Research
Articles
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008: Executive Summary. The Power of Collaborative Innovation.
Looking to the future, it becomes readily apparent that complexity, competing interests and scarce resources remain the greatest obstacles to progress on the global agenda in the absence of greater leadership and global stewardship. It is in this challenging context that the World Economic Forum will highlight The Power of Collaborative Innovation as the principal theme for the Annual Meeting 2008 in Davos.
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008: Executive Summary. The Power of Collaborative Innovation.
Globalisation’s offspring: How the new multinationals are remaking the old.
The Economist: 4th April, 2007
For as long as multinational companies have existed—and some historians trace them back to banking under the Knights Templar in 1135—they have been derided by their critics as rapacious rich-world beasts. If there was ever any truth to that accusation, it is fast disappearing. While globalization has opened new markets to rich-world companies, it has also given birth to a pack of fast-moving, sharp-toothed new multinationals that is emerging from the poor world…
Globalisation’s offspring: How the new multinationals are remaking the old
College Goes Global.
Brody, William R. President of John Hopkins University
Foreign Affairs: Vol.86 No. 2 March/April 2007.
The market for higher education, like others, is becoming increasingly globalized -- and dominated by U.S. institutions. But despite predictions that U.S.-based global universities will surge as geographic and disciplinary barriers come down, the era of the global "megaversity" may not quite be at hand…
Global Trends in Funding Higher Education
Tilak, Jandhyala B. G. International Higher Education: Winter 2006 (42), 5-6.
The decline in public expenditure on higher education has been a global crisis and the most important trend. Compelled by economic reform policies or convinced of the rationale for the reduced role of the state in funding higher education, most countries have inflicted serious cuts in public budgets for higher education. This trend exists in many countries, in some or all of the following areas: total public expenditure on higher education, per student expenditures, public higher education expenditure’s share in relation to a particular country’s national income or total government budget expenditure, and allocations in absolute and relative terms to important programs that include research, scholarships, and so on. The decline is not confined to developing countries, though it is more prevalent in developing than in developed countries.
Global Trends in Funding Higher Education
The European Higher Education Area Beyond 2010
Bologna Process. 2005. Retrieved September 19, 2006. www.bolognabergen2005.no/b/Board_Meetings/050426_Brussels/BFUGB8_1b.pdf
As the Bologna Process leads to the establishment of the EHEA, we have to consider the appropriate arrangements needed to support the continuing development beyond 2010. At the Ministerial Conference in Bergen, time will be allotted for Ministers to have an open discussion on this issue. This paper may be helpful for setting the background.
The European Higher Education Area Beyond 2010
Brain drain, brain gain and brain circulation
Robertson, Susan L. Globalisation, Societies and Education: March 2006. 4(1), 1-5.
The term ‘brain drain’, popularized in the 1950s with reference to immigration to the United States, has, in the past 10 years, become an important if not controversial political and economic issue. Its importance dervies from the view that politicians and policy-makers have that brains are the basis for a competitive edge in the so-called ‘new knowledge economy’. However, it is not just any old brain. Rather, the race is on between countries to attract the best brains from around the world in order to generate the ideas that will in turn lead to innovation, patents and profits.
Brain drain, brain gain and brain circulation
Education at a Glance 2006: OECD Briefing Note for the United Kingdom
OECD. (2006). Education at a Glance 2006: Highlights. Executive Summary.
This year’s education indicators also point to strong performance and progress in the UK’s education system, in terms of the expected years of education where the UK now tops the OECD countries, in terms of an above-average rise in investments in education, particularly in schools, or with regard to access to and use of new technologies in schools.
Education at a Glance 2006: OECD Briefing Note for the United Kingdom
The Internationalization of Higher Education; Motivations and Realities.
Altbach, Philip G. Director for the Center of Higher Education at Boston College and Jane Knight, The NEA 2006 Almanac of Higher Education: 2006 1-11.
The Internationalization of Higher Education; Motivations and Realities
Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa
Bloom, David., Canning, David and Kevin Chan. Harvard University and the World Bank: September 20, 2005.
For several decades, African countries and the donor institutions they work with have placed great emphasis on primary and, more recently, secondary education. But they have neglected tertiary education as an added means to improve economic growth and mitigate poverty.
Higher Education and Economic Development in Africa
Qualitative Enhancement and Quantitative Growth: Changes and Trends of China’s Higher Education
Huang, Futao. Higher Education Policy: 2005 (18), 117-130.
This article identifies the international and domestic drivers of current changes in China’s higher education. It then touches on the national agenda and policy concerning reforms in China’s higher education since the 1990s. By arguing factors that are affecting and will affect changes, it is pointed out that two focuses can be seen in recent reforms in China’s higher education: qualitative enhancement and quantitative expansion. Based on examining the qualitative improvement and massification of higher education in China, major trends and issues are discussed.
