Matching Visibility and Performance: A Standing Challenge for World-Class Universities 9789463007719, 9789463007726, 9789463007733, 9463007725

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS......Page 6
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......Page 8
RECENT GLOBAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT......Page 10
Growing Interests in WCU Leading to a Growing Number ofExcellence Initiatives......Page 11
Continuing Debate on Tensions between Visibility and Performance......Page 12
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS VOLUME......Page 13
Global Reflections......Page 14
National Reactions......Page 15
Institutional Responses......Page 17
REFERENCES......Page 19
SECTION I:GLOBAL REFLECTION......Page 21
INTRODUCTION......Page 22
Characteristics of Excellence Initiatives......Page 23
Impact of Excellence Initiatives......Page 28
Alignment of Drivers of Performance......Page 33
Talent Concentration......Page 37
Financing......Page 41
Governance......Page 44
CONCLUSION......Page 46
NOTES......Page 47
REFERENCES......Page 48
APPENDIX 1......Page 49
APPENDIX 2......Page 53
THE WORLDWIDE GROWTH OF PARTICIPATION......Page 56
Explanations for the Growth of HPS......Page 60
THE SPREAD OF SCIENCE......Page 62
Growth in Number of WCUs......Page 65
PROBLEMS OF MASS HIGHER EDUCATION......Page 66
The Case of the United States......Page 68
CONCLUSIONS......Page 70
REFERENCES......Page 71
WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES: A BRIEF HISTORY......Page 73
METHODOLGY......Page 75
The United States of America......Page 76
The United Kingdom......Page 78
Australia......Page 80
Canada......Page 82
Switzerland......Page 83
Netherlands......Page 86
Japan......Page 89
France......Page 91
SUMMARY OF DATA......Page 92
CONCLUSIONS......Page 94
REFERENCES......Page 95
Key Features of the Modern University System......Page 96
Perspectives for Higher Education......Page 97
Research Activities......Page 100
THE ROLE OF COMPREHENSIVE UNIVERSITIES......Page 101
REFERENCES......Page 103
SECTION II:NATIONAL REACTIONS......Page 105
INTRODUCTION......Page 106
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND......Page 108
CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE PROGRAMMES......Page 110
STRATEGIC FUND FOR ESTABLISHING INTERNATIONALHEADQUARTERS IN UNIVERSITIES (SIH)......Page 111
GLOBAL 30 PROGRAMME......Page 113
GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE AND STRATEGIC LINKS......Page 115
STRENGTHENING GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES......Page 116
NOTE......Page 119
REFERENCES......Page 120
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONALIZATIONOF HIGHER EDUCATION......Page 122
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA’S HIGHER EDUCATION INRESPONSE TO GLOBALIZATION......Page 124
Growth and Beyond: New Challenges and Persistent Concerns......Page 125
Paradoxes and Ambiguous Policies......Page 128
CHINA’S EMERGING GLOBAL ROLE IN HIGHER EDUCATION......Page 131
CHINA’S ROLE IN GLOBAL HIGHER EDUCATION: A FOLLOWERAND EMERGING LEADER......Page 135
REFERENCES......Page 137
A UNIQUE CHINA MODEL?......Page 141
The Reform of Research Universities......Page 143
BALANCING INSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY, STATE SOVEREIGNTY,AND INTERNATIONALIZATION......Page 145
THE MAIN CHALLENGE: MAKE RESEARCH AND TEACHINGDRIVE CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION......Page 147
CHINA’S SECOND SYSTEM: INVERTED ACADEMICCULTURE AND GOVERNANCE......Page 149
Two Systems of Academic Governance of Teaching and Researchat Research Universities......Page 150
CONCLUSION......Page 154
NOTE......Page 155
REFERENCES......Page 156
SECTION III:INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSES......Page 159
Measuring Visibility and Assessing Performance outside Scientific Research......Page 160
Defining Criteria Adapted to Different Policies and Contexts......Page 162
THE IMPACT OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCH ON THE SOCIETY......Page 163
University-Industry Partnerships in Research......Page 164
Intellectual Property Management and Technology Transfer......Page 168
Creating New and Innovative Companies......Page 170
ADDED VALUE OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING......Page 172
Impact of Higher Education at the Beginning of a Career......Page 173
Educating Future CTOs, CSOs and Senior Officials in Academia......Page 176
FINDING A PATH BETWEEN VISIBILITY AND PERFORMANCE......Page 177
REFERENCES......Page 178
INTRODUCTION......Page 180
HSE BACKGROUND......Page 182
CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN LOCAL ENGAGEMENTAND GLOBAL VISIBILITY......Page 185
WHY THERE IS STILL IMPORTANT COHERENCE IN THESE MISSIONS......Page 187
REFERENCES......Page 189
INTRODUCTION......Page 190
UNIVERSITIES OF THE FUTURE......Page 191
Researchers......Page 195
Universities......Page 196
A UNIVERSITY FOR THE TROPICS......Page 197
THE STATE OF THE TROPICS......Page 200
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......Page 201
REFERENCES......Page 202
INTRODUCTION......Page 203
NET GENERATION STUDENTS......Page 204
Strategy 1: New Courses and Approaches......Page 206
Strategy 3: Learning beyond Classroom......Page 208
Strategy 4: Glocal Faculty Members......Page 211
NOTES......Page 213
REFERENCES......Page 214
UTILIZING RANKING IN UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT......Page 215
The University Setting......Page 216
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS......Page 217
Defining UH Mānoa’s Structure and Role in the UH System......Page 218
Recruiting a Vibrant, Prepared Student Body......Page 219
Advancing the Research Enterprise......Page 220
RECOMMENDATIONS......Page 221
REFERENCES......Page 222
THE RISE OF UNIVERSITY RANKINGS......Page 224
HISTORY OF RANKINGS......Page 225
POPULARITY OF RANKINGS......Page 226
UNIVERSITY RESPONSES......Page 227
Specific National Targets and Policies......Page 228
IMPACT OF RANKINGS ON UNIVERSITIES......Page 229
SECTORAL AND NATIONAL IMPACT OF RANKINGS......Page 230
Disproportionate Weighting......Page 231
Biased Indicators and Proxies......Page 232
THE HKUST EXPERIENCE......Page 235
Provide Greater Transparency......Page 237
Normalize Indicators......Page 238
REFERENCES......Page 239
ABOUT THE AUTHORS......Page 242

Citation preview

Matching Visibility and Performance

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON HIGHER EDUCATION Volume 35 Higher education worldwide is in a period of transition, affected by globalization, the advent of mass access, changing relationships between the university and the state, and the new technologies, among others. Global Perspectives on Higher Education provides cogent analysis and comparative perspectives on these and other central issues affecting postsecondary education worldwide. Series Editors: Philip G. Altbach Hans de Wit Laura E. Rumbley Center for International Higher Education, Boston College, USA

This series is co-published with the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.

Matching Visibility and Performance A Standing Challenge for World-Class Universities

Edited by Nian Cai Liu, Ying Cheng and Qi Wang Shanghai Jiao Tong University, P.R. China

A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN: 978-94-6300-771-9 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-772-6 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6300-773-3 (e-book)

Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/ All chapters in this book have undergone peer review. The following chapters have been reprinted here with permission from the publishers: Chapter 6: Akiyoshi Yonezawa & Yukiko Shimmi, “Transformation of university governance through internationalization: Challenges for top universities and government policies in Japan”. Higher Education, 70(2), 173–186 (August 2015). Chapter 8: Gerard A. Postiglione, “Research universities for national rejuvenation and global influence: China’s search for a balanced model”. Higher Education, 70(2), 235–250 (August 2015). Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2016 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgementsvii 1. Matching Visibility and Performance: A Standing Challenge for World-Class Universities Nian Cai Liu, Ying Cheng and Qi Wang

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Section I: Global Reflection 2. Excellence Strategies and the Creation of World-Class Universities Jamil Salmi 3. Towards World-Class Systems: World-Class Universities in High Participation Systems of Higher Education Simon Marginson

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4. World-Class Universities in an Age of Slow Growth Alex Usher

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5. The Role of Universities in Society: Challenges Ahead Bernd Huber

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Section II: National Reactions 6. Transformation of University Governance through Internationalization: Challenges for Top Universities and Government Policies in Japan Akiyoshi Yonezawa and Yukiko Shimmi

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7. China’s Higher Education in Global Perspective: Leader or Follower in the ‘World-Class’ Movement? Marijk van der Wende and Jiabin Zhu

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8. Research Universities for National Rejuvenation and Global Influence: China’s Search for a Balanced Model Gerard A. Postiglione

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Section III: Institutional Responses 9. Trading between Visibility and Performance at Global and Local Levels: The Example of Research Universities in France Laurent Buisson

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

10. Global Visibility and Local Engagement: Can They Go Together? The Case of the National Research University Higher School of Economics179 Maria Yudkevich 11. A University for the Tropics Chris Cocklin and Bradley Smith

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12. Developing Innovative and Entrepreneurial Graduates Seeram Ramakrishna and Arun S. Mujumdar

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13. Exploring the Linkage between Rankings and Strategic Planning Yang Zhang

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14. The Role of Universities, the Rise of Rankings, and Internationalization Tony Chan, Michael Fung and Natalie Chang

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About the Authors

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors wish to thank Mr Peter de Liefde, Sense Publishers, for his support in the publication of this volume; Professor Philip G. Altbach, research professor and founding director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College; Dr Jan Sadlak, President of IREG International Observatory on Ranking and Academic Excellence; and Dr Paul Deacon for the linguistic editing of the manuscript.

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NIAN CAI LIU, YING CHENG AND QI WANG

1. MATCHING VISIBILITY AND PERFORMANCE A Standing Challenge for World-Class Universities

INTRODUCTION

The concept of world-class universities (WCU) has increasingly gained popularity in the past two decades around the world. WCU, often used interchangeably to refer to research universities or flagship universities, are regarded as cornerstone institutions of any academic system and imperative to develop a nation’s competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. It is widely agreed that these universities are committed to the creation and dissemination of knowledge in a range of disciplines and fields; the delivery of elite education at all levels; serving national needs; and furthering the international public good (Altbach, 2009, 2013; Liu, 2009; van der Wende, 2009). The development of such universities is high on the policy agenda of various stakeholders worldwide, in both developed and developing countries and regions, and at both national and institutional levels, to promote their global competitiveness (Altbach & Balan, 2007; Huisman, 2008). Such a ‘world-class’ movement has been intensified and is manifested by the proliferation of university rankings (Salmi, 2009; King, 2011; Hazelkorn, 2011, 2013). It was in this context that the Graduate School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University initiated the biennial International Conference on World-Class Universities in 2005. Previous conferences have gathered university administrators, government officials, leading scholars and policy researchers from around the world to discuss the various issues related to world-class universities. The Sixth International Conference on World-Class Universities was held in November 2015. The conference theme was ‘Matching Visibility and Performance: A Standing Challenge of World-Class Universities’. This volume provides updated insights into developing academic excellence from global, national and institutional perspectives, and intends to stimulate discussion on how visibility and performance can be integrated and balanced in practice, and how universities can be ‘globally visible and locally engaged’. RECENT GLOBAL TRENDS IN THE WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY MOVEMENT

Seeking world-class university status has been a global phenomenon (Altbach, 2013). In spite of many social, cultural and economic differences, governments and N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 1–11. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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top universities both in developed and developing countries have joined this battle for academic excellence. As a result, they have adopted a range of development strategies and implemented various reforms to restructure their higher education systems (Deem et al., 2008). Previous literature has pointed out main strategic foci include competitive funding schemes and national initiatives, internationalization and governance reform at both governmental and institutional levels. Some common trends can be identified from the recent discussions and literature on developing world-class universities. Growing Interests in WCU Leading to a Growing Number of Excellence Initiatives An increasing number of strategic funding schemes have been implemented to promote excellence by an increasing number of countries and regions around the world. As Salmi (Chapter 2) points out, the very first group of special funding schemes took place mostly between 1989 and 2004, including China’s 985 Project, Japan’s Centres of Excellence and World Premier International Research Centres, Korea’s Brain Korea 21, as well as research excellence projects in Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Canada. These first-group countries continue to invest in these initiatives and have added new projects in the last ten years, such as Japan’s Programme for Promoting the Enhancement of Research University and the Top Global Universities Programme (Chapter 6). Meanwhile, more governments, in the past decade, have adopted special programmes, such as Russia’s National Research University Programme, and Saudi Arabia’s University and Education City Projects. Selected universities and research centres in these countries and regions have provided extra and concentrated funding to develop excellence in teaching and research. Despite different organizational and management approaches, these initiatives all propose clear aims for excellence, provide adequate funding to ‘cherry-picked’ institutions and research centres, and ensure essential policy support from their governments. Furthermore, these competitive funding schemes are proposed, agreed on and legislated by government and associated organizations. The legislative processes turn these educational initiatives into regulations and laws, which strengthen the authoritative and compulsory nature of the policies. In addition, these funding programmes have further raised awareness of international competition among institutions (Wang & Cheng, 2014). As Salmi argues in his chapter (Chapter 2), it might still be too early to evaluate the impact of these initiatives. There have also been concerns as to how governments can sustain their investments (Chapter 5), and how to ensure their excellence initiatives do not interrupt and overshadow healthy and meaningful reform of the whole higher education system (Chapter 2 and 3).

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Increasing Governance Reform at both National and Institutional Levels Realising that excellence initiatives cannot act on their own and that appropriate governance is one of the key elements to determine university performance, higher education systems and their institutions have increasingly adopted various structural reforms to create favourable governance situations. Governance issues embrace a range of features: autonomy, leadership, regulatory frameworks, strategic visions, competitive environments and organizational cultures (Salmi, 2009; Altbach, 2011). It has also been witnessed that many countries and regions have focused on benchmarking exercises and emphasized notions of ‘international standards’ and ‘quality enhancement’. Tensions between autonomy and accountability in the context of the neoliberal economic consensus can be seen as one of the core challenges, particularly in relation to building academic excellence. However, it is also true that these competitive funding programmes mentioned in the previous section to some extent have further enabled the selected universities autonomy and flexibility to spend according to their demands, while performance criteria are tightly attached to assure accountability and quality (World Bank, 2012). In relation to diversifying funding resources, the commercialization of research brings significant challenges: market forces can generate potential conflict between traditional academic norms and commercial interests, and between basic research and applied and often profit-oriented research (Altbach, 2009). Also, whether the role of university presidents and leaders should be top scholars or managers, possibly from outside of academia, is another heated debate. Several chapters in this volume explore examples of the importance of governance and challenges in building world-class universities (Chapters 6, 7, 8 & 9). Continuing Debate on Tensions between Visibility and Performance Visibility and Performance are among the most watched concepts in relation to develop WCUs, but remain complicated in nature and with no agreed upon definitions. The growth of university rankings in the past two decades attracts all higher education stakeholders, from university leaders to faculty staff, from students to parents, from governments to the media, and has been transformed into ‘a global intelligence information business’ (Hazelkorn, 2011). This un-immutable phenomenon has direct and indirect impacts on universities’ work and behaviour. Existing literature has focused on how to raise universities’ prestige, status, impact and rankings in the global and regional arena on the one hand, and how to enhance universities’ quality, efficiency, effectiveness and academic output on the other. However, whether visibility is a legitimate indicator of performance, or vice versa (Chapter 9), whether ranking systems and their results have positive or

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negative impact on universities’ behaviour and action (Chapter 12, 13 & 14), and whether a university can be both internationally reputed as well as locally engaged (Chapter 10 & 11) – these are ongoing discussions and debates in the field. This volume collects chapters with an attempt to tackle these questions and provide implications at an institutional level. Increasing Emphasis on Developing a World-Class University System Recent literature on the world-class university movement also shows an increasing emphasis on the importance of developing a world-class university system, instead of just developing a few top universities or ignoring the rest of a higher education system. The current discussion on world-class universities as well as various ranking exercises may have focused on and may have moved people’s attention towards research universities and elite universities, away from mass education, particularly the middle and lower end of tertiary education systems. As Marginson (Chapter 3) points out, higher education expansion involves all postsecondary institutions from all missions – research, teaching, social services – but with different foci; thus, all higher education institutions need to be brought into the same picture when dealing with quality issues in the context of higher education expansion. Discussion on world-class systems needs to be brought forward. Meanwhile, Altbach and Salmi’s research (2011) reminds us that education reform and changes do not happen in a vacuum, and a complete analysis of the operation of a world-class university needs to take into consideration the ecosystem within which institutions evolve. The ecosystem includes the elements of the macro-environment, leadership at the national level, governance and regulatory frameworks, quality assurance frameworks, financial resources and incentives, articulation mechanisms, access to information, location and digital and telecommunications infrastructure (Salmi, 2011). Some of these factors might be absolute requisites and others might not be entirely indispensable, due to each country’s cultural, socio-economic and political context. However, all these factors are certainly significant (Altbach & Salmi, 2011). Countries and those overseeing their higher education systems need to carefully assess their needs, resources and long-term interests and design their strategies based on their national and institutional models. There is no universal model or recipe for making academic excellence (Altbach, 2004; Salmi, 2009). International experience might be helpful to provide experience and lessons; however, a simple policy copying exercise may not transpose effectively from one country or university to another. (See Chapter 2, 3, 4 & 5) CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS VOLUME

Reflecting the above points, this volume is composed of three sections: ‘Global Reflections’, ‘National Reactions’ and ‘Institutional Responses’. 4

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Global Reflections This section sets the discussion from a global and comparative perspective to explore trends, challenges and implications of WCU movement. It addresses factors and concerns that governments need to take into account when making relevant education policies, and it discusses the impact and implications of excellence initiatives. Salmi’s chapter (Chapter 2) assesses the impact of excellence initiatives on higher education institutions as well as the higher education system as a whole. Salmi points out the common features of these additional funding programmes, which include: being launched by governmental bodies, often in collaboration with main research agencies; being highly selective and competitive in nature; and being mostly concentrated on upgrading a university’s research capacity. Such initiatives have raised universities’ and governments’ awareness of competition in the global higher education market. It is noted that, while the earlier versions of excellence initiatives reflect a long-term policy goal to strengthen higher education contributions to enhance national socio-economic development, some recent initiatives more directly aim to enhance their global visibility and reputation. Salmi argues that it might be still too early to measure the effectiveness of these policy initiatives, but universities’ performances in global rankings shows that most of highly ranked universities are the beneficiaries of excellence initiatives. To conclude his chapter, Salmi reiterates his analytical framework, that is, the development of world-class universities requires concentration of talent, abundant resources and favourable governance. Excellence initiatives may play an important role to improve a university’s visibility and performance, but it is not a mere substitute for a overall reform of the entire higher education system. Sharing Salmi’s view, Marginson (Chapter 3) argues that ‘the question of worldclass systems needs to be brought forward.’ Higher education expansion has been a global trend since the 1970s. This significant expansion is not only observed at the top end, but also at the middle and bottom end of a higher participation system. One needs to bear in mind that ‘the quality of mass higher education is of importance to all societies,’ both established and emerging high participation systems. However, the current world-class discussions tend to tilt their focus to developing a small number of leading research universities, while the quality of second and third tier universities and colleges receive inadequate attention. Adopting the example of the US higher education system – a leading system near universal higher education as well as at the top of end of research university quality – Marginson argues that ‘the goal of policy should not be world-class university development alone but worldclass universities in the context of the healthy system development’. From a comparative perspective, Usher’s chapter (Chapter 4) examines whether the changes in financial status may have an impact on the development of worldclass universities. To develop academic excellence, having abundant resources is one of the key factors, so as to employ top quality staff, to improve university infrastructure, etc. However, we have witnessed these required resources have been 5

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challenged due to the recent global financial crisis and government policies to tighten up public expenditure on higher education. Usher focuses on the ten countries which have their universities ranked in the ARWU top 100, and analyses their institutional expenditures: whether higher education spending as well as per student expenditure is higher or lower now than before the global financial crisis, whether leading universities are treated the same as other higher education institutions within each nation, and whether funding at these leading universities has been increased since the crisis. Despite national differences on these questions, Usher finds that increases in tuition fees and increases in student intake play an important role in maintaining funding levels. However, the pursuit of academic excellence cannot just rely on revenue growth from enrolment increases. In addition to effective institutional strategies, optimal hiring policies and quality university management for universities to pursue excellence, one productive way to increase financial income is efficient re-investment into research. Huber (Chapter 5) finds that the modern university system is commonly featured with academic freedom, an autonomous peer-review funding mechanism, and fierce competition for students, academics and funding. He analyses the challenges facing higher education in the future from the perspectives for higher education as well as for research activities. From the perspective of higher education, Huber argues that the college wage premium between university graduates and non-graduates will remain high in the future. In addition, this income difference may vary quite significantly across different academic fields as well as academic degrees (undergraduate versus. postgraduate). Moreover, increasing tuition fees will possibly become financial risk for students. Whether online learning will complement or substitute traditional university learning is hard to predict. From the perspective of research activities, crucial issues, including declining research quality, the changing research process as well as the role of research (basic versus applied research), are still standing challenges facing the modern university system. National Reactions The second section of this volume focuses on and updates the policy trends and changes in developing WCU in Japan and Mainland China. Yonezawa and Shimmi (Chapter 6) analyse the challenges of internationalization among Japanese top universities. In spite of its front-runner position in Asia, the highly developed Japanese higher education system is largely based on its strong protection of national identity of language and identity. This has become a weakness in an increasingly globalized world and may hamper Japan’s development. In this context, the Japanese government has adopted a number of national policy initiatives to improve its global competitiveness. For example, the Centres of Excellence programmes aim to enhance its research performance; the Strategic Fund for Establishing International Headquarters in Universities is to improve universities’ 6

