutional inducements which are merely facilitative. In this analysis, knowledge is power. Knowledge is difficult to acquire and especially those parts of knowledge that are not easily coded and where even the questions are difficult to frame let alone the answers that are sought. Trading in knowledge of this type is done only under conditions of trust.

However, this is only part of the picture. Institutions do have a role. In studies of the success of innovation in the Cambridge innovation cluster, the success was attributed to two sorts of social capital – structural and relational. The individual researchers can easily create the relational capital at conferences and other academic encounters but the structural capital comes by virtue of institutional links such as shared governors on a board. If we can create conditions of both structural and relational capital we can expect a more robust and productive alliance. It is this that UKIERI was trying to achieve.

Buying a stake in the process

UKIERI insisted that institutions buy a stake in the process at the same time as encouraging academics to create their partnerships. Funding was deliberately limited so that the institution had to contribute or find extra funding from a third party. This ensured that the strategic interests of the institution were taken into account. Many universities asked all their staff with an interest in India to attend a working group and prioritise their own bids into UKIERI. At the same time, UKIERI looked for evidence of synergy within the teams and evidence that the partnership would yield more than the sum of the parts. UKIERI arranged a two stage process of peer review to look at the academic strengths followed by a panel review to look holistically at the partnership.

Trust was built at many levels in the Initiative. The Indian Government demonstrated their trust by co-funding the second year after having satisfied themselves that there was genuine mutuality. Many partnerships had to deal with trust issues especially over funding which was channelled through the UK partner in the first year according to UK audit requirements. In a few cases trust broke down and partnerships did not work out but in the overwhelming majority the partnerships are doing well and producing strong research and academic outputs. The Initiative has been favourably reviewed by a number of institutions including the UK’s National Audit Office and a Parliamentary Select Committee.

‘Good’ communication sustains partnerships

In my experience, many partnerships run into difficulties because there is not enough contact between the partners, communications are sparse and often responses are slow or do not happen at all. Universities can give the appearance of being rather fragmented in their approach to partnerships as authority for the various components lies in different parts of the university.

Additionally, very often aspects of the partnership are agreed but then need to be ratified by academic councils or other internal quality processes and this again can cause delays. Very often, the partner is not told about the reason for delays and from the outside it is hard to understand why responses are so slow. This is accentuated when we are dealing across cultures and delays can be interpreted as lack of interest or even a lack of respect. In some cultures, it is not normal to say ‘no’ and a lack of response is the way of communicating lack of interest! All these communication issues erode the trust in the relationship and can be damaging.

I would recommend that each partnership always has a clear lead person who leads on communications and keeps in touch with all the processes on both sides of the partnership. It is important to be transparent about internal mechanisms and how long processes are really likely to take as well as what the processes are. The lead person can also coordinate visits to and fro and ensure that these are fairly regular. If there is a gap, there may be a relevant academic in the area who could take an extra day visiting the partner and keeping the relationship ‘warm’.

We often forget in our efforts to be both effective managers and academics that human relationships are at the core of all our enterprise and that these relationships need nurturing. Without this basic trust effective management of a project and high quality standards will not be enough.

Additional Reading

Frølich, N. (2006) Still academic and national – internationalisation in Norwegian research and higher education, Higher Education, 52 (3), pp. 405-420.

Gore, T. (2008) Global Research Collaboration: Lessons from Practice for Sustainable International Partnerships, October, London: Observatory of Borderless Higher Education.

Heffernan, T. and Poole, D. (2005) In search of the ‘vibe’: creating effective international education partnerships, Higher Education, 50 (2), pp. 223-45.

Mohan, C.R. (2006) India and the balance of power, Foreign Affairs, 85 (4), pp. 17-32.

Muthusamy, S. K. and White, M. A. (2007). An empirical examination of the role of social exchances in alliance performance, Journal of Management Issues, 19 (1), pp. 53-75.

Myint, Y, Vyakarnam, S. et al (2005) The Effect of Social Capital in New Venture Creation: the Cambridge High Technology Cluster.

Tim Gore

Cause for concern? The Bologna Process and the UK’s international student market

A report by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) questioning the implications of the Bologna Process on the UK’s international student market set of alarm bells in the UK media last week. For example, the Guardian (May 22) declared, “UK universities at risk of losing foreign students as a result of the Bologna process”.