Qualitative Enhancement and Quantitative Growth: Changes and Trends of China’s Higher Education
Higher Education Crosses Borders
Altbach, Philip G. Director for the Center of Higher Education at Boston College. Change: March-April, 2004.
Higher Education Crosses Borders
Globalization and the University: Myths and Realities in an Unequal World.
Altbach, Philip G. Director for the Center of Higher Education at Boston College.
Tertiary Education and Management: No.1 2004
Much has been said about the impact of globalization on higher education. Some have argued that globalization, the Internet, and the scientific community will level the playing field in the new age of knowledge interdependence. Others claim that globalization means both worldwide inequality and the McDonaldization of the university. It is argued that all of the contemporary pressures on higher education, from the pressures of massification to the growth of the private sector are the results of globalization. There is a grain of truth in all of these hypotheses—and a good deal of misinterpretation as well. The purpose of this essay is to “unpack” the realities of globalization and internationalization in higher education and to highlight some of the ways in which globalization affects the university. Of special interest here is how globalization is affecting higher education in developing countries—the nations that will experience the bulk of higher education expansion in the coming decades…
Globalization and the University: Myths and Realities in an Unequal World
The Brain Trade
Altbach, P. G., & Bassett, R. M. (2004). Foreign Policy (144), 30-31
The landscape of international higher education is changing. The September 11, 2001, attacks led the United States, the top recipient of international students, to raise entry barriers. Yet there is no holding back the flow of students seeking education beyond their borders. A recent Australian study estimates that the total number of international students will increase to 8 million by 2025. It is safe to predict that most of these students will come from Asia and end up in rich Western countries, but an increasing number are looking to new options in the developing world.
The Future of the Tertiary Education Sector: Scenarios for a Learning Society
Miller, Riel. Paper presented at the OECD/Japanese Seminar on the Future of Universities, Tokyo, Japan. 11-12 December, 2003.
This paper presents scenarios for tertiary education twenty years or so from now. On the basis of these stories about the broad tertiary sector, the paper closes with some speculation on the possible role(s) of these institutions in the long-run future.
The Future of the Tertiary Education Sector: Scenarios for a Learning Society
Lifelong Learning in the Global Knowledge Economy: Challenges for Developing Countries
World Bank. 2003. Washington DC: World Bank.
This report explores the challenges to education and training systems that the knowledge economy presents. It outlines policy options for addressing these challenges and developing viable systems of lifelong learning in developing countries and countries with transition economies.
Lifelong Learning in the Global Knowledge Economy: Challenges for Developing Countries
Unanticipated Development: Perspectives on Private Higher Education’s Emerging Roles
Levy, Daniel C. Program for Research on Private Higher Education: Working Paper No. 1 (April 2002). http://www.albany.edu/dept/eaps/prophe/publication/paper.html
The global explosion of private higher education, astonishing in extent and intensity, often catches government and most other observers by surprise. Rarely is the private surge centrally designed or even widely anticipated (despite being related to visible and broad economic, social, political, and international trends). Public policy commonly emerges only in delayed fashion.
Unanticipated Development: Perspectives on Private Higher Education’s Emerging Roles
Higher Education in India- Seriously Challenged
Chitis, Suma. International Higher Education: Spring (27), 2002, 19-20.
Higher Education in India is seriously challenged. It is confronted with globalization even as it struggles to overcome the inadequacies created by colonial rule and to meet the demands of development.
Higher Education in India- Seriously Challenged
Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise
World Bank. 2000. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Based on research and intensive discussion and hearings conducted over a two-year period, the Task Force has concluded that, without more and better higher education, developing countries will find it increasingly difficult to benefit from the global knowledge based economy.
Higher Education in Developing Countries: Peril and Promise
News
Measuring Mortarboards
The Economist: 15 November, 2007.
A new sort of higher education guide for very discerning customers.
Apollo Goes Global
Inside Higher Ed: 23 October, 2007.
Compared to some of its peers in the for-profit higher education market, such as Laureate Education and Kaplan Education, the Apollo Group has made relatively little inroads abroad. And the University of Phoenix parent has largely stayed on the sidelines as private equity funds have poured in to for-profit education in recent years…
A Liberal Arts College Marks Five Years in Ghana
Inside Higher Ed: 19 October, 2007.
Patrick Awuah, Ashesi University’s president, celebrated the fifth anniversary of Ghana’s first liberal arts college this week in Seattle. After an eight-year career at Microsoft, Awuah, a native Ghanaian, founded Ashesi in 2002 with this vision: “Imagine if every Sub-Saharan African country had several small liberal-arts colleges, educating students at a level equivalent to liberal-arts colleges in the United States — colleges dedicated to nurturing critical thinking, effective communication skills, practical experience, and a true concern for society in their students….”
A Liberal Arts College Marks Five Years in Ghana
The Mobile International Student
Inside Higher Ed: 10 October, 2007.