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strategic approach to internationalization; and the Global 30 Programme is to increase international student recruitment. In addition, the government has dedicated itself to developing competitive research universities, enriching both students’ and faculty’s international experience as well as enhancing international mobility. All these efforts reflect comprehensive governance reform. Echoing the previous chapters, Yonezawa and Shimmi argue that with a concentration of resources in top universities, a widening gap can be observed between these leading universities international profiles and the institutions in the middle and lower range. This rather advantageous position and weak exposure to competition might be an obstacle for these institutions to further improve their capacity. A wider transformation and internationalization of the entire Japanese higher education system must be pursued. The next two chapters, van der Wende and Zhu (Chapter 7) and Postiglione (Chapter 8), both focus on China. Van der Wende and Zhu’s chapter provides an indepth analysis on whether Mainland China’s higher education system is becoming a leader or follower in the global market. Similar to its neighbouring countries, Chinese higher education has undergone a series of reforms to expand its system, boost its capacity and raise its global visibility. Criticisms and concerns are still commonly raised in terms of the relatively poor quality in teaching and research; imbalanced growth between university enrolment and employment opportunities in the labour market; widening inequality between urban and rural areas; and relatively weak academic freedom and institutional autonomy. The authors argue that, with its increasingly complex nature, the recent developments in Chinese higher education show it to be both a follower with policy focus strongly oriented towards the West (widening and diversifying), and a leader with its impact on the worldclass university movement. It is concluded that, to further develop Chinese higher education, new governance models as well as strategic management are needed to ensure autonomy on the one hand and to guide the country as a whole towards a world-class system. Sharing views with van der Wende and Zhu, Postiglione continues his discussion on a research university model with ‘Chinese characteristics’. After reviewing the features and development of Mainland China’s higher education system, the author goes on to discuss the Hong Kong system and lists three major differences from its Mainland counterpart: Hong Kong’s government provides an overall direction to the higher education sector and regulates funding, performance guidelines and university policies, while the universities enjoy complete internal autonomy; universities in Hong Kong stress academic participation and management in governance, while showing strong administrative leadership; it emphasizes integrated scholarship, that is a combination of teaching, research and knowledge exchange in performance reviews. Postiglione concludes the chapter by arguing that to find a Chinese research university model requires ‘deepening internationalization, defining educational sovereignty and expanding university autonomy.’ 7

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Institutional Responses This section analyses the different strategies and approaches adopted by institutions to integrate performance and visibility, and to achieve the goal of being ‘globally visible and locally engaged’. To measure visibility and performance is complicated in nature. Buisson (Chapter 9) argues in his chapter that different higher education stakeholders have different perceptions of higher education and their institutions, thus inevitably leading to different criteria to measure visibility and performance, and accordingly there is a contradiction between visibility and performance. Buisson shares the experience of Pierre and Marie Curie University on how to measure visibility and assess performance in terms of research impact on society and the added value of education and training. It is concluded that an in-depth analysis of university missions, strategies and policy priorities are of utmost importance when dealing with the contradiction between visibility measurement and performance assessment. To understand different stakeholders’ perceptions and interests is of great importance too, as it will help the university to define appropriate performance indicators with as little misunderstanding as possible. Yudkevich’s chapter (Chapter 10) adopts the case of the National Research Universities Higher School of Economics in Moscow and illustrates how global visibility and local engagement can be integrated at an institutional level. The Russian government has been implementing excellence initiatives to develop world-class universities. One challenge Russia that confronts is the long-standing separation between its university sector and the research institutions and academies sector. That is to say, universities in Russia including the Higher School of Economics are traditionally more focused on training human resources for the demands of local society and industries. In the context of fierce competition both domestically and internationally, universities in Russia that have strong traditions of local engagement have to propose new strategic goals to improve research performance and global visibility. To do so, the Higher School of Economics undertook transformation in all aspects of university governance and life, including updating strategic goals, expanding academic disciplines, and reforming recruitment strategies. These efforts focusing on improving status at global academic market has had a positive impact on the national higher education system in general. As Yudkevich concludes, to understand the characteristics and nature of the national academic market and the individual institution’s position in it, will help integrate universities’ national and local engagement, as well as contribute to its global status. Can a relatively small and specialized institution succeed in a fast-changing global higher education market? Or can only comprehensive universities become world-class? Cocklin and Smith’s chapter (Chapter 11) employs a perfect example – James Cook University – to provide an answer to these questions. James Cook University is a leading university both in Australia and the world in teaching and researching the critical issues and challenges facing the tropics worldwide. Unlike 8

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other majority universities, James Cook University identifies its niche-based position and mission in its school’s strategic planning. It has achieved a high-level research performance in both its area of focus and at an overall institutional level, thus leading to a world-class status. Through a variety of organizational strategies, this region-based university is making an effort to engage with local stakeholders (industry, government and the community) and to share and respond to its civic responsibilities, while at the same time developing relationships with research organizations, employers and higher education institutions around the world. As the authors elaborate, the ‘local context provides knowledge and understanding that usefully services an international community while the lessons learned beyond Australia can be brought back to serve our immediate region – glocalization’. Again, echoing to the previous chapters, the authors reiterate that James Cook University’s success and future sustainability relies on the interplay of its niche positioning, its standing as a research university, its clearly defined mission and the local-global nexus. From the perspective of education and talent cultivation, Ramakrishna and Mujumdar (Chapter 12) argue that, as the globalized world is increasingly emphasizes being locally relevant and globally visible, the university should have a ‘glocal’ mindset to prepare students for the world of future work. This chapter demonstrates approaches to developing innovative and entrepreneurial graduates, that is, to develop new courses on innovation and entrepreneurship, to provide flexibility in learning at a student’s own pace and mode, and relatedly to further transform curriculum and pedagogy to provide opportunities for learning beyond classroom, and to recruit glocal faculty members. Global university rankings have caught the attention of all stakeholders. While these league tables can be seen as proxies for university performances, it also debateable whether and how university rankings should be used and viewed. The next two chapters provide two well-informed examples on how rankings are utilized in institutional strategic planning as well as governance exercises. Zhang (Chapter 13), through a case study on the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, argues that international ranking results can be directly or indirectly linked with five out of eight strategic planning goals – to define the university’s structure and role, to enhance students success and create, to recruit a prepared student body, to advance the research profile of the university, and to foster excellence in the faculty and in shared-use facilities. Zhang recommends that both institutional researchers and key stakeholders should improve knowledge and understanding of ranking results, methods and limitations. Reviewing the history, impact and limitation of rankings, Chan, Fung and Chang (Chapter 14) argue that, instead of setting ranking performance as an institutional target, institutions should use rankings as a valuable tool to enhance performance. Moreover, with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s experience, the authors suggest that a university’s vision, goals and missions should be taken into consideration, as well as the pros and cons of ranking methodologies. 9

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This book not only represents a contribution to ongoing discussions on the topic of building world-class universities, but also a continuation of the previous five volumes on this topic – ‘World-Class Universities and Ranking: Aiming beyond Status’, ‘The World-Class University as Part of a New Higher Education Paradigm: From Institutional Qualities to Systemic Excellence’, ‘Paths to a World-Class University’, ‘Building World-Class Universities: Different Approaches to a Shared Goal’ and ‘Global Influences and Responses: How World-Class Universities Affect Higher Education Systems’. REFERENCES Altbach, P. G. (2004). The costs of benefits of world-class universities. Academe, 90(1), 20–23. Altbach, P. G. (2009). Peripheries and centers: Research universities in developing countries. Asia Pacific Education Review, 10, 15–27. Altbach. P. G. (Ed.). (2011). Leadership for world-class universities: Challenges for developing countries. London: Routledge. Altbach, P. G. (2013). Advancing the national and global knowledge economy: The role of research universities in developing countries. Studies in Higher Education, 38(3), 316–330. Altbach, P. G., & Balán, J. (Eds.). (2007). World class worldwide: Transforming research universities in Asia and Latin America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Altbach, P. G., & Salmi, J. (Eds.). (2011). The road to academic excellence: Emerging research universities in developing and transition countries. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Deem, R., Mok, K. H., & Lucas, L. (2008). Transforming higher education in whose image? Exploring the concept of the “world-class” university in Europe and Asia. Higher Education Policy, 21(1), 83–97. Hazelkorn, E. (2011). Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence. London: Palgrave. Hazelkorn, E. (2013). World-class universities or world-class systems: Rankings and higher education policy choices. In E. Hazelkorn, P. Wells, & M. Marope (Eds.), Rankings and accountability in higher education: Uses and misuses. Paris: UNESCO. Huisman, J. (2008). World-class universities. Higher Education Policy, 21(1), 1–4. King, R. (2011). Universities globally: Organizations, regulation and rankings. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Liu, N. C. (2009, February). Building up world-class universities: A comparison. Presentation at 2008–2009, Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan. Salmi, J. (2009). The challenge of establishing world-class universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Salmi, J. (2011). The road to academic excellence: lessons of experience. In P. G. Altbach & J. Salmi (Eds.), The road to academic excellence: Emerging research universities in developing and transition countries. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Wang, Q., & Cheng, Y. (2014). Reflections on the effects of the 985 Project in Mainland China. In Y. Cheng, Q. Wang, & N. C. Liu (Eds.), How world-class universities affect global higher education: Influences and responses. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Wende, M. C. van der. (2009). European responses to global competitiveness in higher education (Research and Occasional Paper Series, No.7). Berkeley, CA: Center for Studies in higher Education, University of California. World Bank. (2012). Putting higher education to work: Skills and research for growth in East Asia. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

10

Matching Visibility and Performance

Nian Cai Liu Graduate School of Education Shanghai Jiao Tong University Ying Cheng Graduate School of Education Shanghai Jiao Tong University Qi Wang Graduate School of Education Shanghai Jiao Tong University

11

SECTION I GLOBAL REFLECTION

JAMIL SALMI1

2. EXCELLENCE STRATEGIES AND THE CREATION OF WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES

INTRODUCTION

Knowledge is the key to a future after the oil age. (Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg) Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything. (Paul Krugman, Economics Nobel Prize winner) Knowledge has become a fundamental component of economic and social development. The ability of a society to produce, select, adapt, commercialize, and use knowledge is critical for sustained economic growth and improved living standards (World Bank, 1999). In this context, tertiary education plays an essential role in building a strong human capital base and contributing to an efficient national innovation system. Tertiary education institutions help countries build globally competitive economies by developing a skilled, productive and flexible labour force and by creating, applying and disseminating new ideas and technologies. High-performing tertiary education systems encompass a wide range of institutional models – not only research universities but also polytechnics, liberal arts colleges, short-duration technical institutes, community colleges, open universities, and so forth – that together produce the variety of skilled workers and employees sought by the labour market (World Bank, 2002). Each type of institution has an important role to play, and achieving a balanced development among the various components of the system is a major preoccupation of many governments. Within tertiary education systems, research universities play a critical role in training the professionals, high-level specialists, scientists, and researchers needed by the economy and in generating new knowledge in support of the national innovation system. In this context, policy-makers are keen to see their top universities operating at the cutting edge of intellectual and scientific development. With the 2003 publication of the first international ranking of universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the subsequent emergence of competing global league tables (THE, HEEACT, QS, etc.), more systematic ways of identifying and classifying world-class universities have appeared (Salmi, 2009). As a result, often for reasons of national prestige, a major concern of governments in a growing number of countries has been to find the most effective method for inducing substantial and rapid progress in their country’s top universities. While a few nations – Kazakhstan N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 15–48. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

J. SALMI

and Saudi Arabia for example – have opted for establishing new universities from scratch, most interested countries have adopted a strategy combining mergers and upgrading of existing institutions. In order to accelerate the transformation process, a few governments have launched so-called ‘excellence initiatives’, consisting of large injections of additional funding to boost the performance of their university sector. In this context, the purpose of this chapter is to assess the impact of excellence initiatives on the universities involved as well as on the tertiary education system overall. The first section of the chapter analyzes the main features of excellence initiatives while the second part examines their achievements and limitations. Characteristics of Excellence Initiatives As epitomized by the German case, an ‘excellence initiative’ in tertiary education can be described as a large injection of additional funding by a national government, aimed at upgrading existing universities in an accelerated fashion.2 The Excellence Initiative aims to promote top-level research and to improve the quality of German universities and research institutions in general, thus making Germany a more attractive research location, making it more internationally competitive and focusing attention on the outstanding achievements of Germany universities and the German scientific community.3 Table 1 presents the total number and broad geographical distribution of these Initiatives, divided into two periods, first the 15 years between 1989 and 2004 when the expression ‘excellence initiative’ was not used as such, and second the last decade up to 2014. The comparison between the two periods reveals a dramatic increase in excellence initiatives since the publication of the Shanghai and Times Higher Education global rankings in 2003 and 2004 respectively, reflecting the growing interest of national governments in the development of world-class universities. Appendix 1 presents a complete list of national programmes identified, for the purpose of this chapter, as ‘excellence initiatives’.4 Table 1. Number of excellence initiatives by region and period

16

Region

1989–2004

2005–2015

Africa

0

1

Asia & Pacific

8

14

Europe

4

19

Middle East

0

2

North America

1

1

Total

13

37

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Table 2 gives the detailed list of countries having launched some form of excellence initiatives during the two periods under review. Table 2. Geographical distribution of excellence initiatives Region

1989–2004

2005–2015

Africa

–

Nigeria

Asia & Pacific

Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea

China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand

Europe

Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway

Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden

Middle East

–

Israel, Saudi Arabia

North America

Canada

Canada

Note: Some countries have had several initiatives or phases. Each one is counted as one initiative, which explains why Table 1 shows more initiatives than the number of represented countries in Table 2.

These tables show that only a few countries had an early vision of the importance of upgrading their university system in the 1990s as one of the pillars of an innovative economy, including the Nordic nations, Canada, China, Japan and South Korea. The recent excellence initiatives come mainly from East Asia and Western Europe, in line with their economic modernization agendas. Latin America is surprisingly absent from this movement, considering the population size and economic strength of that region. This is due, to a large extent, to the absence of a vision of the central role of education in development. In recent years, however, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador have launched ambitious scholarship programmes for studies abroad. The United States and the United Kingdom, whose universities have been consistently at the top of the global league tables, have not considered the need for additional financing, given their already high levels of research funding. The same applies to Switzerland, where the successful upgrading efforts at the two polytechnic universities, ETH Zurich and ETH Lausanne, have taken place within the existing generous resource envelope. In all cases, the additional funding mobilized through the excellence initiative comes exclusively from the public purse, with some innovative features in a few countries. In Germany, for example, the excellence initiative represented a partnership between the federal government and the state governments (Länder). Similarly, in the case of the Chinese initiatives (211 and 985 projects), the

17

J. SALMI

local governments were involved in co-financing with the national government on a fifty-fifty basis. The now-defunct Spanish excellence program was to transfer resources to the beneficiary universities in the form of a concessionary loan. Perhaps the most original financing feature comes from the recent French excellence initiative, where the funding is provided through a large endowment (US$9.5 billion) whose yearly yield will constitute the resources allocated to the beneficiary institutions. This financial set-up offers an element of long-term financial sustainability that is absent from all the other initiatives. Most of the time, these dedicated programmes are very selective in terms of the limited number of beneficiary universities and the research focus of the transformation efforts. Also, many of the initiatives tend to favour STEM disciplines rather than the social sciences and humanities. With the exception of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, where both public and private universities were eligible to compete for additional funding, most excellence initiatives targeted public universities. An element of difference across countries is the number of programmes launched by a country and the phasing of the excellence initiatives. Table 3 shows, for each country concerned, how the initiative was sequenced over time: whether there was a single initiative, or several initiatives, and whether any of them were sequenced in more than one phase (usually two). The time horizon of excellence initiatives is generally medium- to long – term, as the duration of each initiative (or phase) ranges from three to seven years in most cases. Table 3. Repetition of excellence initiatives Region

Single program

Africa

Nigeria

Asia & Pacific

Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, Thailand

Europe

Finland, Norway, Slovenia, Denmark, France Russian Spain Federation,

Middle East

Israel, Saudi Arabia

North America

Multiple programmes

Multi-phase

China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan

China, South Korea, Taiwan Germany

Canada

The great majority of excellence initiatives have concentrated almost exclusively on upgrading the research capacity of universities. The main exception was Taiwan, which established a specific programme to improve excellence in teaching alongside its research-focused initiative. The Teaching Excellence Development Programme was launched in 2005 with an overall budget equivalent to about US$650 million to stimulate the modernization of curricular and pedagogical practices in both public and private universities. Each of the 31 selected universities received a total amount of US$21.5 million over five years. Germany also had a small programme to promote 18

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

excellence in teaching, alongside a large research development initiative. A few other excellence initiatives primarily dedicated to research promotion, for example in Ireland, Spain and South Korea, also contained a funding line for improvements in teaching practices. With respect to the stimulation of research excellence, the actual focus and locus of intervention has varied considerably from one excellence initiative to the other. In some cases, the unit of intervention is the entire university, which receives a block grant to finance its overall improvement plan. In other cases, governments have put an emphasis on developing new centres of excellence and/or strengthening existing ones. The German Initiative combines both approaches with three lines of financing, one for the institutional development plan of the selected universities, one for new multi-disciplinary research clusters, and one for the establishment of new graduate schools. Participating universities needed to have been successful with both a new graduate school and a new research cluster to be eligible for the institutional excellence plan. In the Korean case, while Phase I of the Brain 21 programme supported universities as a whole, Phase II offered support to individual departments directly. Without any exception, all excellence initiatives have been launched by ministries of education or higher education. In most cases, the ministry partnered with the main national research agency for the actual implementation of the initiative. This was especially important when a competitive selection process was followed, because of the detailed technical evaluation work involved. In most cases, the implementing agency relied on the technical work of specialized expert groups to assess the validity of proposals in various disciplines. During the evaluation phase of the second round of the German excellence initiative, for example, 37 panels composed of 457 experts worked diligently to assess the 127 submissions for new graduate schools and research clusters. The principal advantage of this approach has been to reduce political interference and to provide a more flexible management framework to carry out the initiative. The amounts allocated in the various excellence initiatives reflect a large range of funding levels, as presented in Table 4. China, France, Singapore and Taiwan stand out as the most generous contributors as countries that have financed universities as a whole. Israel and Japan have the highest level of funding per centre of excellence. The Scandinavian countries have the lowest level of financing, due to the fact that the base funding of their universities is already significantly higher than most other European countries. Appendix 2 presents the specific amounts for all excellence initiatives categorized by country. The selection process used to choose the beneficiary universities and/or centres of excellence to be supported is perhaps the most noteworthy element of excellence initiatives. In the majority of cases, the government’s approach has involved a competition among eligible universities with a thorough peer-review process to select the best proposals, reflecting international experience that shows that a competitive funding process can greatly stimulate the performance of tertiary education 19

J. SALMI

institutions and can be a powerful vehicle for transformation and innovation (World Bank, 2002). The peer-review process involves the work of expert evaluation teams that may include only national experts, or a mix of national and international experts. In some cases, the international experts represent the majority, and for the French excellence initiative, even the head of the international jury was a foreign specialist (a former rector of a major Swiss university). Table 4. Range of amounts per university/Center of excellence for most recent excellence initiative Whole universities

Centers of excellence

Level of support

Countries

Level of support

Countries

20 million $ ≤

Denmark, Germany

1–5 million $

Denmark, Finland, Norway

20–100 million $

Russian Federation, Spain, Thailand

5–10 million $

Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Korea, Nigeria, Slovenia

≥ 100 million $

China, France, Singapore, Taiwan

≥ 10 million $

Israel, Japan

The participation of international experts in the selection process tends to give an additional dimension of objectivity and credibility. In the latest round of the German excellence initiative, for instance, 87% of the experts involved in the assessment of the proposals were from outside Germany. In the logic of this competitive process, the field is wide open at the beginning of the competition and the winners are not known before hand, except in a few cases where the government preferred to ‘cherry pick’ the future beneficiaries of the excellence initiative. This was the case, for example, in Thailand, where the government identified nine universities as beneficiaries of additional funding. The Chinese experience is somewhere in the middle, combining a ministry decision about organizing the 985 program into three categories of universities, and distributing potential beneficiaries along these lines. In the Russian case, the National Research Universities programme followed an open competitive approach, whereas for the Federal Universities programme the government decided unilaterally which mergers would take place and which universities would be supported, based on regional development considerations. The latest initiative (5/100) relied on a competitive process restricted to a small group of eligible universities. To conclude this overview of the main characteristics of excellence initiatives, two observations are in order. First, while the first excellence initiatives had more of an endogenous character, reflecting a long-term policy of strengthening the contribution of tertiary education to national economic development, the most recent wave seems to have been primarily induced by external considerations linked to the 20

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

perception of a competitive disadvantage relative to the more stellar performance of foreign universities, as measured by the global rankings. For instance, the 2013 excellence initiative in Russia explicitly aims to place five universities in the top 100 by 2020. Second, many of these excellence initiatives mark a significant philosophical shift in the funding policies of the participating countries, notably in Western Europe. In France, Germany and Spain, for instance, where all public universities have traditionally been considered to be equally good in terms of performance, the excellence initiative represents a move away from the principle of uniform budget entitlements towards a substantial element of competitive, performance-based funding. With these characteristics in mind, how successful have these excellence initiatives been? What is the evidence on their transformative power? Impact of Excellence Initiatives Measuring the effectiveness and impact of excellence initiatives on the beneficiary universities is not an easy task for at least two reasons: time and attribution. First, upgrading a university takes many years, eight to ten at the very minimum (Salmi, 2009, 2012). Since many excellence initiatives are fairly recent, attempts at measuring success would be premature in most cases. It is indeed unlikely that the scientific production of beneficiary universities would increase significantly within the first few years immediately after the beginning of an excellence initiative. A thorough analysis would therefore require looking at a reasonably large sample of institutions for comparison purposes, either within a given country or across countries, over many years. The second challenge is related to attribution. Even if a correlation could be identified on the basis of a large sample of institutions, establishing elements of causality would require an in-depth analysis of case studies, similar to those presented in the book The Road to Academic Excellence (Altbach & Salmi, 2011). Taking these limitations in consideration, this section attempts to draw a few preliminary lessons from the initial results of excellence initiatives in terms of boosting the research capacity and output of the beneficiary universities. It also looks at emerging tensions between research and teaching, excellence and equity, and excellence and academic freedom. In the absence of impact analyses of the recent excellence initiatives, comparing the results of the top 200 universities in the Shanghai Ranking over the past decade (2004–2014) offers a few insights.5 The first set of data (Table 5) shows the country ranking based on the position of the highest ranked university of that country. At that level, very few significant differences can be seen over the past 10 years. At the top, the only countries with noteworthy increases (at least eight places) are Denmark (+20), Australia (+9) and Switzerland (+8). At the bottom, China had the strongest jump, from 201–300 to 101–150. Three countries that were not present in 2004 21