The report titled ‘The Bologna process and the UK’s international student market‘, is insightful for it illustrates how the justification for Bologna Process-inspired reforms, and the challenges and opportunities that Bologna affords, continues to be framed differently in national contexts. The report also explicitly links two issues previously discussed in GlobalHigherEd: 1) the overarching aims of the European Higher Education Area (see Per Nyborg’s entry); and 2) the heightened competition among nation-states for their share and position in the market for international students (see Susan Robertson’s series of reviews of a key OBHE report here, here, here, and here).

Bologna structural reforms and the UK’s international student market share

The UK’s traditional success in recruiting international students (second in absolute numbers only to the US according to the OECD) has been based on the perception of quality of provision, the fact that English is the language of instruction, and on the short degree length, relative to other countries. So according to the HEPI report, how does the Bologna Process challenge this advantageous position? Interestingly, while the Bologna Process is a multi-faceted and evolving process of European higher education reform, the report focuses primarily on just one action line: structural reform, also known as the introduction of a three-cycle system, or Bachelor-Master-PhD framework. The report forewarns that introduction of this structure across Europe raises concerns about the UK’s competitive positioning through the inter-related issues of choice, cost, duration and reputation.

• Choice: HEPI cautions that as more European countries introduce a Bachelor-Master structure that was until recently the preserve of a small number of countries, international students will have greater choice when deciding where to study abroad, eroding one of the UK’s competitive advantages.
• Cost: The UK is one of the most expensive countries in which a student can study, both because of the high tuition fees and the relative living costs, particularly in comparison to the low cost in many European countries. While the report argues that the UK offers a “premium product for a premium price” and high cost is often equated with high quality, particularly when related to the global brand/status of a degree available, there may be cause for concern if price sensitivity increasingly becomes a deciding factor for students. (The cost comparison of degrees was also discussed in a previous GlobalHigherEd entry in relation to changing exchange rates on the UK market for international students).
• Duration and reputation: Not only will more Bachelor/Master degrees be available on continental Europe (and around the world), but the short, stand-alone Masters degrees that are particularly lucrative for UK universities may be especially contentious. UK HEIs predominately offer one-year Masters degrees, while many other European countries have chosen to translate the Bologna reforms into two-year second-cycle degrees. (For a discussion on the variation in interpretation of the nature and purpose of different degree cycles across Europe, see EUA’s Trends V report.) HEPI’s concern is that competing countries are framing the UK’s shorter degree as “study light” due to the lower amount of teaching provided and private study required, thereby raising questions about their overall quality. Furthermore, the report states that this issue relates to the perceived “aloofness” of UK policy makers and the “unfair, perhaps, and untrue” questioning of the UK commitment to Bologna that stems in part from the incorrect portrayal that the rest of Europe is undergoing reform to become like the UK rather than the UK being an equal contributor to the on-going process. The report argues that this incorrect perception of non-compliance must be challenged because the potential “Bologna-brand” may be important to the UK’s future attractiveness to international students.

Heightening discourse of competition

Bologna-related discussions have tended to argue that the driving forces for cooperation between national governments, institutions and stakeholders have been to develop a stronger European higher education area, to increase intra-European mobility of students and researchers, and to enhance the “external attractiveness” of European universities to the rest of the world. HEPI’s report illustrates the on-going tensions and contradictions between the broader European goals and particular national concerns, as well as the context of continued competition between national systems of education within Europe.

It is also worth noting that HEPI discusses international student mobility solely in terms of the UK’s share of the global market and the financial contribution they make to institutions. This can be viewed in comparison to other national or regional contexts where the economic “value” of international students is related to research, science and technology objectives, or in terms of immigration and labour force developments (see the Northern Lights report). Given the current context of UK HEIs being financially dependent on income from international student fees – representing on average 8% of their total institutional income – it is perhaps not surprising that overseas students are portrayed primarily as an important export industry.

What the report does not consider is how the range of factors and processes that shape students’ motivations to study abroad extend beyond economic logic. In this sense, the report may be read as taking a homo-economic view on students’ decisions, whereas other strategies such as individual or household strategies to gain symbolic capital in a globalizing economy, desires to remain after graduation to gain place-based work experience or longer-term residency, or simply cultural and experiential goals continue to influence international student mobility patterns.