Much of the analysis of trends in international student mobility comes from the perspective of individual countries. American academic groups worry about the relative ability of colleges in the United States to attract the best foreign talent. British groups do the same, and so forth. A new analysis from the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education — a think tank based in Britain and affiliated with the Association of Commonwealth Universities and Universities UK — attempts to take a broader perspective…
The Mobile International Student
A Worldwide Test for Higher Education?
Inside Higher Ed; 19 September, 2007.
For much of the last year or two, debate has raged among American higher education officials and state and federal policy makers about the wisdom and practicality of creating a system that would allow for public comparison of how successfully individual colleges and/or programs are educating their students. Many college leaders have rejected the push, which has emanated primarily from the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education and the U.S. Education Department, on the grounds that the nation’s colleges and universities— two-year and four-year, public and private, exclusive and open enrollment — and their students are far too varied to be responsibly and intelligently measured by any single, standardized measure (or even a suite of them)…
A Worldwide Test for Higher Education?
A world of opportunity
The Economist: 10 September, 2007.
Across the developing world, higher education is coming in from the cold.
Gone are the days when it was purely a luxury for the elite. Governments are rapidly expanding their higher-education systems, with China probably witnessing the biggest expansion of student numbers in history. They are trying to create centres of excellence and throwing open the sector to private entrepreneurs.
Wandering scholars: For students, higher education is becoming a borderless world.
The Economist: 10 September, 2007.
Bill Clinton tells a nice story about the first time he set eyes on Oxford University. He was dropped off at his college at 11pm on a rainy October night, together with three other Rhodes scholars. One of them was Robert Reich, his future labour secretary, who is exceedingly short. The four Americans walked into the college's main quadrangle, a splendid 17th-century edifice, and marveled about the wealth of history facing them. But they were immediately brought down to earth by the head porter, Douglas Millin, who complained that he had been promised four Yanks, but had been sent only three and a half…
Higher Ed Inc: Universities have become much more businesslike, but they are still doing the same old things
The Economist: 8 September, 2007.
THE University of Phoenix's Hohokam campus looks more like a corporate headquarters than a regular university. There is none of the cheerful mess that you associate with student life. The windows are made from black reflecting glass, the corridors are neat and hushed, the grass has been recently cut, there is plenty of parking space for everybody, and security guards in golf carts make sure all the cars are on legitimate business. The university is conveniently close to a couple of motorways, and ten minutes from the airport…
The Right to Learn
Gregorian, Vartan. Newsweek: 21 August, 2006.
Students around the world are demanding access to higher education. But it's not always easy to provide.
Wanted: Foreigners
Brownell, Ginanne. Newsweek International: 21 August, 2006.
Universities are competing to attract the best, brightest and richest students.
From Marx to marketing; Central European universities
The Economist: 5 November, 2005.
Imagine an ambitious, globe-trotting youngster from Asia who wants a good, cheap degree from somewhere in Europe. At first glance, the continent's eastern half, with its communist heritage, lingering suspicion of non-Europeans, baffling langua ges and dreary tradition of rote- learning might seem an odd place to look. But in education, as in other industries, the new members of the European Union have the advantage of a past that leaves nowhere to go but up. Compared with their state-run counterparts in western Europe, where academics, bureaucrats and students unite against change, universities in countries once yoked to Moscow are adapting fast to a new global market.
From Marx to marketing; Central European universities
How Europe fails its young
The Economist: 10 September, 2005.
Those Europeans who are tempted, in the light of the dismal scenes in New
Orleans this fortnight, to downgrade the American challenge should meditate on one word: universities. Five years ago in Lisbon European officials proclaimed their intention to become the world's premier "knowledge economy" by 2010. The thinking behind this grand declaration made sense of a sort: Europe's only chance of preserving its living standards lies in working smarter than its competitors rather than harder or cheaper. But Europe's failing higher-education system poses a lethal threat to this ambition.
Secrets of Success
The Economist: 10 September, 2005.
America's system of higher education is the best in the world. That is because there is no system.
The best is yet to come
The Economist: 10 September, 2005.
A more market-oriented system of higher education can do much better than the state-dominated model.
The brains business: A Survey of Higher Education
The Economist: 10 September, 2005, 3-22.
Mass higher education is forcing universities to become more diverse, more global and much more competitive, says Adrian Wooldridge.
The brains business: A Survey of Higher Education
Arab Universities Struggle to Meet Their Nations' Needs
Wheeler, David L. Chronicle of Higher Education: 5 April, 2002.
Is higher education in the Arab world modernizing at a painfully slow pace when it needs to be charging at the speed of photons down a fiber-optic cable?
Arab Universities Struggle to Meet Their Nations’ Needs
Websites
- Atlas of Student Mobility
- Center for Global Education – University of Southern California
- Center for International Higher Education – Boston College
- Forum on Education Abroad
- Institute of International Education
- OECD Online Education Database
- The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education
- Salzburg Global Seminar
- UNESCO - International Association of Universities – database