J. SALMI

have joined the top 200: Hong Kong, Ireland and Taiwan. Three countries saw their position decrease markedly: Austria, Israel and Italy. However, in as far as this table reflects only what happened to the highest ranked university in each country, it is hard to infer any causal relationship with the existence of an excellence initiative in the respective countries, except perhaps in the case of Beijing University and the University of Copenhagen, which both had a significant jump. Table 6, which shows the evolution of the number of universities by country between 2004 and 2014, is more telling. The four countries that have made considerable progress are China (24 additional universities in the top 500), Australia (five additional universities), Saudi Arabia and Taiwan (four additional universities each), which could be safely attributed to the sustained investment linked to their excellence initiatives. Spain is the only country with three additional universities. However, in the absence of a detailed case study, it is difficult to credit this increase to the excellence initiative, whose funding ran into trouble as a result of the serious economic and fiscal crisis faced by the country in recent years. At the bottom of the list, the main ‘losers’ are Japan and the US, which place, respectively, 15 and 24 universities fewer among the top 500 in 2014 compared to ten years earlier. Germany and the United Kingdom lost four universities each. Considering that, by definition, the league tables operate on a zero-sum basis, it is inevitable that progress in some countries forces the exit of universities from other countries. But the evolution of these four countries calls for a few comments. In the case of the United States, it is interesting to note the relatively higher proportion of public universities that dropped out of the ranking, which tends to confirm the adverse impact of the significant reduction in public subsidies since the 2007 financial crisis. In 2014, the proportion of public universities in the entire contingent of US universities was 63.7%, down from 64.5% in 2004. This is a small decline but the trend is significant. To a large extent, Japan’s decline may also be linked to the financial crisis, which prevented the university sector from receiving the additional funding expected in the context of the excellence initiative. Observers also note that Japanese universities have encountered difficulties in making significant progress on the internationalization front (Kakuchi, 2015). It is also noteworthy that Japan lost two universities in the top 100 between 2004 and 2015 (down from five to three). In the German case, half of the drop is due to the disappearance of two prestigious universities: Free University of Berlin and Humboldt University. Actually, the drop is not related to a significant decrease in their actual performance but to their inability to reach an agreement on how to split the Nobel Prizes winners before World War II, when Berlin hosted only one university. Faced with this dilemma, the Shanghai rankers decided to just leave them out. Ironically, they are among the eleven main beneficiaries of the excellence initiative. The lack of competitiveness of British universities is more difficult to explain. Not only did the United Kingdom lose four universities overall, but the number of universities ranked in the top 100 also went down from 11 to eight. 22

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Table 5. Country rankings based on the ARWU results for the top 200 universities (2004 and 2014) 2004 Country Country ranking

2014 Rank of top university in country

Country Country ranking

Rank of top university in country

1

United States

1

1

United States

1

2

United Kingdom

3

2

United Kingdom

5

3

Japan

14

3

Switzerland

19

4

Canada

24

4

Japan

21

5

Switzerland

27

5

Canada

24

6

Netherlands

39

6

France

35

7

France

41

7

Denmark

39

8

Germany

45

8

Australia

44

9

Sweden

46

9

Sweden

47

10

Australia

53

10

Germany

49

11

Denmark

59

11

Netherlands

57

12

Russia

66

12

Norway

69

13

Norway

68

13

Israel

70

14

Finland

72

14

Finland

73

15

Austria

86

15

Russia

84

16

Israel

90

16

Belgium

96

17

Italy

93

17

Brazil

101–150

18

Belgium

101–152

18

China

101–150

19

Spain

153–201

19

Singapore

101–150

20

Mexico

153–201

20

South Korea

101–150

21

Taiwan

153–201

21

Taiwan

101–150

22

South Korea

153–201

22

Austria

151–200

23

Brazil

153–201

23

Hong Kong

151–200

24

Ireland

151–200

25

Italy

151–200

26

Saudi Arabia

151–200

Note: The countries in bold are those with an excellence initiative Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities http://www.shanghairanking.com/aboutarwu.html

23

J. SALMI

Table 6. Evolution of number of ranked universities per country (Top 500 from 2004 to 2015) Country

24

Ranked universities in 2004

Ranked universities in 2015

Variation 2004–2015

China

16

44

+28

Australia

14

20

+6

Saudi Arabia

0

4

+4

Taiwan

5

9

+4

South Korea

8

12

+4

Spain

9

13

+4

Brazil

4

6

+2

Iran

0

2

+2

Malaysia

0

2

+2

Portugal

1

3

+2

Austria

5

6

+1

Chile

1

2

+1

Croatia

0

1

+1

Egypt

0

1

+1

Finland

5

6

+1

Serbia

0

1

+1

Sweden

10

11

+1

Netherlands

12

12

0

Argentina

1

1

0

Belgium

7

7

0

Czech Republic

1

1

0

Denmark

5

5

0

Greece

2

2

0

Hong Kong

5

5

0

Ireland

3

3

0

Mexico

1

1

0

Poland

2

2

0

Russia

2

2

0

Singapore

2

2

0

Slovenia

1

1

0

South Africa

4

4

0

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Country

Ranked universities in 2004

Ranked universities in 2015

Variation 2004–2015

France

22

22

0

Hungary

3

2

−1

Israel

7

6

−1

New Zealand

3

2

−1

Norway

4

3

−1

Switzerland

8

7

−1

Turkey

2

1

−1

India

3

1

−2

Canada

23

20

−3

Italy

23

20

−3

Germany

43

39

−4

UK

42

37

−5

Japan

36

18

−16

United States

170

146

−24

Note: The countries in bold are those with some form of excellence initiative Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities http://www.shanghairanking.com/aboutarwu.html

Another way of looking at the evolution between 2004 and 2014 is to calculate the number of universities that each country has in the top 100, relative to the size of the population. Table 7 presents the results of this analysis, while indicating for each country whether it had an excellence initiative. These data call for several observations. First, the best performing countries are all small countries, including Switzerland (top score), the Nordic countries, the Netherlands and Israel. Second, the countries that show the most progress are Switzerland, Denmark, Israel, Australia and Belgium. Three of these, Australia, Denmark and Israel, had an excellence initiative. Third, the countries with significantly declining performance are Japan and the United Kingdom, as signalled earlier, as well as Sweden and Austria. While these results are not fully conclusive regarding the effect of excellence initiatives – in part because some of these initiatives are too recent to show significant improvements, for example, in the French and German cases – they confirm the importance of sustained high levels of funding (Switzerland, the Netherlands). A careful examination of the list of all the universities that experienced a significant jump (more than 25 places) in the Shanghai ranking between 2004 and 2014 gives a more telling story (Table 8). 25

J. SALMI

Table 7. Evolution of number of ranked universities in the top 100 per million inhabitants (2004 to 2015) Country

Number of universities in 2015

2004

2015

Excellence initiative

United States

51

0.16

0.16

No

United Kingdom

9

0.17

0.14

No

Japan

4

0.04

0.03

Yes

Canada

4

0.11

0.11

Yes

Switzerland

4

0.38

0.52

No

Netherlands

4

0.12

0.24

No

France

4

0.07

0.06

Yes

Germany

4

0.08

0.05

Yes

Australia

4

0.09

0.17

Yes

Sweden

3

0.42

0.31

Yes

Denmark

2

0.18

0.36

Yes

Israel

2

0.15

0.26

Yes

Belgium

2

0.00

0.19

No

Russia

1

0.01

0.01

Yes

Norway

1

0.20

0.20

Yes

Finland

1

0.19

0.18

Yes

Austria

0

0.12

0.00

No

Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) and World Atlas http://www.shanghairanking.com/aboutarwu.html http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/populations/ctypopls.htm#.UkjUH3brz9c

While the results shown in the table do not offer evidence of causality, it appears that most of the top performers have been the beneficiaries of excellence initiatives. This is especially clear with regard to the Chinese, Irish, Israeli, Korean, Singaporean, and Taiwanese universities featured in the table. The French and Portuguese cases are the product of mergers in 2013, so the higher ranking is unlikely to reflect improved performance so soon after the consolidation process. The table confirms the findings of the previous table about the outstanding performance of Swiss and Dutch universities without the need for any special excellence initiative. Alignment of Drivers of Performance To assess the relative merits of the design dimensions of the various excellence initiatives beyond looking at rankings results, this report applies the analytical 26

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Table 8. Universities with the largest jump between 2004 and 2014 University

Country

Shanghai Jiao Tong University China

Change* 404–502 to 101–150

Excellence initiative Yes

King Saud University

Saudi Arabia 402–501 to 151–200

Aix Marseille University

France

302–403 to 101–150

Merger under excellence initiative

Yes

Fudan University

China

302–403 to 101–150

Yes

Technion – Israel institute of Technology

Israel

202–301 to 78

Yes

Nanyang Technological University

Singapore

302–403 to 151–200

Yes

University of Lausanne

Switzerland 302–403 to 151–200

No

University of Science and Technology of China

China

302–403 to 151–200

Yes

Zhejiang University

China

302–403 to 151–200

Yes

Autonomous University of Barcelona

Spain

404–502 to 201–300

Yes

Beijing Normal University

China

401–500 to 201–300

Yes

Harbin Institute of Technology China

402–503 to 201–300

Yes

Huazhong University of Science and Technology

China

402–503 to 201–300

Yes

Korea University

Korea

404–502 to 201–300

Yes

Maastricht University

Netherlands 404–502 to 201–300

No

National Cheng Kung University

Taiwan

404–502 to 201–300

Yes

Northeastern University

China

404–502 to 201–300

Yes

Sun Yat-sen University

Taiwan

403–510 to 201–300

Yes

University College Dublin

Ireland

404–502 to 201–300

Yes

University of Exeter

United Kingdom

404–502 to 201–300

No

University of Lisbon

Portugal

404–502 to 201–300

No, but merger

Xian Jiao Tong University

China

401–500 to 201–300

Yes

King Abdulaziz University

Saudi Arabia 301–400 to 151–200

Yes

The University of Western Australia

Australia

153–201 to 88

Yes

London School of Economics and Political Science

United Kingdom

202–301 to 101–150

No

(Continued) 27

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Table 8. (Continued) University

Country

Change*

Excellence initiative

Monash University

Australia

202–301 to 101–150

Yes

Peking University

China

202–301 to 101–150

Yes

Radboud University Nijmegen Netherlands 202–301 to 101–150

No

Tsinghua University

China

202–301 to 101–150

Yes

University of Massachusetts Medical School – Worcester

United States

202–301 to 101–150

No

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne

Switzerland 153–201 to 96

No

VU University Amsterdam

Netherlands 153–201 to 100

No

University of Manchester

United Kingdom

+40 (78 to 38)

Merger

University of Melbourne

Australia

+38 (82 to 44)

Yes

University of Geneva

Switzerland 101–152 to 66

No

Ghent University

Belgium

101–152 to 70

No

Aarhus University

Denmark

101–152 to 74

Yes

Note: The first rank indicated in the ‘Change’ column refers either to 2004 or to the first year that a university appeared in the ranking if it was not ranked in 2004 Source: Academic Ranking of World Universities http://www.shanghairanking.com/aboutarwu.html

framework developed in The Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities (Salmi, 2009). The superior results of world-class universities (WCUs) – highly sought graduates, leading-edge research, and dynamic technology transfer – can essentially be attributed to three complementary sets of factors at play in top universities: (a) a high concentration of talent (faculty and students), (b) abundant resources to offer a rich learning environment and conduct advanced research, and (c) favourable governance features that encourage strategic vision, innovation, and flexibility, enabling institutions to make decisions and manage resources without being encumbered by bureaucracy (Figure 1). The first and perhaps foremost determinant of excellence is the presence of a critical mass of top students and outstanding faculty. WCUs are able to select the best students and attract the most qualified professors and researchers, not only from the country where they are located, but also internationally. Abundant resources are the second element that characterizes WCUs, in response to the huge costs involved in running a complex, research-intensive university. These universities have four main sources of financing: government budget funding for

28

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Figure 1. Characteristics of world-class universities: Alignment of key factors

operational expenditures and research, contract research from public organizations and private firms, the financial returns generated by endowments and gifts, and tuition fees. The third dimension concerns the degree of academic and managerial autonomy that universities enjoy. WCUs operate in an environment that fosters competitiveness, unrestrained scientific inquiry, critical thinking, innovation and creativity. Institutions that have complete autonomy are also more flexible because they are not restricted by externally imposed cumbersome and bureaucratic rules and standards, even in light of the legitimate accountability mechanisms that do bind them. As a result, they can manage their resources with agility and quickly respond to the demands of a rapidly changing global market. These autonomy elements are necessary, though not sufficient, to establish and maintain world-class universities. Other crucial governance features are needed, such as inspiring and persistent leaders; a strong strategic vision of where the institution is going; a philosophy of success and excellence; and a culture of constant reflection, organizational learning, and change. To complement this framework, recent policy research has identified a number of ‘accelerating factors’ that can play a positive role in the quest for excellence (Altbach & Salmi, 2011). The first factor consists in relying extensively on the Diaspora when establishing a new institution. As illustrated by the experiences of Pohang University 29

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of Science and Technology (POSTEC) in South Korea and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), bringing large numbers of overseas scholars to come back to their country of origin is an effective way of rapidly building up the academic strength of an institution. The second factor, using English as the main language of a university, greatly enhances an institution’s ability to attract highly qualified foreign academics and graduate students, as the National University of Singapore has managed to accomplish. POSTEC also deliberately adopted English as its language of operation for the same reason. Concentrating on niche areas is the third suitable manner of achieving critical mass more rapidly, as demonstrated by the examples of HKUST and POSTEC in Asia, or the Higher School of Economics in Russia. The fourth element consists in using benchmarking as a guiding methodology to orient the institution in its upgrading efforts. Shanghai Jiao Tong University, for instance, anchored its strategic planning work in careful comparisons with leading Chinese universities first and then moved to include peer foreign universities in the benchmarking exercise. The fifth factor is to introduce significant curriculum and pedagogical innovations. HKUST, for example, was the first US-style university in Hong Kong, a feature that made it distinct from the existing institutions operating according to the British model. The Higher School of Economics in Moscow was among the first Russian institutions to offer a curriculum that integrates teaching and research and to establish a supportive digital library. These kinds of innovative features – part of the ‘latecomer advantage’ – are of great consequence for new institutions that need to be attractive enough to entice students away from existing universities and to get them to risk enrolling in an ‘unknown’ program. An additional point worth underlining is the need for successful institutions to remain vigilant and to maintain a sense of urgency in order to avoid complacency. This aspect involves continuous monitoring and self-assessment to identify dysfunctions, tensions or threats, act quickly to address them, and constantly explore areas for improvement. The review of the main strengths and weaknesses of the recent excellence initiatives can be organized by looking at the extent to which they contribute to (i) increased talent concentration, (ii) improved resource base, and (iii) more appropriate governance. Talent Concentration Besides supporting entire universities in their improvement efforts, many excellence initiatives have offered funding to build critical mass by establishing new centers of excellence or strengthening existing ones, oftentimes with a focus on multidisciplinary approaches. 30

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

In the sciences, being at the right university – the one where the most stateof-the-art research is being done in the best-equipped labs by the most visible scientists – is extremely important. George Stigler describes this as a snowballing process, where an outstanding scientist gets funded to do exciting research, attracts other faculty, then the best students – until a critical mass is formed that has an irresistible appeal to any young person entering the field. (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 1997) A recent OECD review of excellence initiatives finds that one of their major benefits has been to provide funding for high-impact/high-risk basic research as well as for interdisciplinary and cooperative research endeavours (OECD, 2014). [Research excellence initiatives] … can therefore lead to broad changes in the structure of the research system by pushing research centers and institutions to continually prove and develop their strengths, show their ability to build interdisciplinary networks, create links with the private sector and abroad, and generally enhance a country’s overall research capacity. (OECD, 2014, p. 18) In addition, some programmes – for example in China and Singapore – have explicitly linked the selection of university-based research themes to economic priorities in the country’s development strategy, or to specific themes such as climate change. To facilitate talent development and concentration, several excellence initiatives allocate resources for creating favourable work conditions and offering attractive career prospects to young scholars who have recently started their post-doctoral research career, or who are in the process of completing their doctoral degree. The German excellence initiative, for example, provides funding specifically to establish graduate schools intended to provide a new, more appealing career path for young researchers, both Germans and foreigners. Internationalization has been a core feature of several excellence initiatives. Many programmes have sought to deepen the international dimension of universities through a variety of modalities, such as sending doctoral students overseas, recruiting foreign students and scholars, setting up joint degree programmes, and undertaking collaborative research projects with foreign partners. The Spanish excellence initiative was even explicitly named ‘International Campuses of Excellence’. In addition to contributing to building critical mass in an accelerated fashion, increased internationalization has also been a useful way of reducing endogamy, which has been identified as a major limitation in several European tertiary education systems (Salmi, 2009). By contrast, Japan’s failure to fully embrace internationalization has seriously limited the global reach of the country’s universities. A recent study reveals that existing restrictions on collaboration with foreign partners explain the research output gap between Japan and the United States, as well as between Japan and the United Kingdom (Kakuchi, 2015). Only 25% of scientific papers written by 31

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Japanese academics have international co-authors, compared to 52% for British scientists. Japanese universities count only 4% of foreign academics, whereas top universities such as Harvard and Cambridge have 30% and 40%, respectively. The ‘Super Global Universities’ programme, launched in October 2014 by the Japanese Ministry of Education, is an attempt to boost the international standing of the nation’s universities. Institutional size is another important aspect to consider with respect to the talent development objective of excellence initiatives. Several countries, including China, Denmark, France and Russia, have encouraged their universities to merge as a way of rapidly achieving critical mass in research and boosting their scientific production, responding to the recognition that some international rankings compare the number of publications and faculty awards of institutions independently from the size of their student enrolment (Harman & Harman, 2008). In Denmark, the government set up an innovation fund that rewarded, among other things, the combination of similar institutions. In China, too, a number of mergers took place to consolidate existing institutions. For example, Beijing Medical University merged with Beijing University in 2000; similarly, in Shanghai, Fudan University merged with a medical university, and Zhejiang University was created out of the merger of five universities. In Russia, mergers have also been at the heart of the successive excellence initiatives. In 2007, two pilot federal universities were set up by merging existing institutions in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, and in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. The two new institutions received additional funding to support their efforts to recruit highly qualified researchers and equip state-of-the-art laboratories (Holdsworth, 2008). In subsequent years, the Russian government ‘encouraged’ the creation of more federal universities through mergers. A recent study of the performance of the Finnish tertiary education systems identified the relatively small size of Finnish universities and the dispersion of resources as a limiting factor: Finland’s research results offer a mixed picture. The scientific production is high in relation to the country’s population, but the University of Helsinki is the only institution appearing in the top 100 according to the 2014 Shanghai ranking. The other four Finnish universities included in the top 500 are either in the group of 301 to 400 (Oulu University and Turku University) or the group of 401 to 500 (Aalto University and the University of Eastern Finland). This may indicate a lack of critical mass to operate a sufficiently large number of research groups at the most advanced levels of scientific development. (Salmi, 2015, p. 37) Following the relative success of the 2010 merger that led to the creation of the University of Aalto, this situation points to the possible need for additional mergers that would further cut down the number of universities and polytechnics in order to avoid duplication of programmes and achieve critical mass in the many institutions and departments that are relatively small today. 32

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Overall, the newly configured universities as a result of mergers have achieved mixed results because of differences in institutional culture and, sometimes, lack of shared objectives. The University of Manchester story carries useful lessons in that respect. In 2004, the Victoria University of Manchester (VUM) and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) merged, creating the largest university in the United Kingdom, with the stated goal of being in the ‘top 25 by 2015’.6 The first years after the merger were challenging (Qureshi, 2007). Among the main problems encountered were duplication of staff and curricular offerings, the political challenge of engendering support for the merger by making promises that were difficult to keep, and the absorption of labour contracts and institutional debt. In addition, the newly formed institution, with its commitment to achieving worldclass status, invested heavily in hiring ‘superstar’ academic staff and supplying them with correspondingly superstar facilities. This exacerbated further the staffing debt inherited with the merging of distinct and separate institutional staffs – and their individual cultures, norms, and labour contracts – into the one university. While the new University made an impressive jump in the Shanghai ranking, from 78 in 2004 to 40 in 2008, its has not moved significantly since then. It remains to be seen whether all the financial, cultural, and interpersonal obstacles resulting from the merger have been successfully addressed. Along similar lines, a recent study on ‘identity formation’ conducted by the Higher School of Economics through in-depth interviews and surveys, at four of the new federal universities in Russia, reveals serious post-merger dysfunctions linked to tensions between the formal regional nature of these universities before the merger, and the expectations of a global focus in their new configuration (Chirikov, 2013). The study finds that, in the Russian case, the more significant difficulties did not appear in the initial phase but rather in the post-merger period. These difficulties reflect resistance from academics concerned about losing their disciplinary identity and having to compete in an unfamiliar academic environment, fear of students not being familiar with the new university brand, ambivalent messages from the State on what becoming ‘world-class’ entails, insufficient institutional autonomy to operate as an entrepreneurial university, and a more complex administrative structure to manage the reconfigured university. Mergers seem to be more successful when both parties are fully committed and bring complementary strengths to the table, as the example of the Danish University of Aarhus shows (Salmi, 2009). Mergers also carry the risk of translating into very large universities that are difficult to manage effectively and improve meaningfully. In France, for example, the recent merger of four universities in the Marseille and Aix-en-Province region has created a new institution enrolling more than 120,000 students. The relatively poor performance of mega-universities in Latin America, such as UNAM in Mexico and UBA in Argentina, should serve as a warning in that regard (Salmi, 2009). To finish this exploration of how excellence initiatives have helped increase talent concentration in participating universities, it is important to identify three 33