With the NAFSA conference underway in Washington DC this week, this report provides timely food for thought on how stakeholders and external policy bodies can contribute to the framing of the political and economic processes, as well as the national and institutional strategies, that seek to shape the flows of international students.

Kate Geddie

UK-China partnerships and collaborations in higher education

Both China (PRC) and the Hong Kong SAR offer an expanding and highly competitive market opportunity for overseas higher education institutions (HEIs). As noted in a recent report commissioned by the British Council (UK-China-Hong Kong Transnational Education Project), a number of UK HEIs are providing hundreds of new ‘international’ degree programmes in Hong Kong and China.

According to the Hong Kong Education Bureau, in January 2008 there were over 400 degree programmes run by 36 different UK HEIs in Hong Kong. On the one hand, UK HEIs can be seen to work as independent operators, offering a number of courses to local students registered with the Hong Kong Education Bureau under the ‘Non-local Higher and Professional Education (Regulation) Ordinance’. At the same time, UK HEIs have also initiated a series of collaborations between UK and Hong Kong HEIs. These collaborations are exempted from registration under the Ordinance. In January 2008 there were over 150 registered- and 400 exempted-courses run by 36 different UK HEIs in Hong Kong.

These are a relatively recent phenomenon – according to the British Council Report, more than 40% of joint initiatives in Hong Kong were begun after 2003. Overall, the UK is a significant provider of international education services in Hong Kong, providing 63% of ‘non-local’ courses (compared to 22% from Australia, 5% from the USA and 1% from Canada). These links were bolstered by the ‘Memorandum of Understanding on Education Cooperation’ signed on 11th May 2006 by Arthur Li (Secretary for Education and Manpower HK) and Bill Rammell (Minister of State for Higher Education and Lifelong Learning UK). The memorandum aims, amongst other things, to strengthen partnerships and strategic collaboration between the UK and Hong Kong.

UK HEIs’ involvement in delivering HE in China is ostensibly less well developed. However, in 2006, UK HEIs provided the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) with information on 352 individual links with 232 Chinese HE institutions or organisations. Some recent significant developments with respect to international ‘partnerships’ with Chinese institutions include Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University (XJTLU), located in Suzhou in China, and The University of Nottingham Ningbo, which is sponsored by the City of Ningbo, China, with cooperation from Zhejiang Wanli University. Other examples of UK-China international partnerships include: Leeds Metropolitan University and Zhejiang University of Technology; Queen Mary, University of London and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications; The Queen’s University of Belfast and Shenzhen University; and the University of Bedfordshire and the China Agricultural University.

In 2006, the QAA conducted audits of 10 selected partnerships between UK and Chinese HEIs in order to establish if and how UK institutions were maintaining academic standards within these partnerships. The main findings are that:

• nearly half (82) of all UK higher education institutions reported that they are involved in some way in providing higher education opportunities in China;
• there is great variety in the type of link used to deliver UK awards in China, the subjects studied and the nature of the awards;
• in 2005-06 there were nearly 11,000 Chinese students studying in China for a UK higher education award, 3,000 of whom were on programmes that would involve them completing their studies in the UK;
• institutions’ individual arrangements for managing the academic standards and quality of learning opportunities are generally comparable with programmes in the UK and reflect the expectations of the Code of practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education (Code of practice), Section 2: Collaborative provision and flexible and distributed learning (including e-learning), published by QAA.

The map profiled above was extracted from this report. A similar exercise was carried out in 2007 on partnerships between 6 UK HEIs and Hong Kong HEIs.

These practices and partnerships exemplify the international outlook of many UK HEIs, and underscore the perceived (significant) role of China in their future planning and policies. Unlike Hong Kong, China is seen as market ripe for expansion, with substantial unmet demand for higher education that will only grow into the future. China is by far the biggest ‘source’ country of international students globally, and UK institutions are increasingly recognising the possibility of taking their educational programmes to the students.

Johanna Waters

‘The London-Delhi express’ (in the Guardian)

As the University of London celebrates 150 years of its external system, it scents huge opportunities in India’s expansion plans for higher education. Donald MacLeod reports in the Guardian (5 February). Also see a linked story on the ‘Evolution of the external system‘.