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severe risks and challenges associated with the ongoing race to establish world-class universities. First, the over-emphasis on research sends the wrong signal that the quality of teaching and learning is not as important. Indeed, the indicators on which international rankings rely are generally biased in favour of research-intensive universities, at the cost of excluding first-rate institutions that primarily enrol undergraduate students. In the United States, for instance, liberal arts or science colleges such as Carleton, Harvey Muddy, Olin, Pomona, Wellesley and Williams Colleges are recognized as outstanding undergraduate teaching institutions, yet they will never make the global rankings because they are not research powerhouses. In a recent speech to the universities, the British Minister for Universities and Science denounced the poor quality of teaching as a result of over-emphasis on the development of research. Because many universities see their reputation, their standing in prestigious international league tables and their marginal funding as being principally determined by scholarly output, teaching has regrettably been allowed to become something of a poor cousin to research in parts of our system. (O’Malley, 2015) Second, the focus on world-class universities is likely to further promote elitism and increase inequalities in tertiary education. In their search for academic excellence, top universities tend to be very selective, which risks keeping talented students from low-income, or those from low ‘cultural capital’ families, away. With a 1:100 success ratio, the Indian Institutes of Technology are the most selective institutions in the world. Similarly, the Ivy League universities are the most selective universities in the United States. Research has shown that the average SAT score of students accepted into top US universities, which is closely correlated with their socio-economic background, has risen steadily in recent years (Gladwell, 2011). Third, some universities have become so driven by the rankings that, in their efforts to boost research output, they may be tempted to take shortcuts instead of building capacity in a genuine manner. Some universities have approached academics in other institutions to encourage them to provide positive feedback through the reputation surveys conducted by some of the global rankings. A number of Australian universities have hired ‘ranking managers’ to provide guidance on how to better position the institutions (MacGregor, 2013). Observers have accused Saudi universities of artificially inflating their scientific output by contracting, on a part-time basis, highly cited foreign researchers who accept to publish under the affiliation of the Saudi institution (Bhattacharjee, 2011). Financing The level of resources and the sources of funding of excellence initiatives constitute the second key dimension that needs to be assessed, as they strongly influence the impact and sustainability of these excellence initiatives. Three observations can be 34

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

made in that respect. First, the design of these initiatives is flawed in so far as they do not address explicitly the sustainability issue, on the assumption that giving a boost to a university is sufficient to transform it. Many excellence initiatives are organized as a one-off, or a maximum two-phase, investment to upgrade selected universities. This can be a double-edge sword if the beneficiary universities do not manage to diversify their income sources and expand their resource base sufficiently to sustain the level of investment and operating costs arising from their transformation efforts. Indeed, as the beneficiary universities proceed to improve their talent base by recruiting a complement of young and experienced academics to raise their research capacity, they need to worry about their ability to keep these additional academics beyond the duration of the excellence initiative. While this may not be a problem in tertiary education systems that are well resourced through general taxes, as happens in the Nordic countries and in Switzerland, in many cases the beneficiary universities may not be able to maintain their progress if public resources are not forthcoming on a continuing basis, which is a likely scenario in many economies facing mild to severe fiscal constraints. In the words of the Australian Physics Nobel Prize laureate, Brian Schmidt (2012), ‘science capability is built up through the long term investment in programmes and people, and short-term fluctuations are wasteful and counter-productive.’ The French approach, based on the establishment of a national endowment fund for the universities participating in the excellence initiative, is one of the few recent cases that embody a structural element of sustainability. However, it is not yet clear how the scheme will actually operate, considering the country’s fiscal challenges. Canada provides another relevant example: in 1997, the federal government decided to make the Network of Centers of Excellence programme a permanent feature of its budgetary allocation to tertiary education institutions. Recent developments in Germany are also interesting to note in that respect. The Constitutional Court recently accepted a request from the Federal government to change the Constitution. This will allow for more significant involvement of the federal government in the funding of the country’s universities, which until now had been a prerogative of the state governments (Länder). This change has come partly as a direct consequence of the excellence initiative, reflecting concerns about the possible lack of sustainability of the investments made in the context of the excellence programme, and partly because the federal government had no jurisdiction to fund teaching. Second, in several cases, the deteriorating financial situation has compromised the ability of the government to fulfil its commitments as spelled out in the excellence initiative. The most extreme example in that regard is the painful experience of Spain. Not only did the design not incorporate any element of sustainability – the funding was supposed to be considered as a reimbursable loan to the beneficiary universities – but, in addition, the entire excellence initiative itself had to be abandoned two years into its implementation period because of the financial crisis, with dire consequences for the tertiary education system as a whole. Overall, the 35

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Spanish universities lost 15% of their core budget in real terms between 2008 and 2014, representing a US$ 2.3 billion gap, whereas the excellence initiative provided only US$ 829 million of additional funding (Mitchell, 2015). Similarly, India has not been able to provide the additional financing promised in 2012 when it announced its first excellence initiative. Today, the cash-strapped government is poised to introduce further cuts that may threaten the few existing elite institutions that appear in the global rankings, namely the Indian Institutes of Technology (Behal, 2015). Russia recently announced a 10% cut across the board, which is likely to adversely affect all the universities that are the beneficiaries of the new 5/100 excellence initiative (Vorotnikov, 2015). The lack of sustained funding is also felt today in wealthy economies that launched an excellence initiative but are facing increased difficulties in maintaining appropriate levels of research funding for their top universities, as illustrated by the Australian case. One ironic twist in the recent evolution of the Australian universities financing situation is that the same Tony Abbott who today in 2015 is pushing for significant funding cuts in the university budget as Prime Minister – despite pre-election promises to the contrary – forcefully criticized the government for not financing the country’s top universities sufficiently when he was leader of the opposition. Clearly, very few nations have managed to match China’s experience of taking a long-term vision and pursuing consistent policies to finance the development of its top universities through successive excellence initiatives spanning close to twenty years. The third and last observation has to do with the distribution of financial resources across the entire tertiary education system. In several countries, notably France, Germany and Spain, the introduction of a competitive funding approach in the form of an excellence initiative has marked a radical rupture with traditional resource allocation practices, whereby all universities would receive similar financing amounts regardless of their relative performance. This is one of the most salient features of excellence initiatives, one of its positive results being that the additional funding has proven to be a powerful incentive to encourage universities to develop a transformational vision, set priorities and elaborate solid projects to implement the vision. At the same time, observers have voiced concern that excellence initiatives could create funding distortions as the leading universities seek an ever-growing share of the overall public budget envelope for tertiary education. In Australia, for instance, the executive director of the Group of Eight, the country’s top research universities, explained in 2008 that ‘Australia cannot afford to spread its relatively small resources too thinly. It must invest in niche areas. This means that some universities and some fields should get preferential treatment. If Australia does not have some universities playing at the high end, Australia will fall behind’ (Gallagher, 2008). Along the same lines, the Thai Minister of Education stated in 2009 that ‘universities which earned a place in the top 500 rankings … were entitled to financial support’.7 36

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Implicit behind such views is the belief that the simple fact of being a top university, or aspiring to become one, would make it eligible for funding privileges that other, less prestigious, tertiary education institutions should not and could not hope to receive. Such approaches that favour research universities carry the risk of underfunding all the other – equally important – tertiary education institutions that are an integral part of a well-balanced system. Governance Recent policy work shows show that an appropriate regulatory framework, strong and inspiring leadership, and adequate management significantly influence the ability of research universities to prosper (Altbach & Salmi, 2011). In this respect, one of the main weaknesses of several excellence initiatives seems to be the absence of a much-needed governance reform to accompany or facilitate the implementation of the projects supported by the additional funding. In Germany, for example, where universities operate as public bodies following civil service rules within the context of each regional State’s higher education governance framework, some of the beneficiaries of the excellence initiative have introduced innovative organizational structures and management processes to be able to mount and run their new doctoral programmes and multi-disciplinary research clusters. But this presents the risk of creating islands of excellence in the midst of universities which continue to operate in a traditional way with rigid public sector rules, thereby allowing two parallel structures to function side by side within the same institution. Thus, the unfavourable governance framework under which German universities operate makes it difficult to take full advantage of the additional resources provided by the Excellence Initiative. Institutionalizing the innovations would require integrating the new research centres into the regular university structure, but this in turns depends on the willingness of the existing faculties and departments to allocate, within the regular budget envelope, positions for the top scholars who have been recruited in the context of the Excellence Initiative, but are funded only for five years. These universities may find it challenging to scale up and sustain the positive changes under way in the absence of an appropriate governance reform. In Spain, the international commission set up by the government to assess the implementation of the International Campuses of Excellence Initiative in 2011 concluded that outdated governance was the main obstacle faced by Spanish universities. Universities should be given the freedom to succeed and to fail. Being held on a short leash by Government will not lead to excellence… An appropriate balance between regulation, steering and institutional autonomy needs to be found… (Tarrach et al., 2011, p. 4) Similarly, in Taiwan, evaluations of the recent excellence initiative there found that the rigid salary scheme that public universities must follow prevents them 37

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from attracting and keeping top foreign researchers in their upgrading efforts (Hou & Chiang, 2012). In the Russian case, the continuing segmentation of research between universities and academies of science is seen as a serious obstacle to any improvement in the research production of the universities, notwithstanding the additional resources available through the excellence initiative. Even in France, where a governance reform was implemented in 2009 to increase institutional autonomy, it appears that the reform did not go far enough, as universities still encounter significant rigidities that prevent them from easily opening new positions in an autonomous manner and being in a position to offer attractive remuneration packages to top academics, especially foreign researchers. This raises concerns about the outcome of the ongoing mergers. While the mergers will certainly augment the critical mass of researchers and may bring about a higher position in the Shanghai ranking, they are unlikely to address the fundamental limitations experienced by French universities, including open admission policies, a weak financial basis, rigid governance arrangements, and outdated management practices (Salmi, 2009). Likewise, critics of the recent excellence initiative in Japan, which focuses on internationalization, argue that the proposed funding fails to address core governance and management issues that affect the country’s top universities. One of them is the salary structure in public universities, which makes it difficult to keep leading researchers from working in the private sector (Kakuchi, 2014). By contrast, Denmark seems to be among the few countries that have embodied their excellence initiative in an overall governance reform aimed at transforming its universities into more flexible and dynamic institutions. This high degree of alignment between the additional financial resources and the governance framework explain, to a large extent, the rapid rise of Danish universities in the Shanghai ranking. Between 2004 and 2014, the University of Copenhagen gained twenty spots, from 79 to 59. Even more impressive was the progress of Aarhus University, the nation’s second top university, which emerged from the 101–150 group in 2004 to climb to number 74 in 2014. In China, also, the top universities supported by the C9 initiative have been recently allowed to transform their governance and management structures to allow for increased institutional autonomy and flexibility (Ruish, 2014). This governance reform complements the considerable additional financial resources documented earlier. The University College Dublin (UCD) is an interesting example of an institution that made significant progress (see Table 8) as a result of strong and visionary leadership that helped steer the university quite effectively towards a deeper research focus. This happened in spite of misgivings about the perceived ‘managerialism’ of the vice-chancellor in his efforts to align the academic and organizational cultures better in support of the concerted strategy to improve the research output and the international visibility of UCD.8 38

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A second serious governance issue which has emerged in recent years, in a growing number of nations, is the tension between the search for excellence and the absence of full academic freedom. Several excellence initiatives have been launched in countries that are not fully democratic – China, Russia and Saudi Arabia, for example – and it remains to be seen whether top universities can operate with outstanding results where academic freedom may be restricted. While it is not a significant constraint in the hard sciences – although government control of the internet affects all scholars alike – it certainly hinders the ability of social scientists to conduct scientific inquiries on issues that are politically sensitive. The Chinese Minister of Education recently told universities to shun textbooks that promote Western values, indicating that academics should refrain from criticizing the Communist Party (Li, 2015). These potential restrictions may undermine the positive governance reforms mentioned earlier. In the same vein, academics at Hong Kong universities, which have so far enjoyed unrestricted academic freedom, have expressed fears of increased government intrusion in the light of recent academic interference incidents that may reflect the growing influence of the central Chinese government (Yeung, 2015). CONCLUSION

Excellence, like all things of abiding value, is a marathon, not a sprint. (Daniel Lincoln) The top ten universities in the latest Shanghai Jiao Tong University ARWU ranking were all founded before 1900, and two are more than eight centuries old. Indeed, it is no surprise that the world’s leading universities are among the oldest established tertiary education institutions, enjoying what could be called the ‘vintage’ element: the power of reputational effects that allows these universities to continue to attract the best scholars and students, thus self-perpetuating their excellence standards and outstanding results. In recent years, however, the realization that tertiary education is part and parcel of a country’s competitive advantage, together with the impetus given by the global rankings, has provoked a radical change in the way governments consider the role and importance of universities. There is growing recognition that, with proper leadership and focused investment, existing universities that have not been seen in the upper tiers of the global university hierarchy can be transformed into world-class institutions over a relatively short period. The determination of governments to enhance the performance and visibility of their leading universities has translated into excellence initiatives in many corners of the planet. This chapter has analysed the main characteristics of these excellence initiatives and tried to identify initial results. As explained earlier, it may be premature to draw definitive conclusion about what works, considering that many of these excellent initiatives are fairly recent, and that the effective transformation 39

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of universities requires a long period. However, available data show clearly that the most successful institutions are those that have managed to align the three main components of excellence, namely critical masses of talent, abundant resources, and appropriate governance, the latter being perhaps the most critical level of rapid change. Another important finding from this chapter is that excellence initiatives may engender negative behaviours and carry adverse consequences. Policy makers and university leaders must keep in mind, in particular, the risk of harmful effects on teaching and learning quality, reduced equality of opportunities for students from underprivileged groups, and diminished institutional diversity. In fact, ‘excellence initiative’ may be a misnomer. These initiatives appear to focus more on creating ‘world-class’ universities – as measured by the global rankings – than on promoting excellence across the board. At best they stimulate the search for excellence in research. But research is only one function of universities. Equally important are the quality of teaching and learning and the value of a university’s engagement with the productive sectors and the communities in their economic and social environment. An excellence initiative is not a substitute for a meaningful reform of the entire tertiary education system. By definition, an excellence initiative aims to support and transform only those universities that are likely to become globally competitive. This approach does not exclude introducing system-wide reforms at the same time, especially in the areas of quality assurance, financing and governance. Not only would such reforms strengthen the sustainability of excellence initiatives, but they would also ensure the balanced development of the entire tertiary education system. At the end of the day, the best tertiary education systems are not those that can boast the largest number of highly ranked universities. Governments should worry less about increasing the number of world-class universities and dedicate more efforts to the construction of world-class systems that encompass a wide range of good quality and well-articulated tertiary education institutions with distinctive missions, able to meet collectively the great variety of individual, community and national needs that characterize dynamic economies and healthy societies. NOTES This chapter is adapted from a book chapter included in Hazelkorn, E. (Ed.) (2016). Global rankings and the geo-politics of higher education: Understanding the influence and impact of rankings on higher education, policy and society. London: Routledge. 2 This chapter does not consider recent national initiatives to establish new universities with the explicit ambition of creating a world-class institution, such as Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan or King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. It does not refer either to ambitious scholarship schemes that finance studies in top foreign universities for large numbers of students, such as Kazakhstan’s Bolashak program, Brazil’s “Science without Borders”, or Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Scholarship’s Program. 3 http://www.germaninnovation.org/research-and-innovation 1

40

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities Even though the German government was the first one to use the expression, similar initiatives were launched already two decades ago without using the “excellence” denomination. 5 On the advice of the creators of the Shanghai ranking, this analysis takes the 2004 data as baseline, rather than the 2003 ranking, because of a significant methodological change from 2003 to 2004, which would make the comparison over time less appropriate. The methodology has remained stable over the past eleven years. 6 http://www.manchester.ac.uk/research/about/strategy/ 7 Jurin Laksanavisit, Education Minister, Thailand, 2009. 8 Based on interviews by the author. In recognition of his achievements, the UCD vice-chancellor was invited in 2014 to lead the University of Bristol. 4

REFERENCES Altbach, P., & Salmi, J. (2011). The road to academic excellence: The making of world-class research universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Behal, S. (2015, January 23). Sweeping funding cuts will hit elite institutes. University World News, 351. Bhattacharjee, Y. (2011). Saudi universities offer cash in exchange for academic prestige. Science, 334(6061), 1344–1345. Chirikov, I. (2013, March 30). University mergers need to confront identity issues. University World News, 265. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers. Gladwell, M. (2011, February 14). The order of things: What college rankings really tell us. The New Yorker. Harman, G., & Harman, K. (2008). Strategic mergers of strong institutions to enhance competitive advantage. Higher Education Policy, 21(1), 99–121. Holdsworth, N. (2008, October 26). Russia: Super league of ‘federal’ universities. University World News. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story= 20081024094454199 Hou, A., Ince, M., & Chiang, C. L. (2012). A reassessment of Asian pacific excellence programs in higher education: The Taiwan experience. Scientometrics, 92(1), 23–42. Kakuchi, S. (2014, November 21). Not just international but ‘Super Global Universities’. University World News, 344. Kakuchi, S. (2015, January 9). Restrictions on collaboration are hindering international research. University World News, 349. Kehm, B. (2006). The German ‘Initiative for Excellence’ and the issue of ranking. International Higher Education, 44, 20–22. Li, J. (2015, January 22). Communist party orders marxism course for universities. South China Morning Post. MacGregor, K. (2013, June 23). Concerns growing over ‘gaming’ in university rankings. University World News, 227. Mitchell, N. (2015, January 9). Excellence schemes ‘should be risking-taking’: EUA. University World News, 349. OECD. (2014). Promoting research excellence: New approaches to funding. Paris: OECD. O’Malley, B. (2015, September 9). Minister blasts patchy quality of university teaching. University World News, 381. Qureshi, Y. (2007, March 9). 400 university jobs could go. Manchester Evening News. Retrieved May 20, 2007, from http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/education/s/1001/1001469_400_ university_jobs_could_go.html Ruish, Q. (2014, October 10). Universities get more autonomy. Global Times. Salmi, J. (2009). The challenge of establishing world-class universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank.

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J. SALMI Salmi, J. (2012). The vintage handicap: Can a young university achieve world-class status? Times Higher Education Supplement, 70, 2–3. (London: May 2012.) Salmi, J. (2015). Tertiary education in Finland: Achievements, challenges and opportunities. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved March 20, 2007, from http://www.minedu.fi/export/ sites/default/OPM/Tapahtumakalenteri/2014/12/Kk_johdon_seminaari_liitteet/Jamil_Salmi_Report_ Tertiary_Education_in_Finland.pdf Salmi, J., & Saroyan, A. (2007). League tables as policy instruments: Uses and misuses. Higher Education Management and Policy, 19(2), 24–62. (OECD, Paris.) Schmidt, B. (2012, September 18). Don’t just throw more money at education to boost productivity. The Australian. Tarrach, R., Egron-Polack, E., de Maret, P., Rapp, J-M., & Salmi, J. (2011, September). Daring to reach high: Strong universities for tomorrow’s Spain. Report of the Committee of International Experts EU2015, Madrid. Vorotnikov, E. (2015, February 20). Government plans to cut 10% off university funding. University World News, 355. World Bank. (1999). The 1998/99 world development report: Knowledge for development. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (2002). Constructing knowledge societies: New challenges for tertiary education. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Yeung, L. (2015, March 6). Fear of erosion of academic freedom. University World News, 357.

Jamil Salmi Global Tertiary Education Expert APPENDIX 1 List of excellence initiatives by year of launch Year

Excellence initiative

1989

Canada Networks of Centers of Excellence – US$386 million

1991

Denmark Danish National Research Foundation/Centers of Excellence – US$ 8 billion

1995

Finland Centers of Excellence in Research (CoEs) – US$ 245.3 million

1996

China 211 Project – US$ 3.1 billion (Phase I)

1998

Hong Kong Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme – US$ 121.5 million Ireland Program for Research in Third-Level Institutions

42

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Year

Excellence initiative

1999

China 985 Project – US$ 4.3 billion (Phase I) South Korea Brain Korea 21 Program – US$ 1.4 billion (Phase I)

2002

China 211 Project – US$ 3.0 billion (Phase II) Japan Top-30 Program (Centers Of Excellence for 21st Century Plan) – US$ 484 million New-Zealand Centers for Research Excellence

2003

Australia ARC Centers of Excellence – US$255.9 million yearly Norway Centers of Excellence scheme – US$1.5 to 3 million per CoE for a maximum of ten years

2004

South Korea New University for Regional Innovation project – US$1 billion China 985 Project – US$ 6.6 billion (Phase II)

2005

Russian Federation Federal University Program- US$411 million Taiwan Developing a First-Class University and Top Research Centers (‘Five-year-fifty billion’ program’) – US$ 1.7 billion (Phase I) Teaching Excellence Development Program – US$ 666 million

2006

Germany Excellence Initiative – US$ 2.35 billion (Phase I) South Korea Brain Korea 21 Program – US$ 2.1 billion (Phase II) BK21-MS Global Internship Program – US$ 1 million Russian Federation Innovative University Program – US $920 million Singapore Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise Sweden Linnaeus Grants

(Continued)

43

J. SALMI

Year

Excellence initiative

2007

Japan Global Centers of Excellence Program – US$ 640,000–6.4 million per center per year World Premier International Research Center Initiative – US$ 108 million per year Luxembourg ATTRACT – Opportunities for Outstanding Young Researchers in Luxembourg Norway Centers for Research-Based Innovation Saudi Arabia Centers of Excellence – First stage Singapore Research Centers of Excellence – US$ 603.3 million Competitive Research Program Funding Scheme – 4 to 8 US$ million per program over 3 to 5 years

2008

Canada Global Excellence Research Chairs – Each 29 chair-holders and their research teams receive up to US$10 million over 7 years China 211 Project (Phase III) Denmark Investment Capital for University Research – US$79.3 million France Operation campus – US$ 6.2 billion Malaysia Accelerated Program for Excellence (APEX) Nigeria World-Class Universities Program Saudi Arabia Centers of Excellence – Second stage South Korea National Project Towards Building World-Class Universities – US$ 720 million

2009

Luxembourg Programme Excellence Award for Research in Luxembourg Russian Federation National Research University Program – US$ 1.6 billion Slovenia Centers of Excellence Initiative – 88 million Spain International Campus of Excellence – US$ 313.3 million Thailand National Research Universities Development Project – US$ 380 million

44

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Year

Excellence initiative

2010

Israel I-CORE – the Israeli Centers for Research Excellence – US$ 360 million France Excellence Laboratories – US$ 1.24 billion Sweden Strategic Research Areas

2011

China 985 Project (Phase III) France Excellence Equipment Program – US$ 1.24 billion Excellence Initiative – US$ 9.53 billion Poland National Research Excellence Centers Taiwan Moving into Top Universities program (Second phase of ‘Program for Developing First-class University and Top Research Centers’) – US$ 330 million Teaching Excellence program (Second phase)

2012

China 2011 Plan (Phase I) France Excellence Initiatives for Training – US$ 185.8 million Germany Excellence Initiative (Phase II) – US$ 2.97 billion India Universities of Research and Innovation Bill – undefined date of approval and amount of resources available

2013

Russian Federation 5/100 Initiative – US$ 888 million

2014

Japan Super Global Universities – US$ 818.4 million

45

J. SALMI

APPENDIX 2 List of excellence initiatives by country and per-university funding Country

Initiative

Australia

ARC (Australian Research Council) Centers of Excellence

2003

$1 to $4 million per annum up to seven years for each Centre of Excellence.

Global Excellence Research Chairs 211 Project – Phase I 211 Project – Phase II 211 Project – Phase III China 985 Project

2008

Up to $10.2 million over 7 years

1995 2002 2008 1999

$31.7 million per university $28 million per university n.a. Tier 1 Peking University and Tsinghua University US $285 million each Tier 2 10 universities $ 156 million each Tier 3 22 universities $106 million each

2004

Tier 1 Peking University and Tsinghua University Tier 2 7 universities Tier 3 30 universities

2010

Same 39 universities

China 2011 Plan

2012

Tbd

Centers of Excellence

1991

$ 1.6 million

Investment capital for University Research

2008

US$ 19.8 million

Finland

Centers of Excellence in Research

1995

2000–2005: US$3.1 million 2002–2007: US$3.0 million 2006–2011: US$ 3.7 million

France

‘Operation Campus’

2008

US$ 619.2 million

Excellence Initiative

2011

US$ 1.2 billion endowment for each of the 8 selected universities

Excellence initiatives for training

2012

US$ 9.3 million for each of 20 selected universities

China

Denmark

46

Start year Average per university amount (US$)

Excellence strategies and the creation of world-class universities

Country

Initiative

Germany

Excellence Initiative Phase I

2006

US$ 27.6 million per project at 50 universities

Excellence Initiative Phase II

2012

Graduate Schools: each receive an average of $ 1.24 million per year Cluster of Excellence: Each receive an average of $8.05 million per year Institutional Strategies: each receive up to 16.7 million per year

Hong Kong

Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme

1998

US$ 8 million

Israel

I-CORE – the Israeli Centers for Research Excellence

2010

$ 18 million

Japan

Japan Top-30 Program (Centers Of Excellence for 21st Century Plan)

2002

$15.6 million

Japan Global Centers of Excellence Program

2007

$640,000 – $6.4 million per year

World Premier International Research Center (WPI) Initiative.

2007

$18 million per year

Super Global Universities Program

2014

81.8 million per year for 10 years 13 ‘A’ universities receive 3.6 million a year 24 ‘B’ universities receive 1.46 million a year

Brain Korea 21 Program – Phase I

1999

US$2.5 million

Brain Korea 21 Program – Phase II

2006

US$3.7 million

National Project. Towards Building World-Class Universities – WCU.

2008

$6 million per center in 30 universities (about 4 centers per university)

Malaysia

Accelerated Program for Excellence APEX

2008

Only one university selected

Nigeria

World-Class University Initiative

2008

Up to $7 million per center of excellence

Korea

Start year Average per university amount (US$)

(Continued)

47

J. SALMI

Country

Initiative

Norway

Centers of Excellence scheme

2003

$ 1.5 to 3 million

Russian Federation

Innovative University Program

2006

$ 6–30 million for 2 years

National Research University Program (NIU)

2009

$ 55.6 million

5/100 Initiative

2013

$ 888 million for 4 years

Saudi Arabia Centers of Excellence

2007

8 Centers selected in 2007 6 Centers selected in 2008

Singapore

Research Centers of Excellence

2007

$ 120.7 million

Competitive Research Program Funding Scheme

2007

$ 4–8 million per program, over three to five years.

Campus for Research Excellence And Technological Enterprise. CREATE

2006

NA

Slovenia

Centers of Excellence

2009

$ 9.2 to 10 million for each of 8 selected Centers. An earlier phase was financed with European Framework resources between 2007 and 2009

Spain

International Campus of Excellence – CEI

2009

$ 62.7 million per each of five selected university

Taiwan

Developing a FirstClass University and Top Research Centers

2005

$ 154.5 million for each of 11 selected universities

Moving into Top Universities Program

2011

$ 27.5 million for each 12 selected institutions

Teaching Excellence Development Program

2005

$ 21.5 million for each of 31 selected institutions

National Research Universities Development Project

2009

$ 31.5 million

Thailand

48

Start year Average per university amount (US$)

SIMON MARGINSON

3. TOWARDS WORLD-CLASS SYSTEMS World-Class Universities in High Participation Systems of Higher Education

INTRODUCTION

There is a worldwide tendency to develop High Participation Systems (HPS) in higher education, systems that enrol more than 50% of the age cohort. In the last 15 years there has been a remarkable surge in enrolment into higher education. The tendency is not confined to wealthy countries. It affects the overwhelming majority of countries with a GDP of over US$7500 per head, less than 10% of the per capita income of Singapore and 13% that of the United States (World Bank, 2015). This chapter examines the dimensions of participation growth and briefly discusses its drivers. It then goes on to examine the concurrent worldwide spread of science, and growth in the number and quality of identifiable World-Class Universities (WCUs). A large group of countries now have both an HPS with over 50% enrolment and at least one top 500 WCU. However, questions must be asked about the quality of mass higher education provision in established and emerging HPSs. While many countries are growing higher education in quantitative terms at both the top and middle-bottom of their systems, in terms of status and resources, strategies for improving measured outcomes are often focused primarily on the research universities at the top. It is likely that the emphasis on building WCUs is too one-sided in some countries, leading to the neglect of problems of mass education. The chapter focuses on the United States as one example of such a trade-off, before moving to conclusions. THE WORLDWIDE GROWTH OF PARTICIPATION

Between 1970 and the early 1990s, the number of students in ‘tertiary education’ (UNESCO, 2015b; OECD, 2015) increased faster than world population but at about the same rate as world GDP. (‘Tertiary education’ in the international agency data refers to two-year full-time programmes and above. This is equivalent to ‘higher education’ in American usage, which is the definition of ‘higher education’ used in this chapter).1 In the early 1990s, participation in higher education began to increase faster than GDP and the increase accelerated after 1998. The growth rate was unaffected by the protracted recession in the Atlantic countries after 2008. N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 49–65. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

S. MARGINSON

Overall, between 1970 and 2013, the population multiplied by 1.93, GDP by 3.63 and enrolment in higher education by 6.12 (UNESCO, 2015b; World Bank, 2015). Table 1. Gross Tertiary Enrolment Ratio (GTER) by world region: 1971, 1998 and 2013

World

1971

1998

2013

%

%

%

9.9

19.0

32.9

North America and Western Europe

30.8

59.2

76.6

Central and Eastern Europe

29.8

37.4

71.4

Latin American and the Caribbean

7.0

20.3

43.9

East Asia and the Pacific

2.9

13.3

33.0

Arab States

6.0

17.1

38.1

Central Asia

n.a.

20.6

26.1

South and West Asia

4.2

7.2

22.8

Sub-Saharan Africa

0.9

3.9

8.2

Note: n.a. = not available. First available GTER data for Central Asia are for 1980, at 24.4 percent Source: Data from UNESCO (2015b)

Participation can be measured using Gross Tertiary Enrolment Ratio (GTER) data from the UNESCO Institute of Statistics. The GTER is the approximate proportion of the school leaver cohort entering tertiary education in a given year. In calculating national GTERs, UNESCO must identify ‘tertiary education’ amid variable and fragmented provision.2 Nevertheless, the GTER provides the most comprehensive basis for cross-country and longitudinal comparison. In 1971, the cross-world GTER was 9.9%. Three years later, Martin Trow (1974) published a seminal paper in which he argued that the threshold for the transition from elite to mass higher education was 15% coverage of the population, and the threshold for what he called ‘universal’ higher education, the level at which it became necessary to enrol in higher education to enjoy a broad range of life possibilities as citizen and worker, was 50% coverage of the population. In 1971, the GTER exceeded 15% in only 19 countries. They were led by the US, the world’s first mass higher education system, whose GTER in 1971 was just below the level of Trow’s notion of ‘universal’ participation at 47%. By 2013, less than two generations later, the situation was very different. Of the school leaver age cohort, 32.8% were in higher education, and, again, in contrast with 1971, the GTER for women (34.5%) exceeded that for men (31.3%). No less than 102 countries had achieved a GTER of 15%; and the GTER exceeded 50% in 51 countries, led by South Korea at 98.4%. In 1971 South Korea’s GTER had been only 7.2% (UNESCO, 2015b). 50

Towards world-class systems

Figure 1. Growth in gross tertiary enrolment ratio (%), by world region, 1998–2013. Source: Data from UNESCO (2016)

The nations with GTERs above 50% in 2013 were a mixed group of high- and middle-income countries. The middle income group included Albania, Armenia, Barbados, Bulgaria, Iran, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Palestine, Serbia and Thailand. It seems that when the GTER reaches 50% or more, participation keeps on rising. Few governments set firm limits on the level of inclusion, despite fiscal constraints. International agencies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) now advocate open-ended growth. By 2013, the GTER had reached the level of 90% in South Korea, Canada, USA, Finland, Belarus and Australia; while in Cuba, Denmark, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Russia, Slovenia, Spain and Ukraine it had passed 75%.3 The most rapidly growing national systems include Turkey, where from 2000 to 2012 the GTER rose from 25.3 to 69.4% (44.1%), Albania (a rise of 41.7% in the same 12 year period), Cuba (40.5%), Chile (37.2), Belarus (37%) and Iran (36%). Table 1 and Figure 1 examine growth in the GTER by world region over the most recent 15 years for which data are available, 1998–2013. This is the historical period of the most rapid growth. The tendency to develop HPSs is a process of combined and uneven development (Naidoo, 2014). Regional GTERs varied from 76.6% in 51

S. MARGINSON

North America and Western Europe and 71.4% in Eastern Europe, down to 22.8% in South Asia and 8.2% in Sub-Saharan Africa. The point, however, is that there was a strong tendency to growth in all regions except Central Asia, which has now slipped below the world average. The countries that remain outside the dynamic of growth of higher education are mostly those that are very poor, where the middle class and the tax base are too small; and/or those in which the state lacks the stability or the capacity to operate on the basis of medium-term policy horizons. Sub-Saharan Africa is the principal gap in global enrolment, but even there the GTER doubled in the 15 years.4 South Asia was the other gap, and GTERs remain low in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but in the last two decades the GTER has surged in India, and doubled in Pakistan, albeit from a low base. The tendency to HPS extends to emerging nation-states and is integral to their emergence. Figure 2 presents the GTER for 1971–2013 in the four largest nations and another two from the top 10 by population. It also underlines the potential for future growth. China, India and Indonesia are three of the four largest countries.

Figure 2. Gross tertiary enrolment ratio (%), world, and the world’s four largest nations by population (China, India, United States and Indonesia), plus Russia and Japan (1971–2013). Source: Data from UNESCO (2016). The intention was to map the change in the ten largest nations by population but UNESCO Institute of Statistics data for Brazil, Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh are not available. UNESCO data are unavailable for USA 1997, Russia 2010, Japan 1996–1997 and 2010, Indonesia 1971, China 1971–1972, 1982–1983, and India 1972, 1974–1975, 1992–1994, 1998–1999. In each case, for the sake of visual continuity the GTER has been set at the most recent year for which the data are available; except for USA 1997 when the series break suggests a change in data compilation methods

52

Towards world-class systems

In China the GTER rose from 4.5% in 1995 to 30.2% in 2013. In India it rose from 5.6 to 23.5%; in Indonesia from 11.3 to 31.3% (UNESCO, 2016). All of these countries are experiencing massive population shifts from the pre-capitalist rural areas to the cities. This tendency has further to run. Higher education is concentrated in cities. From 1970 to 2010 the urban proportion of world population rose from 36.6% to 51.6%. In South America it climbed from 59.8% to 82.8%, in China from 17.4% to 49.2% and in Indonesia from 17.1% to 49.9%. In India it grew more slowly, but rose from 19.8% to 30.9% (UNDESA, 2012). As is also the case in Nigeria, a nation expected to approach 1 billion in population by the end of the century, in China, India and Indonesia, the urban middle class will keep expanding. Urban middle class families are well placed in political terms to secure educational opportunities for their children; and once higher education is normalized in urban precincts, its usage spreads increasingly to aspirant families positioned below the middle class. The world GTER is currently expanding at 1% a year. This suggests that within a generation, half of the worldwide age cohort will enter higher education. Not all will complete qualifications (perhaps one third of the age group will do so), but it is clear the world is entering uncharted waters. It is moving towards a global ‘high participation society’ in which half the workforce will carry higher education experience, and the common threshold of social literacy will be high in many if not most countries. This will have effects in political and cultural life, in fashioning populations as reflexive modern producers and consumers, in fostering integration within nations, and in the homogenization of cultures across borders, for higher education forms people everywhere in common ways. However, it is likely the quality of the higher education will vary greatly, within and between countries. Explanations for the Growth of HPS What drives this ubiquitous expansion of HPS? Policy and scholarly discussion often simply assumes the number of higher education students is determined by state policy and regulation. States present the expansion of higher education as their contribution to growth, global competitiveness, social justice and inclusion. But it is important not to confuse symptoms and causes. States do not operate in a vacuum. They respond to social logics and interests; and here it is necessary to distinguish the stated policy rationales for expansion from the actual drivers. If state intervention at times appears to be purposely driven and based on economic or social agendas, at other times states seem to act more as facilitators or as passive respondents to demand. Observation of national cases suggests that the state’s role in forming an HPS is maximized in the early stages, in kick-starting the transition from elite to mass higher education, through infrastructure and the funding of student assistance. Once higher and growing participation is achieved, growth seems to generate its own momentum. No doubt states continue to claim credit; and it is expedient for them to foster higher education as an opportunity framework. This broadens their legitimacy 53

S. MARGINSON

and political base. However, the limited character of state agency is shown by the fact that participation tendencies flow in one direction only. Examination of the UNESCO data shows that significant falls in participation rates are unusual, and that nowhere in the world, once the HPS dynamic has been released, does any state move to secure a lasting reversal of growth – despite the cost pressures created by expansion – though there are many cases of states shifting part of the cost of growth to families and students. The public policy world also favours explanations in which states routinely facilitate the economy. In the standard policy narrative about higher education, expansion is shaped by government and/or market forces in response to the need for educated human capital. Higher education expands more or less in step with growing demands for graduate knowledge, skills and certified professional competences. Economic demand is signalled in the labour markets by the wage returns to marginal productivity (Becker, 1964). Students focus on graduate wages and employability. People (or governments on their behalf) invest in education, in terms of time, income forgone and tuition, to the point where the lifetime returns to degree holders equal the costs of investment. However, sociologists of education are not persuaded. In an historical review, Schofer and Meyer note that ‘the rapid expansion of higher education in the 1960s does not coincide with especially large historical changes in occupational structures, job skill requirements, or labour market demands that would create a need for massive expansion of higher education’. Further, since the 1960s, the apparent association between economic growth and the growth of participation has been weaker than in that first human capital decade (Schofer & Meyer, 2005, pp. 900, 916). Teichler (2009) notes that at any given time, the fit between graduates’ learned attributes and the needs of the labour market are not close; and the expansion of higher education often outstrips the growth of high skill and professional work. When this happens, graduates move down the occupational scale, adjusting their expectations (p. 28). Arguably, the most perceptive discussion of the causes of HPS is the one advanced early by Trow (1974; see also Marginson, 2016a, 2016b). For Trow, the motor of the growth of participation is family aspirations to maintain and improve social position. This leads him to two insights. First, there is no limit to aspirations for social betterment through education. It is not subject to economic scarcity. There will be ‘continued popular demand for an increase in the number of places in colleges and universities… It seems to me very unlikely that any advanced industrial society can or will be able to stabilize the numbers’ (Trow 1974, p. 40). Despite ‘loose talk about graduate unemployment or of an oversupply … it is still clear that people who have gone on to higher education thereby increase their chances for having more secure, more interesting, and better paid work throughout their lives.’ As more people enter higher education, it becomes ‘a symbol of rising social status’ (p. 41). Participation becomes semi-compulsory, and the emphasis shifts from participation for upward social mobility to participation as a defence against declining social position. Graduate unemployment is not a problem because of the ‘educational 54

Towards world-class systems

inflation of occupations’. As the number of graduates grows, they displace those without college, sometimes using their educated capabilities to enrich the jobs. ‘What mass higher education does is to break the old rigid connection between education and the occupational structure’ that prevents graduates from taking what were non-graduate jobs, argues Trow. Graduates can ‘seek employment without loss of dignity wherever the jobs may exist’ (Trow, 1974, pp. 42–43). Trow’s second insight is that government policy follows social demand for higher education, not vice versa. Government is under ongoing pressure, especially from middle class families, to facilitate the growth of higher education until the point of saturation is reached. In the long run, Trow has been proven right. Whether countries have multi-party or single-party polities, regardless of their rate of economic growth or their specific industry configuration and demand for skills, educational growth occurs, especially when there is also growth in urbanization and in the size of the middle class. THE SPREAD OF SCIENCE

At the same time that tertiary enrolment growth has accelerated, from the late 1990s onwards, the volume of scientific output – as measured by the annual production of published journal articles in science journals – has also grown significantly. In 1998, a total of 602,430 journal papers were published worldwide. By 2005, this had risen to 710,290, and by 2011, it was 828,705 (NSF, 2015). The number of countries active in scientific production increased over this period. Using a more expansive measure of scientific output, one that includes notes and reviews as well as full articles, in 2005 a total of 43 science systems published at least 2500 papers of all kinds in journals. Nine years later in 2014, there were 51 such systems (UNESCO, 2015a). 2500 papers is a useful benchmark, because at this level of output by national researchers it is a clear that the nation has an indigenous research capability in at least some disciplines. The research effort of a nation with 500–1000 papers is probably carried by researchers working solely abroad in PhD programmes and in postdoctoral posts. At 2500 papers per year, that is no longer a sufficient explanation. These data therefore provide a proxy measure for the spread of science. The tendency is confirmed by the Scimago country and journal ranking, which measures the number of science papers produced by each country system. Whereas in 2005, 39 higher education systems produced more than 5000 citable papers as defined by the Scimago listing, nine years later in 2014, there were 53 such systems, much the same trend line as in the UNESCO data (Scimago, 2016). Table 2 lists all science systems that produced 2500 UNESCO data papers in 2014, and the rate of growth of output between 2005 and 2014. The nations are listed in order of the annual rate of growth in papers. The table also lists the number of WCUs in 2014, as indicated by inclusion in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) top 500, and the change in the GTER between 2005–2014, or 2004–2013 in the case of countries where GTER data for 2014 are not yet available. 55

S. MARGINSON

Table 2. Growth in the number of science papers, compared to growth in enrolments, and change in the Gross Tertiary Enrolment Ratio (GTER), all 2005–2014, per capita income in 2014, and number of universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) top 500 2014, all countries producing more than 2500 papers in 2014 Country and ARWU top 500

Total papers 2014

Annual Change growth in GTER papers 2005– 2005–14 14* %

%

Country and ARWU top 500

Total papers 2014

Annual Change in growth GTER papers 2005– 2005–14 14* %

%

7885

4.9

14.8

Saudi Arabia (4)

10,898

23.3

31.5

Argentina (1)

Malaysia (2)

9998

20.8

8.6

Switzerland (7)

25,308

4.8

10.8

Pakistan (0)

6778

20.0

5.4

Austria (6)

13,108

4.6

32.2

Iran (1)

25,588

19.0

43.1

New Zealand (4)

7375

4.5

–3.9

China (32)

265,834

15.6

12.3

Belgium (7)

18,208

4.1

11.1

Columbia (0)

2997

13.8

22.1

Italy (21)

57,472

4.0

1.6

Serbia (1)

4764

12.2

13.9

Netherlands (13)

31,823

4.0

21.7

Egypt (1)

8428

11.8

1.8

Hong Kong (5)

9725

3.7

37.5

Romania (0)

6651

10.7

10.7

Canada (21)

54,631

3.5

n.a.

Thailand (0)

6343

10.4

9.5

Finland (5)

10,758

3.3

1.4

Tunisia (0)

3068

10.3

2.8

Sweden (11)

21,854

3.2

–20.4

UK (38)

87,948

2.5

–2.5

Portugal (3)

11,855

9.1

10.5

Greece (2)

9427

2.4

31.7

South Africa (4)

9309

8.8

n.a.

France (21)

65,086

2.4

6.9

India (1)

53,733

8.7

12.9

Hungary (2)

6059

2.4

–3.1

Brazil (6)

37,228

8.7

n.a.

Germany (39)

91,631

2.4

n.a.

Chile (2)

6224

8.5

39.1

Ukraine (0)

4895

2.2

11.2

South Korea (12)

50,258

7.4

5.0

USA (146)

321,846

2.1

7.5

Australia (19)

46,639

7.1

14.8

Russia (2)

29,099

1.8

7.4

Czech Rep. (1)

10,781

6.9

21.6

Israel (6)

11,196

1.4

9.8

56

Towards world-class systems

Country and ARWU top 500

Total papers 2014

Annual Change growth in GTER papers 2005– 2005–14 14* %

%

Croatia (0)

2932

6.6

20.9

Singapore (2)

10,553

6.1

n.a.