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University and Liverpool International College

As has been noted recently in GlobalHigherEd (link here, here, and here), a number of educational institutions in the UK, including the University of Nottingham and the University of Liverpool, are forging relatively deep linkages with China. In this context I interviewed Kelvin Everest, former Pro-Vice-Chancellor and current Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liverpool, about the university’s venture in China.

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), located in Suzhou in China, opened its doors in September 2006 to approximately 160 students. Second year intake of students was 570, with an expected 900 for 2008. Currently, the university offers degree programmes in only four subjects: electrical engineering, computer science, financial mathematics and a combination of one or more of these with management. Four new programmes will begin in 2008, including finance with English and Biological Sciences. Degrees in civic design and town planning will be introduced in the near future. Two new buildings are currently under construction to support the anticipated expansion.

The initiative has involved a close partnership between the University of Liverpool and Xi’an Jiaotong University. The University of Liverpool also partnered with a large private corporation – Laureate Education Inc., based in Baltimore (a private provider of post-secondary education, with an income of $160 million in 2005). Laureate supplies online educational services and also owns a number of private universities around the world, with a global presence (see the figures below from one of Laureate’s Factsheets that is available on their Investor Relations site).

The company provided the £1mn bond necessary for the University of Liverpool to operate in China. To proceed, the new university required the permission of both the Chinese national government (Ministry of Education) and the provincial government in Suzhou. As the Changing Higher Education blog noted this year, China is clearly on Laureate’s radar screen after using Latin America as its launching pad.

The university is located in China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park, which has been built with money from the Singaporean government, as part of Singapore’s attempts to develop an ‘external wing’ of its economy, and embed itself in China. The industrial park is 84 square miles with factories and other facilities but mainly new production plants for huge multinationals – Siemens, Samsung, Volvo, Zanussi and so on – particularly electronic communications and transport. It has been described as a ‘hub’ for foreign investors, including 53 Fortune 500 companies, and reflects the Chinese government’s desire to build ‘local’ R and D capacity. At one corner of the park is the ‘higher education town’ and the plan is to build five or six universities there with connections to other countries. This will then generate a workforce that will populate the science park and partly address the enormous projected demand for skilled graduates in China.

All teaching and assessment at XJTLU is carried out in English – the perceived global language – meeting a widespread demand for English-language skills. However, because it is an ‘independent’ university, XJTLU does not come under the auspices of the UK Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the University of Liverpool will not be directly responsible for quality or standards. The university is run by a board, whose members include the US company Laureate, the Suzhou Industrial Park and the Chinese partner university.

The University of Liverpool is hoping to receive several benefits from this overseas development. In the long run, the University plans to sell various ‘products’ to XJTLU on a consultancy basis (such as curricula, quality assurance mechanisms, staff development experience, and so on). So some income will be generated in this way. However, the main advantage comes from an assured annual influx of Chinese students. Historically, the University of Liverpool has received significant numbers of international students from China studying in the Management School and in engineering and computer sciences. There has been a concern, however, that competition from other universities (especially from expanding HE capacity within China itself) threatens the long term dependability of these flows.

Starting next year, students at XJTLU will complete two years of their degree course in Suzhou followed by 2 years in Liverpool (with reduced international tuition fees). A four-year programme in Suzhou followed by a Masters degree at Liverpool is currently being developed and is attracting much interest. These structures ensure a constant and anticipated influx of Chinese students into the Liverpool university system. Electrical engineering at the University of Liverpool already has 50/50 home/overseas students and the new intake would change the balance to two-thirds overseas. This influx of students would allow the university to sustain itself and to grow as an institution.

The historic and cultural links between China and Liverpool are also deemed important to this development. Liverpool is twinned with Shanghai and has a higher profile in China than it does in Europe. Clearly, this initiative involves a high degree of risk and uncertainty. However, when it comes to China, possibilities would seem to outweigh the risks.

In a separate but related initiative, in May of this year the University of Liverpool announced an agreement with Kaplan Inc., another global educational and career services provider with an annual revenue of nearly $1.7 billion, and emerging interests in both the UK and China. Kaplan, Inc., is a subsidiary of the Washington Post Company. The joint venture between Liverpool and Kaplan will establish an international college located on the campus of the University of Liverpool. The aim is to prepare international students for entry into the University’s undergraduate and graduate degree programmes. Subject to meeting defined academic and English language standards, students who complete their course at Liverpool International College will be eligible for undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes at the University. Such colleges are already in existence in partnership with the University of Sheffield, the University of Glasgow and Nottingham Trent University.