Turkey (1)

23,596

6.0

48.4

Poland (2)

23,498

5.9

10.4

Denmark (5)

14,820

5.9

6.8

Ireland (3)

6576

5.7

18.4

Spain (12)

49,247

5.6

20.8

Norway (3)

10,070

5.6

–3.1

Slovakia (0)

3144

5.4

18.4

Slovenia (1)

3301

5.4

12.8

Mexico (1)

11,147

5.3

6.6

Country and ARWU top 500

Japan (19)

Total papers 2014

73,128

Annual Change in growth GTER papers 2005– 2005–14 14* %

%

–0.6

8.8

Note: Data for Taiwan not available. Hong Kong SAR science papers 2013 not 2014. GTER 2005–2014 for Austria, Colombia, Hong Kong SAR, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Tunisia, Ukraine. GTER 2003–2012 for Croatia, Netherlands. All others 2004–2013. Source: UNESCO (2015a); UNESCO (2015b)

It shows that science paper output increased everywhere except in Japan, while the GTER rose in every country, except Norway, Sweden, the UK, New Zealand and Hungary. Many of the countries where science paper production is growing most rapidly are middle-income countries with emerging science systems, rather than high-income countries, for example, Iran, Columbia, Serbia, Egypt, Romania, Thailand and Tunisia. Not all have universities that are ranked in the world top 500 – in fact, of the leading 20 systems by the rate of growth in paper numbers, more than half have one WCU or no WCUs. China, Brazil and South Africa are middleincome countries with more established science systems and WCUs. High-income countries with relatively large and developed science systems tend to have rates of paper growth that are slower than in the emerging science systems. Of the highincome countries, South Korea and Australia exhibit the most rapid rate of growth in science. These countries also have very high GTERs. The table shows that in some countries there has been rapid simultaneous improvement in both the size of mass higher education and the volume of scientific output. These include Saudi Arabia, where science paper output rose by 23.3% per year, while the GTER was lifted by 31.5%, and Malaysia, Iran, Colombia, Chile, the 57

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Czech Republic, Croatia, Ireland, Spain and Slovakia. In most of the science systems where paper output grew by more than 5% per annum, the GTER rose by at least 5% over the period. The exceptions were Egypt, Tunisia and Norway. Some of the countries where science paper output grew by 2–5% per annum also saw sizeable advances in the GTER. There were very few countries which did not significantly grow either research or participation in higher education. In most cases there is a clear tendency to increase in both. Growth in Number of WCUs In 2005 there were 38 higher education systems with universities in the ARWU top 500. By 2014, that number had risen to 44, indicating the rise in number of countries with WCUs. Countries listed in 2014 and not in 2005 were Saudi Arabia with four universities, and Malaysia, Iran, Serbia, Egypt and Slovenia, with one each. The number of ARWU top 500 universities in mainland China rose from eight to 32 (ARWU, 2015). However, the ARWU is a relative not an absolute measure of ‘world-classness’. It registers the standing of universities rather than their output, though it is derived from output. Because there cannot be an increase in the number of top 500 universities, the use of ranking to define WCUs tends to underplay the spread of science and of the world-class university movement itself, both in terms of growth in the number of countries with WCUs and growth in the number of individual WCUs across the world. For example, when the entrance of new WCUs is paralleled by improvement in existing WCUs, it may appear that little change has taken place, even though performance across the board has lifted and pluralized. Table 3. Universities with 1200, 2000, 5000 and 10,000 science papers, 2006–2009 to 2010–2013 Universities with more than:

2006–2009 papers

2007–2010 papers

2008–2011 papers

2009–2012 papers

2010–2013 papers

10,000 papers

25

26

31

34

39

5000 papers

122

128

135

143

154

2000 papers

381

402

425

452

481

1200 papers

594

629

657

682

712

Source: Leiden University (2016)

This suggests that to monitor trends in the number of world-class research universities it is necessary to measure trends in research outcomes. Table 3, which derives from the Leiden ranking for each year from 2011 to 2015, and shows the number of papers produced by each university over successive four year periods, shows that at a given level of research output, the number of universities at that level is growing, regardless of the output benchmark that is picked. If the number 58

Towards world-class systems

of papers published in Web of Knowledge Thomson-Reuters English-language journals is a valid proxy indicator for the presence of a WCU, then the number of WCUs is growing. The table also shows that the number of universities in these high volume science groups is increasing more rapidly than scientific output as a whole. This is especially apparent in the leading group, those producing 10,000 papers or more. The number of universities in that group rose from 25 to 39 in the four-year period. Thus as well as a tendency to growth in the total number of WCUs, there is a tendency to increasing concentration of research capacity in the leading WCUs. There is a strong but not complete overlap between the countries with GTER’s of more than 50% and those with universities listed in the ARWU top 500. In total there were 37 such systems in the ARWU in 2015, as follows (in order of GTER in each group): • Europe: Greece, Finland, Spain, Slovenia, Denmark, Austria, Norway, Netherlands, Russia, Belgium, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, Serbia. Hungary; • ‘Anglosphere’: Canada, USA, Australia, New Zealand, the UK; • Asia: South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong SAR, Japan, Singapore; • Middle East: Turkey, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia; • Latin America: Argentina, Chile. A further seven systems had top 500 universities but GTERs below 50%: Malaysia, Egypt, China, Mexico, India, South Africa, Brazil. Thus the great majority of countries with top 500 WCUs also have High Participation Systems. Interestingly, however, not all HPSs are associated with top 500 WCUs. Those that are not are Belarus, Iceland, Ukraine, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Croatia, San Marino, Albania, Slovakia, Romania, Palau, Macau, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Barbados. Some are too small to support a research intensive university. In that sense the worldwide roll-out of high and growing participation is wider than the WCU movement. Others have developed some indigenous research capacity and figure in the group of the systems that produced at least 2500 papers in 2014 (Ukraine, Croatia, Slovakia, Romania, Thailand are all in Table 2) but do not yet have an ARWU top 500 university, though some may achieve such an institution in future years. PROBLEMS OF MASS HIGHER EDUCATION

Participation in higher education is growing an an accelerating rate across the world; while science systems and WCUs are spreading across much of that same world. Participation is driven above all by social demand for opportunities, while the spread of research and WCUs is driven above all by state investment in research capacity, and in WCUs as an end in themselves (Hazelkorn, 2011). Both elite research universities and mass higher education institutions are growing in number, and social role, in the degree to which they relate to and take in their societies. There are exceptions to 59

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these secular tendencies – primarily countries which do not have sufficient economic and state-political resources for higher education, and some where participation has not grown much in the last 15 years, or the WCU movement has yet to take root – but overall, the patterns are clear. What is less clear is the state of mass higher education across the world. Research universities are transparent in relation to their English-language science (though the comparative quality of their professional training is little monitored). However, there are no similar indicators for comparing the quality of output in mass higher education systems. OECD (2015) provides outline data on the length of courses and the rate of completion, and funding per students, and the proportion of students who are non-citizens. But there are no standard data that compare countries in such areas as the quality of teaching and learning, the effectiveness of occupational training, or the qualifications of faculty; and the existing system level data aggregate research and non-research institutions. While the quality of the elite research-oriented higher education driven by states is the focus of obsessive attention and competition, in many countries there is little specific focus on the quality of the mass higher education driven from below that is the focus of most family aspirations. For the most part, ‘quality assurance’ systems are not associated with systematic observations, measurements and comparisons akin to the systematic tracking of research-related outputs. Problems and gaps are glimpsed but scarcely understood. Well-known instances of large low quality mass private sectors include India, Brazil and the Philippines, but many countries have problems with under-regulated private sectors. The quality of mass public education also varies from country to country, and in some cases within countries. Problems of mass higher education are not confined to emerging and low-income systems. It is likely there is much variation within and between wealthier nations. Further, within the data on participation some countries rely heavily on different modes of distance and online learning. It is unclear the extent to which the quality of education in these modes is similar to face-to-face learning. Why is there no established conceptual framework for studying the quality of mass higher education on an objective basis within one country, let alone on a comparative basis, parallel to the rigorous indicators used to measure research performance in rankings such as ARWU, Leiden and Scimago? One answer is that observing, monitoring and where possible measuring the quality of mass higher education is complex, especially in relation to teaching and student learning achievement measures. This has been shown by the difficulties attending the OECD’s AHELO project, designed to establish comparisons of student learning. A second answer is that in some countries, including the USA and UK, observation, measurement and comparison of mass higher education have taken a path other than the development of objective indicators of the quality of education. Reflecting the ideology of higher education as a consumer market, the emphasis is on subjective measures of student engagement and satisfaction. Yet these do not provide an objective basis for comparing the quality of mass higher education over place and 60

Towards world-class systems

time, any more than surveys of the reputation of research universities can provide a precise basis for comparing university research. Materially-grounded measurable indicators of the quality of mass higher education are indispensable. A third answer is that policy makers and social users of higher education, not to mention national and global publics-at-large, have focused on the list of WCUs and the objective of developing (and sharing in the benefits of) WCUs – rather than on the concurrent and important objective of developing World-Class Systems (WCSs) of higher education. It is likely that if the WCS objective was brought into view, some comparative judgments about higher education would be revised. The Case of the United States To take the case of the United States, the US is the world’s leading system at the top end of research university quality. It houses 16 of the top 20 universities in the ARWU, 51 of the top 100, and 146 (29.2%) of the leading 500 universities. In 2005, the US had 53 of the top 100 universities in the ARWU (ARWU, 2015), which suggests that despite the spread of scientific capacity across the world since 2005, there has been little change in the dominant position of United States’ universities. In 2012, no less than 46.4% of all journal papers rated in the top 1% of articles in their field on the basis of citation rate were published by US authors, the vast majority of whom were from higher education (NSF, 2015) As noted, the United States was also the world’s first mass higher education system and the first to achieve an age cohort participation rate of 50%, in the early 1970s. Though GTERs fluctuate, it remains one of the leading four systems in terms of the proportion of the national population that enter higher education. However, the US is less strong when the comparison switches to the proportion of the population that completes degree programmes in higher education; that is, programmes that require at least three years full-time equivalent study. In 2012, the United States’ GTER was an exceptionally high 94.8%, but the Gross Graduation Ratio at degree level was 40.1% (UNESCO, 2016). In other words, more than half of the age cohort enrols in higher education of some kind, but does not complete a three-year or four-year degree. Many of the students included in the GTER statistic drop out before completion of their programmes or enrol no higher than at two-year diploma level. US mass higher education appears to be bottom heavy, in that a relatively high proportion of total enrolment is concentrated in two-year programmes, though two-year community college diplomas have limited purchase in American labour markets (Roksa et al., 2007; Marginson, 2016c). Yet upward transfer rates from many public community colleges are disappointing, and the final throughput to successful degree completion in either community colleges or fouryear institutions is weaker. It is instructive to compare the US with HPS in Northwestern Europe. Table 4 shows that the GTER is lower in the named Northwestern European systems than in the US – the US brings more students to the starting gate – but the degree graduation 61

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rate is higher in most of the European countries in the table; and in all European countries in the table, the gap between the GTER and the degree graduation rate is less than is the case in the US. The US is relatively stronger on one measure of system quality (initial entry) than on another (degree completion). For the most part, the Northwestern European countries bring a larger cohort through to a more advanced level, compared to the US experience. These data not only underline the variable, ambiguous character of aggregated participation data; they again pose questions about the quality of mass education in the US. Table 4. Gross Tertiary Enrolment Ratio (GTER) and Gross Graduation Ratio at first degree level (GDGR), United States and selected European countries, 2012 Gross Tertiary Gross Degree Difference between Enrolment Ratio Graduation Ratio GTER and GDGR % % % Denmark

79.3

47.5

31.8

Finland

93.3

51.5

41.8

France

60.0

39.2

20.8

Netherlands

78.5

49.7

28.8

Norway

73.3

46.4

26.9

Sweden

69.6

33.8

35.8

Switzerland

55.5

49.2

6.3

United Kingdom

59.2

47.8

11.4

United States

94.8

40.1

54.7

Note: Data not available for Germany Source: UNESCO (2016)

In addition, degree completion in the US is heavily weighted in favour of middle and high-income families. In 2013, 77% of persons in the top family income quartile in the United States had completed a Bachelor degree by the age of 24. In the bottom family income quartile, the graduation rate was 9% by the age of 24. In the second bottom quartile it was 17% in 2013 (The PELL Institute, 2015). The overwhelming majority of the bottom half of the population in income terms had not achieved graduation by the age of 24. However, most 24-years-olds from the top income quartile people had done so. This suggests that the value of mass US higher education is highly stratified on social lines, again underlining the ambiguous character of the data on educational participation. American public community colleges have come under increasing criticism for their failure to adequately cater for students from poorer backgrounds. For a time, the principal alternative was seen to be the for-profit colleges. Between 1995 and 2010, for-profit colleges were the fastest growing sub-sector of American higher 62

Towards world-class systems

education. Their enrolment moved from 240,363 to peak at 2,018,397, multiplying by 8.4 times while the total postsecondary enrolment multiplied by a factor of 1.5 (NCES, 2015). The for-profits cultivated a niche market of working people who had left school early or dropped out of college, and needed to progress their careers with a diploma or degree. At the same time, the for-profit business model rested on federal subsidies. In 2010 the Apollo Group, which provides the University of Phoenix, received 88.7% of all its revenues from the federal government, including 85.3% from student loans and PELL grants, and 3.4% from military educational programs (Mettler, 2014, pp. 168–169). In 2009 the for-profits enrolled 10% of postsecondary students but absorbed 25% of all PELL grant dollars (p. 108), indicating their success in establishing a market among disadvantaged students. However, the for-profits have lost ground in the last five years, because of their low-intensity teaching, very low completion rates, relatively low graduate employment rates, and relatively high levels of debt among graduates and other former students. This again suggests that there are significant weaknesses in the quality of at least some mass higher education institutions in the United States. Completion rates at degree level, social stratification in degree completions by age 24, and the problems of the for-profit sector, do not provide a comprehensive picture of the quality of mass higher education in the US, but they are suggestive. Although the US carries the highest quality WCUs in the world, American higher education does not necessarily constitute a World-Class System. CONCLUSIONS

Higher education is expanding significantly at both its top end, in its middle and at the bottom end. The principal trends are the widespread and rapid expansion of social participation in the sector; the spread of indigenous science systems to a growing number of countries, and the expansion of outputs in almost every such science system; and the expansion of the incidence, number and output of world-class universities, in the sense of research-capable institutions. Participation rates alone are insufficiently explanatory, as they conceal issues of quality and accessibility. There is an absence of conclusive or comparative data on the quality of mass higher education provision. However, there are signs that this is uneven worldwide, and problematic in particular countries. Even in the United States, which is exceptionally strong in terms of both WCUs and the GTER, there is evidence of weaknesses in mass higher education provision. Arguably, the WCU movement has strong positive effects in lifting investment in basic scientific research, spreading capacity in science and technology to many more countries, and fostering a spirit of transparency, self-criticism and continuous improvement (Salmi, 2009; Hazelkorn, 2011). Arguably also, a positive reflexivity of this kind would be equally valuable at system level. The quality of second and third tier institutions needs more attention than it has received so far. Systems need strong WCUs offering both research and learning, and strong primarily learning 63

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institutions. However, the discussion of world-class has become lopsided. In many countries, the main emphasis falls on lifting WCUs rather than on improving mass higher education, as if it is either/or. In international and global comparisons and rankings, almost the whole emphasis falls on WCUs. Only the U21 ranking of systems highlights the question of world-class systems, and that ranking fails to separately identify non-WCU institutions on the basis of their missions. Instead all institutions are combined into a single process of valuation (Williams et al., 2015). The great majority of students attend mass higher education institutions. They are not admitted to WCUs. If higher education creates conditions for augmented productivity, faster technological adaptability, greater social communication and tolerance, and stronger democratic relations (McMahon, 2009), then the quality of mass higher education is of importance to all societies. The question of world-class systems needs to be brought forward (van der Wende & Zhu, 2016). This entails institutions from all missions, not only the research university mission, together with questions of system design and the inter-institutional setting and interfaces. Better indicators, measures and comparisons need to be developed. NOTES ‘Tertiary education’ in the standard UNESCO and OECD data sets includes both Type 5A degrees of three years or more and shorter Type 5B programs of two years fulltime equivalent, for example in North American community colleges. 2 The many issues entailed in standardizing national data sets are not reviewed in this chapter, but see the supporting notes for OECD (2014) and UNESCO (2015b). 3 The GTER is boosted by participation additional to the age cohort and appearing in the numerator, including migrants, international students and mature age students. Mature age students can push the ratio over 100 per cent in very high participation systems. Between 2000 and 2012 students studying outside their country of citizenship increased from 2.1 to 4.5 million (OECD, 2014, p. 344). In 2012 the inclusion of onshore international students increased the apparent rate of entry into tertiary education in 2012 by 26 per cent in Australia, 23 per cent in UK, 12 per cent in Austria and 11 per cent in the Netherlands and Switzerland (pp. 81 and 338). In some countries a net outflow of students reduces the GTER. 4 There were no UNESCO data for Botswana, Lesotho, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia. 1

REFERENCES Academic Ranking of World Universities. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.shanghairanking.com/ index.html Becker, G. (1964). Human capital: A theoretical and empirical analysis with special reference to education. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Hazelkorn, E. (2011). Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Marginson, S. (2016a). High participation systems of higher education. The Journal of Higher Education, 87(2), 243–270. Marginson, S. (2016b). The worldwide trend to high participation higher education: Dynamics of social stratification in inclusive systems. Higher Education, 72(4), 413–434. doi.10.1007/s10734-0160016-x

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Towards world-class systems Marginson, S. (2016c). The dream is over: The crisis of Clark Kerr’s california idea of higher education. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. McMahon, W. (2009). Higher learning greater good. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Mettler, S. (2014). Degrees of inequality: How the politics of higher education sabotaged the American dream. New York, NY: Basic Books. Naidoo, R. (2014, October 24). Transnational higher education: Global wellbeing or new imperialism? Keynote presentation to the United Kingdom Forum for International Education Conference, UCL Institute of Education, London. National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES). (2015). Total fall enrolment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by attendance status, sex of student, and control of institution (Table 303.10). Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_303.10.asp National Science Foundation (NSF). (2014 & 2015). Science and engineering indicators 2014. Retrieved from http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/ OECD. (2014 & 2015). Education at a glance. Paris: OECD. Roksa, J., Grodsky, E., Arum, R., & Gamoran, A. (2007). United States: Changes in higher education and social stratification. In Y. Shavit, R. Arum, & A. Gamoran (Eds.), Stratification in higher education: A contemporary study. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Salmi, J. (2009). The challenge of establishing world-class universities. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Schofer, E., & Meyer, J. (2005). The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review, 70, 898–920. Scimago. (2016). SCImago Journal and country rank. Retrieved from http://www.scimagojr.com Teichler, U. (2009). Higher education and the world of work: Conceptual frameworks, comparative perspectives, empirical findings. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. The PELL Institute. (2015). Indicators of higher education equity in the United States. Pennsylvania, PA: PennAHEAD, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved from http://www.pellinstitute.org/downloads/publications-Indicators_of_Higher_Education_Equity_in_ the_US_45_Year_Trend_Report.pdf Trow, M. (1974). Problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education. In OECD (Ed.), The general report on the conference on the future structures of post-secondary education. Paris: OECD. United Nations Department of Educational and Social Affairs (UNDESA). (2012). World urbanization prospects: The 2011 revision. New York, NY: United Nations. United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2015a). UNESCO science report: Towards 2030. Paris: UNESCO. United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). (2015b & 2016). UNESCO institute for statistics data on education. Retrieved from http://data.uis.unesco.org/ Van der Wende, M., & Zhu, J. (2016). China: A follower or a leader in global higher education? (Center for Studies in Higher Education Research and Occasional Papers Series, CSHE 1.16). Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley. Williams, R., Leahy, A., de Rassenfosse, G., & Jensen, P. (2015). U21 ranking of national higher education systems. Melbourne: University of Melbourne. World Bank. (2015). Data and statistics. Retrieved from http://data.worldbank.org

Simon Marginson UCL Institute of Education University College London

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ALEX USHER

4. WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES IN AN AGE OF SLOW GROWTH

INTRODUCTION

Over the course of the past fifteen years, the term ‘world-class university’ has come to dominate the global discourse on higher education. At heart, the term refers to high-performing, research-intensive higher education institutions which, for the most part, are able to access large amounts of funds, for example, to hire top staff, or acquire the most advanced scientific equipment. But a combination of a global financial crisis and a general tightening of public expenditures over the past few years have – in theory at least – put some of those funds at risk. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the changes in financial status at world-class universities in a number of leading industrialized countries, to determine where world-class universities seem to be thriving and where they are not. For each country, the chapter will consider not only what happened to ARWU universities, but also non-ARWU ones as well. This will permit an evaluation as to whether or not countries are in fact concentrating resources to a meaningful extent on WCUs or not. A final section will cover policy considerations for governments with respect to funding policies. WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES: A BRIEF HISTORY

The term ‘world-class universities’ was coined China when it developed its ‘985 policy’, capturing an optimistic moment in the history of higher education and of globalization. In the long period of global economic growth from the fall of the Berlin Wall through to the tech boom of the 1990s, and in a more muted way through to the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), an economic consensus emerged which was enormously beneficial to higher education. This consensus held three main points: first, that technological innovation was at the heart of economic growth; second, that technological innovation depended in no small part on regional clustering of firms in a particular industry; and third, that major research universities especially those structured on the American model – could act as the hubs for these clusters. When China adopted the 985 policy, the central motivation was to move ‘up the value chain’”. Already a major player in low-cost manufacturing, the country’s government sought to use universities as a means to generate growth in industries closer to the technological frontier. This was a role that the country’s universities had N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 67–89. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

A. USHER

played before: in the 1970s and early 1980s, then-leader Deng Xiaoping placed a major economic bet on the ability of certain elite universities like Tsinghua (Andreas, 2009) to make the leap into manufacturing. But the term also had resonance outside China. In the United States, the local prosperity and global disruption created by Silicon Valley – with Stanford University at its core – made policy makers across the country acutely aware of the role of universities in economic growth. In Europe, the same sentiment was echoed in 2000 when the nations of the European Union endorsed the ‘Lisbon Agenda’, dedicated to making Europe the ‘most innovative economy in the world’, and which brought European Universities to the focal point of an ambitious regional growth strategy. At the same time, leading economies in Asia (such as Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan) were embracing the proposition that competing as a cutting-edge economies required greater investments in research. The dawn of the Shanghai rankings clarified the policy choices to a considerable degree. Finally, here was a transparency tool that allowed countries to measure how close their best institutions were to the American research institutions whose successes they were eager to emulate. By and large, not many countries liked what they saw. Having a world-class university (or several) quickly became a matter of national import. In Europe, developing world-class universities was about fulfilling the Lisbon agenda and catching up with America. In Asia, having a world-class university was a way of showing one had ‘arrived’ as a major innovation economy, and to drive the explosive growth necessary to compete in the regional and global marketplace. In 2004, Philip Altbach famously quipped that ‘everyone wants a world-class university, no country feels it can do without one, but that no one knows what it is, and no one has figured out how to get one’ (Altbach, 2004). A few years later, then Tertiary Education Coordinator at the World Bank, Jamil Salmi, boiled the magic formula down to ‘Time, Talent, Favourable Governance, and Money’ (Salmi, 2009). And for a while, countries threw resources into world-class universities projects. Huge amounts of money were given to researchers, either through grants to individual researchers or projects, or through excellence schemes (OECD, 2014), or both. In the United States, the size of the NIH doubled. Altogether, the 2000s were an excellent time for universities in many parts of the world. Following the global financial crisis in 2008, higher education was no longer able to count on the significant annual increases in funding. With the exception of Germany and Switzerland, nearly all of the OECD countries began to cut spending in real terms. In the United States, state funding per student fell by 28% between 2008 and 2012 (though this was as much because of increased enrolment as because of funding cuts). In the United Kingdom, public funding for universities was cut by over 40% (though this was compensated for by very large increases in student fees). In much of eastern and southern Europe, funding was cut severely; Finland bucked the trend for a while but the recently announced cuts amounting to close to 15% in real terms over five years. Outside the OECD, the story was different, with strong 68