Johanna Waters

Debating China: UK universities in China and Confucius Institutes in Western universities

GlobalHigherEd has been relatively quiet lately with the two co-editors traveling a lot for research. One of us (Kris Olds) was speaking at the University of Nottingham’s UK campus yesterday. By pure coincidence my visit corresponded with the publication of two leading articles in today’s Inside Higher Ed and the Chronicle of Higher Education on the forging of higher education linkages with China, a country where GlobalHigherEd is now inaccessible (so we have been told). Given that nothing critical has been published about China in the blog to date we can only assume that the WordPress.com platform is the causal trigger for this act of censorship.

In any case check out the Inside Higher Ed and Chronicle of Higher Education entries, and revisit Daniel Bell’s 3 December entry (‘To link or not to link? On linkages between Western and Chinese universities’). Today’s articles profile an Agora discussion paper that includes a relatively critical chapter by Ian Gow, an East Asianist, and former Foundation Provost and Vice-President of the University of Nottingham’s campus in Ningbo, China. Gow is now Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West of England. Gow’s brief chapter focuses on what he perceives to be new reality that somewhat naïve UK universities need to take into account when forging more linkages with China:

Watching the new changes in the Sino-foreign higher education joint venture legislation and its administrative guidance – and how they interpret that legislation – is very worrying. The Chinese government are allowing foreign partnerships, but with the Chinese institution very much in control. The University of Nottingham’s Ningbo campus and The University of Liverpool’s joint institution with Xi’an Jiaotong University are two brave attempts at partnership with China. Yet this is a model that is unlikely to occur again, unless a world class US institution manages to get through. The institutions currently negotiating entry will gain it on Chinese terms, with the Chinese very much in control. The Chinese no longer have to persuade, they seem to have everyone eating out of their hands. The pull factor is being replaced by a push from the foreign institutions. But we are not thinking sufficiently about how to engineer a win-win situation: we are simply rushing to establish any sort of partnership, to get out there. Unless emerging Sino-UK strategic alliances are better thought through, British higher education could be sorry.

The Guardian article, and especially Gow’s chapter, received a quickly written rejoinder from Colin Campbell, Nottingham’s Vice-Chancellor. In Campbell’s response, also published today in the Guardian, he states:

Globalisation means that our country cannot “stay at home”. Nor, to quote Prof Michael Shattock (with perhaps the most depressing view to have emerged from Agora’s exercise), can UK universities “stick to their knitting”.

The article claimed that Prof Gow “called British institutions ‘incredibly naïve’ for handing over their research in key disciplines to get a foothold in China”. In fact, he was cautioning emerging joint ventures, and not those already well established, but little matter. Leading international universities are very carefully managing the risks involved in any overseas venture to expand their sphere of influence. Research, like student exchanges with China, has to be two-way to be sustainable. The “win-win” situation we are being urged in undeservedly panicked tones to “engineer” is in fact already underway, on a fair and reciprocal basis, and it is flourishing. We have huge confidence that the world will be better for it.

It is good to see some public debate going on as there is a lot to be learned from universities on the front lines of the globalization of higher education, especially with respect to the reorganization of their institutional structures.

In addition Insider Higher Ed balances this UK-based view with additional coverage of an Australia-based framing and critique of the ongoing establishment of hundreds (180 and counting) Confucius Institutes in universities throughout the world. These institutes are sponsored by Chinese Language Council International, and are expressive of China’s use of higher education as a form of ‘soft power’; a strategy raising curiosity in many quarters. The most recent Confucius Institute was opened in Rutgers University, as pictured here to the right. Jocelyn Chey, a former diplomat and visiting professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney spoke about the issue and it is available here in mp3 format. The intertwining of higher education and global geopolitical strategy is a topic that has historic precedent, of course, but is evolving in some new and quite fascinating ways.

UK- and Australia-centred views to be sure, and designed to spur on debate, but food for thought from actors with significant experience in engaging with the evolving Chinese higher education and foreign affairs complex.

Kris Olds