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growth in spending in India, the Gulf Countries, and many others. But in 2014 and 2015, with growth falling well below target in China and negative in the Gulf States, even these countries are seeing constraints in their education budgets. If the golden era of world-class universities coincided with and depended on a period when public funding was growing everywhere, it is worth asking the question: what are world-class universities without new money? What can we expect in this new era of stringency? We can, perhaps, get some hints from American history. The period from 1968 until the late 1970s is sometimes called a ‘decade of stagnation’ or a ‘lost decade’. This was a time when persistent federal budget deficits caused by the Vietnam War, combined with a period of slow growth, caused higher education budgets to contract. At the same time universities were being asked to expand access, meaning that they had a new set cost challenges in addition to shrinking budgets. Institutions responded by reducing the scope of programs they offered, particularly at the graduate level (Graham & Diamond, 1997; Geiger, 2009). In effect, institutions often had to choose between their access function and their research function, and the latter did not always win. Many countries now find themselves in similar situations, with tight budgets and stark choices in terms of system priorities. On top of that, the global economy appears to be settling into a period of permanently slower growth. World GDP growth, which averaged about 5% per year in the 2000s, is now expected to stay in the 2–3% range for the foreseeable future. This economic outlook stands in stark contrast to the period of growth that came before, and comes alongside demographic changes and increasing public debt that will constrain higher education spending for many years to come. It is the purpose of this chapter to catalogue the effects of the beginning of this period of world-class universities. METHODOLGY

Operationally, this chapter defines world-class universities as those institutions which are part of the ARWU top-100 (henceforth, ARWU-100). Ten countries – the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, France, Netherlands, Germany and Sweden – account for 49 of the top 50 ARWU-100 universities, and 91 of the top 100. In practice, what happens to top universities in these countries is by definition what happens to world-class institutions globally, so it is on these ten countries that this chapter will be focussed. This report assembles data from national-level databases on institutional expenditures in these ten countries. Expenditures are preferred to income as a measure of fiscal capacity because they tend to be more consistent and less prone to sudden swings, and hence represent a better measure of true institutional fiscal capacity. Financial results are expressed in real values of local currency, and show the last year for which data is available. Different countries’ definitions of ‘expenditures’ are far from standardized. Insofar as is possible, this report uses the most encompassing definition of expenditures possible with the available data, in order to reduce the 69

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potential impact of different reporting methods and different definitions of classes of expenditure. Where national databases of financial data are not available, financial reports at individual institutions are used. The chapter aims not simply to look at revenue, but revenue per student. This is because marginal revenue gained simply from enlarging the student body is for the most part going to be spent educating those new students, not improving research capacity. As a result, it is necessary to look at enrolments as well. Similar caveats with respect to data quality apply to this information. National databases for student numbers are also used in order to express real expenditures in per student terms. Student numbers are usually, but not always, expressed in headcounts. Again, these data were supplemented with data from institutional sources where national databases did not provide sufficient data. The availability of data across countries is uneven. There is good national and institutional data in five countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Sweden. National authorities in Switzerland make national but not institutional-level data available, but institutions themselves are quite transparent and a nearly-full data set can be assembled nevertheless. In Japan, the Netherlands and Germany, national-level data is accompanied by some incomplete institutionallevel data (Japanese institutions are relatively transparent with their data but do not archive it well on institutional websites, meaning that it is not available for all years; in German and Dutch universities, only a minority of institutions publish any data other than brief descriptions of current-year enrolments and finances). In France, only national-level data is available as individual institutions (at least those in the ARWU-100) do not publish financial accounts in their annual reports. In total, institutional-level data were available in full or in part for eighty-one of our ninetyone institutions of interest. The United States of America Our examination of world-class universities begins in the country which produces by far the most of them: the United States. The financial crisis in American higher education has been written about extensively and is well-known throughout the world. However, looking only at system-wide expenditures, the signs of crisis are not exactly evident. Figure 1 shows total expenditures at 4-year institutions in the United States (both for public and private not-for-profit institutions) from the 2000–01 academic year through 2011–12 in constant 2011 dollars. After inflation, institutional expenditures actually rose 39% (43% in private universities, 37% in public ones), or roughly 3% per year. One of the ways institutions sustain this higher spending is by acquiring income form student tuition (and, in some cases, through enrolment-driven funding award formulae). But since students are sources of cost as well as revenue, it is important to also look at what has happened to per student expenditures at American universities. Here the picture is somewhat different, as shown in Figure 2. 70

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Figure 2 shows that the trends in real per student of expenditures (and hence presumably income) differ significantly between public and private universities in the United States. For private universities, increases were running at about 2% per year from 2000–01 to 2007–08, after which time real income plateaued. Public universities fell behind in the early part of the decade (an effect of the decline in public funding which accompanied the dotcom recession of 2001), but were then able to match the private sector through to 2007–08, after which time a radical fall in income from public sources forced universities to cut back their spending. As of 2011–12, per student expenditures were still about 4% below where they were in 2007–08.

Figure 1. Total real expenditures at US 4-year colleges, in ’000s of 2011 dollars. Source: NCES Digest of Education Statistics

Figure 2. Total real per student expenditures at US 4-year colleges, 2000–01 to 2011–2012, indexed to 2000–2001. Source: NCES Digest of Education Statistics

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A different picture emerges when the same analysis applied to ARWU-100 universities. The US has 51 of these, 23 private and 28 public, and their aggregate real spending trends are shown in Figure 3. It is difficult, using this data, to see exactly where any ‘crisis’ might have occurred: as Figure 3 shows, spending increased steadily at roughly 4% per year after inflation throughout this period across both the public and private sectors. That is somewhat higher than the rise in expenditures at four-year universities as a whole, where the rise was 3% per year.

Figure 3. Total real expenditures, American ARWU-100 universities, 2000–2001 to 2012–2013, in real 2012 dollars. Source: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System

As before, we need to be cautious about inferring major improvements without considering student numbers. Looking at per student expenditures, we see that ARWU universities in fact have much greater increases in real per student expenditures than the higher education sector as a whole. Whereas Figure 2 shows us that sector-wide, the real per student increase in expenditures was only about 6% over 10 years, among ARWU-100 universities the increase is over six times as great, at nearly 40% over the same period. Over the period as a whole, the private research universities fared somewhat better, but this is largely due to different performances in the era of the dotcom recession. Since 2008, public universities have done slightly better. The United Kingdom The United Kingdom has nine universities in the ARWU Top-100: Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, King’s, Manchester, Edinburgh, Warwick, Bristol, and 72

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University College London. For a country which (as we have already seen) spends very little public money on higher education, this is a significant feat.

Figure 4. Indexed real per student expenditures (2000–2013), American ARWU-100 universities. Source: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System

The UK is also home to a substantial and lively dialogue on higher education policy. Reading the press, one would think that the UK higher education system is in constant financial crisis. It is true that there have been major changes in higher education funding in the UK in recent years. The maximum tuition fee rose from a little over £3000 to £9000 per year, and nearly all universities took advantage of this rise to charge the maximum (or close to it). At the same time, money from public sources fell precipitously, by nearly 50% in real terms. But change in funding is not the same as a fall in funding. As Figure 5 shows, UK universities overall have done reasonably well in the last few years, increasing their income in real terms by 15% between 2006–07 and 2013–14. The nine ARWU-100 universities, however, saw an even bigger increase – fully 25% over this seven year period. This is very similar to the kinds of increases seen at US ARWU-100 universities since 2006 – roughly 3.5% per year in annual real growth. That said, raw increases in expenditure may not mean much if they are eroded through larger student intakes. But there was no increase in student numbers in the period leading up to 2013–2014; indeed, there was a small decline associated with the introduction of fees in 2012 (Orr, Wespel, & Usher, 2014). However, this decline in students occurred mostly at institutions outside the ARWU-100. As a result, non-ARWU-100 universities did better on a real per student basis than they did on a non-student-adjusted measure, while ARWU-100 universities fared about the same. 73

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Figure 5. Real change in expenditures, UK universities, indexed to 2006–2007. Source: UK Higher Education Statistics Agency

Figure 6. Real change in per student expenditures, UK universities, 2006–2007 to 2013–2014, indexed to 2006–2007. Source: UK Higher Education Statistics Agency

Australia Australia has four institutions in the ARWU-100 (Melbourne, ANU, Queensland and Western Australia). Unfortunately, the source data for institutional finance extends back only to 2008.1 The basic data for Australia, shown below in Figure 7, shows that atypically, ARWU-100 universities appear do have done somewhat worse than the rest of the university sector. In part this has to do with what appear to be some quirks in national accounting rules with respect to spending (the one-off decrease for 74

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ARWU-100 universities were mostly the result of impaired-asset write-offs (which are counted as ‘expenditure’) by Monash and ANU in 2008 – inflating expenditures for that year and hence setting an abnormally high baseline. But even leaving that aside, in the four years since those write-offs, the four ARWU-100 universities have only barely recovered that baseline, and their overall income is growing less quickly than that of other universities, even taking the high baseline into account.

Figure 7. Real change in expenditures, Australian universities, indexed to 2008. Source: Department of Education and Training

The Australian data looks much worse for its ARWU-100 universities once the significant influx of new students that have come into the system over the past few years is taken into account. In the period since 2008, the university student body has grown by about 20%. In real per student terms, the per student fall in expenditures at ARWU-100 universities between 2008 and 2013 were about 15%. Again, this figure may be exaggerated somewhat because of the high 2008 baseline figure, but there is no doubt that the trend in Australia is quite different from that seen in most countries and that ARWU universities have had declining per student expenditures.

Figure 8. Real change in per student expenditures, Australian universities, indexed to 2008. Source: Department of Education and Training

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Canada There are four Canadian universities in the ARWU-100. Two of these, Toronto, and British Columbia, are quite large universities (Toronto, at roughly 80,000 students, is the largest institution in the top 100, and UBC is not far behind with approximately 60,000), while the other two, McGill and McMaster, are comparable to most institutions in the top 100, with approximately 40,000 and 30,000 students, respectively. Together these four institutions account for close to one-quarter of total expenditures in Canadian higher education. Up until 2008 or so, real increases in expenditures at Canadian universities were rising faster than virtually anywhere in the OECD, at something close to 6% per year in real terms, and 7% at the ARWU universities. However, the onset of the financial crisis meant a significant slowing of income – and hence of expenditure growth as well. At first, this came from significant losses on investment portfolios, and as the financial process progressed, it was followed by large reductions in provincial operating grants.

Figure 9. Real change in expenditures, Canadian universities 2000–2001 to 2012–2013, indexed to 2000–2001. Source: Statistics Canada/CAUBO Financial Information of Universities and Colleges Survey

When we again proceed to look at the data on a per student basis, one can see fairly clearly that most of the increase in expenditures was related to enrolment expansion. When enrolment growth is taken into account, the real growth in expenditures across the system is only 8% since 2000–01 rather than 68%. Perhaps more importantly, system-wide there has been a decrease in real per student expenditures since the start of the global financial crisis. ARWU universities have done somewhat better, with expenditures more or less flat since 2008. 76

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Figure 10. Real change in per student expenditures, Canadian universities, indexed to 2000–2001. Source: Statistics Canada/CAUBO Financial Information of Universities and Colleges Survey and the Post-Secondary Student Information System

Sweden Sweden has gone against the worldwide trend in more ways than one. Most notably, it has substantially increased its expenditure on higher education in real terms since the start of the global financial crisis. Where funding increases were quite modest in the years leading up to 2007, after that time funds increased substantially. In real terms, expenditures at universities jumped by roughly 23% between 2007–08 and 2013–14 (i.e. roughly 3.5% per year), across all universities. However, a very different picture emerges if we look at funding on a per student basis. At Sweden’s three ARWU-100 universities (Karolinska, Uppsala and Stockholm), enrolment rose by a third between 2007–08 and 2013–14. The other Swedish universities took a different tack: their student numbers are unchanged from 2007–08 and in fact are down almost 10% since their peak in 2010–11. As a result of these changes in student numbers, the ARWU-100 universities are doing substantially worse since the start of the global financial crisis than non-ARWU 100 universities in per student terms. Switzerland Switzerland has three universities in the ARWU-100 (ETH Zurich, University of Zurich and University of Basel). Institutional data on enrolments and finances is not available from a national source, and even aggregate expenditures are only available over the period 2007–2012. However, individual institutions provide excellent data 77

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Figure 11. Real change in expenditures, Swedish universities 2003–2004 to 2013–2014, indexed to 2003–2004. Source: Swedish Universities & University Colleges Annual Reports 2005–2014

Figure 12. Real change in per student expenditures, Swedish universities 2003–2004 to 2013–2014, indexed to 2003–2004. Source: Swedish Universities & University Colleges Annual Reports 2005–2014

through their annual reports, and so for at least three of the ARWU-100 institutions, it is possible to get a very good picture of activities right back to 2005. The difficulty in obtaining comparable data over comparable dates accounts for why Figure 13 is unusual: the data is indexed to 2007, the first year when common 78

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data are available. What it shows is that in terms of expenditures in raw Francs, ARWU-100 institutions have seen steadily increasing funding since the start of the crisis (up 25% since 2008), but have not fared better than non-ARWU institutions. When student numbers are taken into account, the picture changes slightly. Enrolments at the three ARWU-100 universities are up about 11% since 2008, which means that on a per student basis the increase since the start of the global financial crisis is only about 7%. However, system-wide, the increase in enrolments is closer to 25%. As a result, when viewed in per student terms, the ARWU universities are doing much better than their counterparts elsewhere in the system.

Figure 13. Real change in expenditures, Swiss universities 2005–2013, indexed to 2007. Source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Annual Reports from ETH Zurich, University of Zurich and University of Basel

Figure 14. Real change in per student expenditures, Swiss universities 2005–2013, indexed to 2007. Source: Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Annual Reports from ETH Zurich, University of Zurich and University of Basel

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Netherlands The Netherlands has only 14 universities, but four of them (Utrecht, Amsterdam, Groningen and Leiden) are in the ARWU-100. Unfortunately, the Netherlands is a country where individual university data is difficult to obtain; not only does the national statistical agency not provide data on an institutional level, but of the four universities only Groningen provides enough public data to look at a time series both for finances and for student numbers. However, since the four universities in question appear to make up close to 45% of expenditure nationally in higher education, it is unlikely that the pattern for the four institutions of interest to us here are substantially different from the national pattern, which is shown below in Figure 15.

Figure 15. Total expenditures, Dutch universities, 2004–2013, in millions of real 2013€. Source: Ministry of Education, Culture and Science

In essence, Figure 15 shows that university spending in the Netherlands has been relatively flat for most of the past decade, with the exception of a large one-time increase spread over two years in 2008 and 2009. Student numbers were expanding during this period: enrolments in academic higher education (i.e. universities only, excluding HBOs) rose by roughly 30% from 2004 to 2013, with most of the growth concentrated in the period up to 2010. As a result, when examined in per student terms, expenditure at Dutch universities fall (as student numbers rise but spending stays constant) then rise (as student numbers continue to rise but expenditures rise faster) and then fall again (student numbers rise but spending does not). By 2013, per student expenditures were effectively where they were a decade earlier. We cannot exactly verify what is going on in ARWU-100 universities, but Figure 17 shows the evolution of real per student expenditures at Groningen University. It shows a somewhat different pattern, with continual declines in income 80

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Figure 16. Real per student expenditures, Dutch universities, 2004–2013, indexed to 2004. Source Ministry of Education, Culture and Science

Figure 17. Per student expenditures, Groningen University, 2005–2012, indexed to 2005. Source: University of Groningen annual reports

up until 2008 and then small increases thereafter. Overall, Groningen seems not to have done as well as the average Dutch university over the past decade. Germany Germany has four universities in the ARWU-100 (Freiburg, Heidleberg, Munich and Technical University Munich). Of these, only two make historical data on students and funding available on their websites, and only one provides data series prior to 2010. The data in Figure 18 therefore shows data for all German universities. As is readily evident, income growth at German universities has been very significant 81

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over the past decade or so, rising in real terms by 88% in the period from 2013. Expenditures data shows some significant swings around the time of the global financial crisis, which seem to have been the result of the 2009 Federal-Länder Higher Education Pact (Garnder, 2009). Some money in this pact appears to have been front-loaded, which accounts for the drop in funding in 2010, after which funding recovered somewhat.

Figure 18. Total expenditures, German universities, 2000–2013, in millions of real 2013€. Source: Statistiches Besamt

For the two AMRU-100 institutions where we have data over a number of years, it is possible to see in Figure 19 that, while there has been an increase in funding, it has not been as large as that for other institutions. Between 2006 and 2010, gross expenditures at these institutions grew by 30% in real terms, compared to 39% for German universities as a whole. Since 2010, revenues at universities generally have risen 8% in real terms, while the equivalent for our two ARWU-100 universities is 7%.

Figure 19. Total expenditures, TUM & Heidelberg, selected years 2006–2014, in millions of real 2014€. Sources: University of Heidelberg Jahresberichte; Technical University of Munich ‘Facts & Figures’

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However, it is worth recalling that one of the main justifications for the 2009 pact was to expand access to higher education. As a result, student numbers have increased significantly in recent years, making the growth in real per student expenditures look much less impressive. Since 2009 there has been a substantial drop in per student funding across all universities, but that has much to do with the front-loaded manner in which the funds were distributed. In effect, though, per student expenditures are back to where they were in 2008 at the start of the crisis. As Figure 20 shows, over the medium term, more or less as intended, enrolment growth has eaten up the entirety of the Pact’s funds.

Figure 20. Real per student expenditures, German universities, 2004–2013, indexed to 2004. Source: Statistiches Besamt

With respect to the two ARWU-100 universities, it is somewhat difficult to discern a consistent pattern. Both universities received substantial amounts of money, but Heidelberg did much less than Technical University Munich to expand its student numbers. As a result, real per student expenditures went in different directions at the two universities: up by 22% over 2006 in Heidelberg, and down 15% at TUM. Both, however, fell between 2010 and 2014, Heidelberg by less than the national average, and TUM by substantially more. Japan Japan also has four ARWU-100 universities (Tokyo, Kyoto, Nagoya and Osaka). National-level data on enrolments and public funding to universities are available through Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). Total funding (not expenditures) can be estimated by extrapolating the public data using OECD figures on public/private expenditures on educational institutions. Japanese policy on institutions has not changed much in recent years. Funding to institutions has moved around in a relatively narrow band, as shown in Figure 22. 83

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Figure 21. Real per student expenditures, TUM & Heidelberg, elected years 2010–2014, in 2014€. Source: University of Heidelberg Jahresberichte, Technical University of Munich ‘Facts & Figures’

Figure 22. Total income, Japanese universities, 2005–2006 to 2011–12, in millions of real 2011¥. Source: MEXT, OECD Education at a Glance

In 2011–12, funding was roughly 4% higher in real terms than it had been in 2008 at the onset of the financial crisis. Because Japan’s youth cohort sizes are declining slightly, even increased participation rates mean stagnant student numbers. As a result, real per student spending patterns, shown below in Figure 23, are almost exactly the same as the patterns for total institutional income shown in Figure 22. Institutional data from Japan was incomplete. There are no national sources of data which show institutional income or expenditure (in English, at least). However, 84

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partial data was available at some institutions. While complete information on finances and enrolment were available back to 2005 from Kyoto, only partial data for specific years was available from Nagoya and Tokyo, (no data at all was available from Osaka). Nevertheless, with three universities reporting student numbers in 2006 and financial data for 2005, one can make some rough inferences about total real expenditures for student. These are shown below in Table 1. Across the ARWU-100 universities, we see an increase in funding which is comparable in magnitude to that seen across the system as a whole: roughly 3%.

Figure 23. Real per student expenditures, Japanese universities, 2005–2006 to 2011–2012, indexed to 2005–2006. Source: MEXT, OECD Education at a Glance Table 1. Financial and enrolment statistics of Japanese ARWU-100 universities Students 2006

Students 2011

Expenditure 2005

Expenditure 2011

Change in ¥/student 2005–2011

Tokyo

29000

28798

222451

235816

7%

Kyoto

22698

22819

135269

153879

13%

Nagoya

15893

16597

105363

93541

−15%

Total

67591

68214

463083

483236

3%

Source: Annual reports from the University of Tokyo, University of Kyoto and University of Nagoya

France Data on institutional finances are rarely available in France. Annual financial reports or student counts were only available for the current year for all of the country’s 85

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four ARWU-100 universities (Pierre & Marie Cure [Paris-6], Paris-Sud [Paris-11], L’Ecole Normale Superieur and Strasbourg). We are therefore forced in this case to look only at national-level data. It is likely, given the manner in which performance funding is delivered in France that top universities are doing somewhat better than the average institution, but it is impossible on the basis of publicly-available data to say by how much. Figure 23 shows public expenditures on higher education in France from 2005–06 to 2013–14. According to figures provided by the French Government to the OECD, public funding accounts for between 80% and 85% of all income in the sector, so the actual expenditure figures are somewhat higher than presented here. Nevertheless, because the pattern of private income has not changed much in recent years, we can take Figure 24 as being indicative of the general pattern of university budgets. In real terms, expenditures rose by over 10% in the years leading up to the global financial crisis, before falling by about 8% again thereafter.

Figure 24. Public funding for higher education, France, 2005–2006 to 2013–2014, in billions of 2013 Euros. Source: Repères et Références Statistiques (Ministère de L’Éducation), éditions 2008–2015

Increases in enrolment at French universities have been steady, if slow. Since the start of the financial crisis, enrolments have risen by 3%. Thus, when presented in real per student terms, the effects of the funding declines are stark. SUMMARY OF DATA

We can summarize the above data by answering a few simple questions: Is higher education spending generally higher or lower now than before the global financial crisis? Across the ten countries examined here, the answer for the most part is that expenditures are higher, even after inflation. But so too are the number of students being served. If one adjusts both for inflation and student numbers, only in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany are higher education institutions better 86

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Figure 25. Real per student expenditures, French universities, 2005–2006 to 2011–2012, indexed to 2005–2006. Source: Repères et Références Statistiques (Ministère de L’Éducation), éditions 2008–2015

off now than they were six years ago. In Japan, the Netherlands and Switzerland, inflation-adjusted per student numbers are stable; in Canada, France, the US and Australia, there have been declines for the system as a whole since 2008. Are the experiences of ARWU-100 universities treated the same as other higher education institutions? In several countries the publicly-available data do not permit us to draw conclusions. In Japan and the UK, the answer seems to be that ARWU and non-ARWU universities appear to have been treated similarly. In Sweden and Australia, per student income has been better for non-ARWU universities and the ARWU universities are worse off. In Switzerland, Canada and the United States – and particularly private universities in the United States – the ARWU-100 universities seem to have fared much better than the rest of the system Has funding at ARWU-100 universities improved since the start of the global financial crisis? The three places where we see significant real per student increases for ARWU-100 universities are the United States, where per student expenditure has risen by 10–12% since 2008, the United Kingdom, where the increase is on the order of 8–10%, and Switzerland, where the increase is roughly 7%. In Canada, Sweden and Japan, the evidence suggests that expenditures are fairly stable, give or take a margin of error of about 3%. The same is true in the Netherlands and France if we assume that ARWU-100 universities follow the general pattern. In Germany, the evidence seems to be mixed: some are and some are not, depending on how large the new student intake was. Only in Australia are ARWU-100 universities obviously worse off, and significantly so; ARWU-100 universities there have seen per student declines of 15% or so. Figure 26 below shows changes in real per student expenditure since 2008 in each country, both for ARWU-100 and non-ARWU-100 universities. 87

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Figure 26. Percentage change in real per student funding, 2008 to most recent year, by country CONCLUSIONS

Few generalizations are possible when it comes to the fate of world-class universities in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Policy conditions (particularly the rate of increase of student intake) play a large role: in general, institutions in countries where student numbers are growing substantially are at best breaking even. But policy choices matter, too. Certainly, the ability of American and British universities to raise tuition fees in response to a cut in government funding appears to have done an enormous amount to allow them maintain their path of financial growth. What does this mean for the future of world-class universities? Importantly, while money is an important ingredient, the success of universities does not rest solely upon it. Certainly, money does not seem to have much of a material short-term effect on ARWU rankings: if they did, Australia’s universities would be doing much worse than they are. Clearly, institutional strategy, hiring practices, and the quality of university management matter as well. We have few ways at present of measuring those characteristics. But it is equally plain that money makes a lot of other challenges in higher education much easier. If present trends continue, it seems likely that private American universities will keep their positions at the top of international rankings table and perhaps even widen their lead. Top US Public flagships, along with British and Swiss universities, will find it easier to cope than most. Elsewhere, the problem seems to be in part that new money often only follows new students. That is, universities who want more money to pursue a more researchintensive path must first admit more students, mainly undergraduates. Governments may think they are offering universities a good bargain this way, but frankly this is not always helpful. Much of the new money is spent educating the students themselves 88

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and there is very little ‘extra’ to devote to excellence. Governments who want some of their universities to pursue world-class university status need to find ways to de-couple revenue growth from enrolment growth. That could mean greater control over tuition fees, or increasing the size of competitive excellence programmes, or some other measure. The alternative to raising more money in order to pursue world-class university status is to make universities more efficient and re-invest savings from those efforts into research. Australian ARWU-universities have been doing exactly this for some years now, and governments around the world may want to look at the ways in which institutions there have found success. Given the overall fiscal difficulty many governments are currently experiencing, this may be a more productive way for institutions to continue pushing for world-class status rather than waiting for further infusions of public money. As Ernest Rutherford is reputed to have once said: ‘Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It is time to start thinking.’ NOTE 1

The Department of Education website informs visitors that earlier data is available on requests, but messages requesting more data went unanswered.

REFERENCES Altbach, P. (2004, January–February). The costs and benefits of world-class universities. Academe. Andreas, J. (2009). Rise of the red engineers. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Garnder, M. (2009, September 20). Germany: Record funding for higher education. University World News, (81). Retrieved from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20090618200051988 Geiger, R. (2009). Research & relevant knowledge. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Graham, H. D., & Diamond, N. (1997). Rise of the American research university: Elites and challengers. Baltimore, CA: Johns Hopkins University Press. OECD. (2014). Promoting research excellence: New approached to funding. Paris: OECD. Orr, D., Wespel, J., & Usher, A. (2014). Do changes in cost-sharing have an impact on the behaviour of students and higher education institutions? Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Salmi, J. (2009). The challenge of establishing world-class universities. Washington, DC: World Bank.

Alex Usher Higher Education Strategy Associates

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5. THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES IN SOCIETY Challenges Ahead

INTRODUCTION: THE MODERN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

Huge Expansion of the University System The university system and universities worldwide have experienced a huge expansion over the last 50 to 70 years, and one can expect further growth in the future. Before World War II, about 150,000 students were enrolled at universities in France, Germany and the UK (Hobsbawm, 2013). Since then, the number of students has increased dramatically: By the year 2013, the number of students in the greater area of London alone amounted to 370,000. This increase is not restricted to Europe but can be observed worldwide. In a study on the expansion of higher education over the twentieth century, Schofer and Meyer (2005) report that student numbers have increased from 500,000 in the year 1900 to about 100 million in the year 2000. This growth will accelerate in the next decades, with recent estimates indicating that more than 520 million students will be pursuing higher education in 2035 (Calderon, 2012). And not only has the number of students risen rapidly. There are now approximately 19,000 institutions of higher education worldwide (Siwinski, 2015) with a large variation in terms of their academic profile, research intensity and quality in research and teaching, of course. In terms of the number of publications, one can also observe a steep increase in research activities. In the 1950s, the number of publications in journals in science, engineering and social sciences was 50,000 annually – in 2008, it was 800,000 (Jones, 2010), and in 2013, it had increased to 1.4 million papers (‘Trouble in the lab’, The Economist, 19 October 2013, p. 23). This remarkable expansion in both student numbers and research output raises various issues and, of course, leads to problems concerning the quality of teaching and of the research output. Key Features of the Modern University System Considering how universities are organized in various countries and in various academic settings, it turns out that the modern university system has a couple of stylized features. N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 91–99. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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Universities are characterized by a certain degree of academic freedom in the sense that academics can decide about the subject they pursue in their research, and the topics they teach in their courses (see also Huber, 2016). Universities tend to enjoy at least some autonomy such that they have some discretion over deciding, for example, about appointments, their curriculum, and various other issues. A third common characteristic is that funding for research at universities is based on peer review. Finally, in most countries, there is some kind of competition among universities for students, academics, and funding. Of course, there is a lot of variation across countries and institutions. To mention just one example, even within a single country there are significant differences between public and private universities. With these caveats in mind, the features described above characterize modern universities in the world. What are the perspectives and issues for the university system for the future? In what follows, I will discuss some of the challenges for universities arising in higher education and research. CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

Perspectives for Higher Education The college wage premium.  Students have different motives for why they attend university. One important consideration is the economic gains resulting from higher education. In economics, the potential benefits of higher education are often discussed in terms of the so-called college wage premium. This premium essentially compares the income of a graduate – a bachelor degree, for example – relative to the income of somebody who does not have a degree. The interesting question now is: How will this college wage premium develop in the future? It is helpful to take a look at what has happened in the past to answer this question. In the following explanation, I will refer to the situation in the United States, but similar considerations apply, to the best of my knowledge, to other countries as well. James (2012, Figure 1) shows that in 2009, the income of somebody with a bachelor degree or higher was roughly about 80% higher than the salary of someone without a degree. It is interesting to note that the college wage premium significantly increased from about 40% in the late 1970s to over 70% in the early 1990s. After that, the growth rate slowed significantly (James, 2012). To gain better insight into the dynamics of the college wage premium, it is helpful to consider how it evolved over a longer time period. A study by Goldin and Katz (2007) calculated the college wage and high school wage premiums in the US from 1915 until 2005 (Figure 1). In the beginning of the 20th century, the college wage premium was, in comparison, as high as today but experienced a steep decline until the 1950s. While there was some variation, the college wage premium roughly remained at intermediate levels until the 1980s, when it rapidly increased again. 92

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For the period from the 1970s until 2005, the results of Goldin and Katz (2007) are very similar to the observations made by James (2012).

Figure 1. College and high school graduate wage premiums from 1915 to 2005. Source: Goldin and Katz (2007), with permission by the authors

How can we explain this variation of the college wage premium over time? Goldin and Katz (2007) develop an explanation in terms of the complex interaction between technology, labour demand, labour supply, and educational choices of students. For example, the increase of the college wage premium after 1980 can be attributed to the growing demand for skilled persons due to the technological changes, and to the relatively low number of students who actually entered higher education in the 1970s to 1990s. There may be good reasons to believe that the college wage premium will remain high or will at least not significantly decline in the future. Nonetheless, the historical experience presented by Goldin and Katz (2007) indicates that, over a longer period, the premium shows quite surprising variations. Some recent empirical studies also suggest some caution. For example, there is evidence that the college wage premium has started to decline since about 2000. One factor potentially contributing to the decline in the college wage premium is a larger participation in higher education. As more young people attend college, the relative supply of skilled to unskilled labour increases, which tends to depress the college wage premium due to standard labour supply and demand considerations. A recent study conducted by a group of scientists around Larry Summers shows that this effect can induce a significant 93

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decline in the wage premium (Hershbein et al., 2015). Leaving these caveats aside, there are good reasons to believe that the college wage premium will remain high, at least in the foreseeable future. The role of academic subjects and degrees.  Another interesting issue is the college wage premium for different academic subjects. It turns out that the college wage premium varies quite significantly across academic fields. For example, fields like social work and the arts do not produce a particularly high premium; the highest premium can be earned in the field of engineering. This variation emerges as quite significant, and the premium differs between 40% and 125% (James, 2012). This indicates that the choice of academic subjects affects the wage premium earned by a person. Furthermore, one can also expect that skill premiums will not only vary across academic subjects, but also across persons in any given academic subject. One graduate in economics may get a highly paid job in the financial industry, another may end up unemployed. Furthermore, the wage premium also depends on the level of the academic degree a student obtains. In many academic subjects, advanced (postgraduate) degrees produce very high premiums of over 200%, if compared to high school qualifications (James, 2012). In addition to this, the postgraduate wage premium has shown a continuous increase since at least the beginning of the 1980s (Lindley & Machin, 2014). These particularly high (economic) benefits of postgraduate degrees can be seen as particularly good news for universities and, in particular, for research universities! Rising cost of higher education.  Even if one is optimistic concerning the future development of the college wage premium, there is one drawback: the high cost of higher education, in particular in the United States, but other countries as well. In the US, ever growing tuition fees have contributed to a mounting number of young Americans who are greatly indebted after graduation. A recent analysis shows that in 2015, the enormous sum of US$1.3 trillion of outstanding debt has accrued (Kolet, 2012). If the wage premium significantly varies across subjects and individuals, taking up higher education becomes a large financial risk for students. These issues are currently discussed by various authors (e.g. Habibi, 2015; Abel & Deitz, 2014). Better information and some kind of insurance system against the financial risks of higher education can possibly mitigate this problem. Online learning.  The issue of online learning constitutes a challenge for universities in many respects. Only a couple of years in existence, online learning has developed in multifaceted ways (Massive Open Online Courses, Small Private Online Courses, inverted classrooms, and various other phenomena) and has rapidly grown both in the number of enrolments and the number of courses. In the 2014, 10% of all students in the U.S. had taken online classes exclusively, and another 15% had taken up at least some online elements during their studies (Deming et al., 2015). This is just 94

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one example for the rapid expansion of online learning and it is subject to debates whether we will have ‘clicks instead of bricks’ (Guttenplan, 2012) in the near future. In other words, universities face the question whether their ‘old business model’ of residential learning is still valid or whether online learning might substitute for it. This goes along with the ubiquitous task of cutting costs or ‘bending the cost curve’ (Deming et al., 2015). The crucial point will be whether online learning will be a complement to or a substitute for residential learning in the future. If they are complementary, the traditional university campus will benefit from online learning. However, if online learning starts to substitute for residential learning, universities will face huge transformative changes. The outcome of this process is difficult to predict, but quite obviously this will affect the future of universities in important ways. Research Activities The quality of research in question.  The huge expansion in research productivity in recent years has also led to criticism on the quality of research. For example, the Economist states in its article titled ‘Trouble at the lab’ (The Economist, 2013) that it is probably ‘hard to reproduce at least three quarters of all published biomedical findings’ and quotes evidence which indicates that a large part of published papers have serious statistical flaws. Although some measures have already been taken on in reaction to this, such as programmes to support studies to replicate results from existing studies and to improve the availability of research data (e.g. The Economist, 2013), the ongoing debate on the quality of research indicates that further improvement might be necessary. A common issue of all criticisms of current scientific research aims at the peer review process applied to research funding and scientific publication procedures. In the last three years, this has given rise to a debate on how the peer-review process can be reformed and currently, a number of different new approaches are discussed, such as rewarding researchers for their reviews (e. g. Matthews, 2016). Regardless of what measures are taken into account – be it a reform of the long established review process or any other new development – it is important to understand that the points of criticisms in the quality of research recently raised have the potential to seriously hamper the trust in university and non-university research. Hence, it will remain a crucial issue for the future. The changing process of research.  Similarly, the process of research faces various problems. Among researchers, one can observe an increasing specialization of academics, which sometimes is called the ‘Death of the Renaissance Man’ (Jones, 2005). Scholars at universities and non-university research institutions also increasingly face the so-called ‘Burden of Knowledge’ (Jones, 2005). In the last few decades, the accumulation of knowledge – and, in this sense, the burden of knowledge – has been so immense that researchers today have to invest a significant 95

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amount of time just to learn and to adapt to the state of the art of their field. As a result, academics only get truly productive and innovative relatively late in their careers, and this creates various problems, for example, concerning the design of academic careers (Jones, 2010). Furthermore, it is now common – especially in the sciences – to jointly conduct research and publish in large teams. This has raised the question, for example, whether it is still appropriate to award research prizes for individual researchers or whether one should move to a model where teams of researchers are granted research prizes (e.g. Azoulay & Graff-Zivin, 2012). The benefits of research.  Research is often seen as a key driver for innovation and economic growth. Impressive evidence shows that the benefits of basic research are high and will remain so in the future. For example, it is estimated that the benefits in terms of the social return on expenditures for basic research are running at 20% (Goodridge et al., 2015). There is also a great expectation by the public that basic research at universities can make a significant contribution to what are often called the ‘great challenges’: energy, climate, and health. Nonetheless, there are also sceptics concerning the benefits of research. Gordon (2012) argues that much of the growth we have seen in the past was a onetime effect of some fundamental inventions in the 19th century. According to Gordon (2012), economic growth in the future will be low for much of the developed world, and, a fortiori, the benefits of research at universities cannot be expected to be particularly high. The future role of research at universities and the benefits of research are also topics of an ongoing debate, not only in the US, but in other countries as well (e.g. Dirks, 2015; Crow & Dabars, 2015). One crucial issue in this debate is the appropriate criterion for the funding of research. The public and policymakers are often inclined to prefer applied research, which promises direct economic benefits, relative to basic or blue-sky research yielding little or no immediate gains. Research policies aiming to tackle the socalled great challenges are an example for this approach. However, it is also clear that many key innovations are based on results and insights of basic research. For example, the invention of the hydrogen maser in the 1960s was central for the development of satellite-based global positioning systems (e.g. Karagianis, 2014), which are now ubiquitous in devices of everyday life, such as smartphones, car navigation systems and digital cameras. It is, therefore, crucial to emphasize the key role of basic research in the innovation and growth process. Since much of basic research is undertaken at universities, this will be one of the most important tasks for universities in the future (Huber, 2016). THE ROLE OF COMPREHENSIVE UNIVERSITIES

As it turns out, the best universities in the Academic Ranking of World Universities conducted by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (ARWU, 2015) are comprehensive 96

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universities which cover a large area of academic fields – arts and humanities, social sciences, sciences, medicine, and sometimes engineering. While there are some exceptions, like the London School of Economics or the Karolinska Institute, many successful universities even expand their portfolio, for example Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This observation raises the question: Why are universities comprehensive? The answer to this is not self-evident since, a priori, one might expect that academic institutions would benefit from a higher degree of specialization: concentrating on a few academic areas, universities should gain from the benefits of specialization. This is the successful strategy of many companies: They concentrate on their core business and dispose of non-essential activities. Why do we have the exact opposite development at universities? It is claimed quite often that comprehensive universities offer better conditions for interdisciplinary research. In many respects, this does not seem to be a convincing argument to explain the success of comprehensive universities. Despite some interesting exceptions, the overlap between areas, such as the humanities and the sciences, is rather small. It is hard to see that, for example, the interaction between a researcher in ethics and a researcher in the neurosciences can provide a rationale for the existence of the highly differentiated comprehensive universities we observe in reality. A more promising explanation may be found on the higher education side of universities. If a university wants to attract the best students, it has to offer a wide range of academic subjects to respond to the diverse intellectual and academic interests of students, and their choices of academic fields responding to varying job market prospects. Similarly, a comprehensive university can be understood as a kind of portfolio strategy which allows the university to quickly adapt to new developments in scientific progress. Another potential explanation may be found by interpreting a comprehensive university as mechanism for internal competition. At a comprehensive university, different departments and different academic subjects compete for scarce funding. If funding is granted on the basis of academic merits and academic performance, this competition induces an overall improvement of academic performance of the various departments and academic subjects. None of these explanations may fully explain the phenomenon of comprehensive universities, and it remains a fascinating puzzle why the model of the comprehensive universities is exactly opposite to the model of firms and other institutions. Do comprehensive universities face particular challenges in the future? Of course, comprehensive higher education institutions are always subject to the potential threats of highly specialized educational institutions. Since comprehensive universities typically have a strong focus on research, they have to compete with universities, colleges, and other higher education institutions which concentrate on teaching and education. Finally, comprehensive universities will be affected by the future impact of online learning discussed above. Looking back at the last hundred 97

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years, it has turned out that the comprehensive universities have been remarkably successful in adapting to a quickly changing environment. This gives reason for optimism for the future. REFERENCES Academic Ranking of World Universities. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.shanghairanking.com/de/ ARWU2015.html Abel, J. R., & Deitz, R. (2014). Do the benefits of college still outweigh the costs? Current Issues in Economics and Finance, 20(3), 1–12. (Federal Reserve Bank of New York.) Azoulay, P., & Graff-Zivin, J. (2012). The production of scientific ideas. NBER Reporter 2012/3. Retrieved from http://pazoulay.scipts.mit.edu/docs/nber_reporter.pdf Calderon, A. (2012, September 2). Massification continues to transform higher education. University World News. Retrieved from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120831155341147 Crow, M. M., & Dabars, W. B. (2015). Designing the New American University. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Deming, D. J., Goldin, C., Katz, L., & Yuchtman, N. (2015). Can online learning bend the higher education cost curve? American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings, 105(5), 496–501. Dirks, N. (2015, May 1). Rebirth of the research university. Chronicle of Higher Education, 61(33), B6–B9. Goldin, C., & Katz, L. F. (2007). The race between education and technology: The evolution of U.S. educational wage differential, 1890 to 2005 (NBER Working Paper Series Number 12984). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w12984 Goodridge, P., Haskel, J., Hughes, A., & Wallis, G. (2015). The contribution of public and private R&D to UK productivity growth (Discussion Paper 2015/3). London: Imperial College London Business School. Retrieved from https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/21171 Gordon, R. J. (2012). Is U.S. economic growth over? Faltering innovation confronts the six headwinds (NBER Working Paper 18315). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w1831 Guttenplan, D. D. (2012). Building schools out of clicks, not bricks. The New York Times Online. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/world/europe/building-schools-out-of-clicksnot-bricks.html?r=0 Habibi, N. (2015, December 2). Focus on college affordability obscures real problem: We’re overeducated. The Conversation. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/focus-on-college-affordability-obscuresreal-problem-were-overeducated-51101 Hershbein, B., Kearney, M. S., & Summers, L. H. (2015). Increasing education: What it will and will not do for earnings and earnings inequality. Retrieved from http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/ posts/2015/03/31-what-increasing-education-will-and-wont-do-for-earnings-inequality-hershbeinkearney-summers Hobsbawm, E. J. (2013). Fractured times: Culture and society in the twentieth century. New York, NY: New Press. Huber, B. (2016). The future of universities: Academic freedom, the autonomy of universities and competition in academia revisited. In L. E. Weber & J. J. Duderstadt (Eds.), University priorities and constraints. Paris: Economica Ltd. James, J. (2012). The college wage premium. Economic Commentary. Retrieved from https://www.clevelandfed.org/Newsroom%20and%20Events/Publications/Economic% 20Commentary/2012/ec%20201210%20the%20college%20wage%20premium Jones, B. (2005). The burden of knowledge and the ‘death of the renaissance man’: Is innovation getting harder (NBER Working Paper Series Number 11360). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w11360

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The Role of Universities in Society Jones, B. (2010). As science evolves, how can science policy? (NBER Working Paper Series Number 16002). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/ papers/w16002 Karagianis, L. (2014). The brilliance of basic research. Spectrum. Retrieved from http://spectrum.mit.edu/ articles/the-brilliance-of-basic-research/ Kolet, I. (2012). College tuition’s 1,120 percent increase. Bloomberg. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-08-23/college-tuitions-1-120-percent-increase Lindley J., & Machin, S. (2013). The rising postgraduate wage premium. ECONOMICA, 83(330), 281–306. Retrieved from http://personal.lse.ac.uk/machin/pdf/jl%20sm%20pg.pdf Matthews, D. (2016). Should academics be paid for peer review? Times Higher Education News. Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/should-academics-be-paid-for-peer-review Schofer, E., & Meyer, J. W. (2005). The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. American Sociological Review, 70(6), 898–920. Siwinski, W. (2015). The era of rankings by subject is coming. University World News. Retrieved from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150803133240109 Trouble at the Lab. (2013). The Economist, 21–24.

Bernd Huber Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

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SECTION II NATIONAL REACTIONS

AKIYOSHI YONEZAWA AND YUKIKO SHIMMI

6. TRANSFORMATION OF UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE THROUGH INTERNATIONALIZATION Challenges for Top Universities and Government Policies in Japan1

INTRODUCTION

World-class research and education are recognized as essential channels for participating in a globalized knowledge society. The construction of world-class or global research universities has been pursued by governments and top (mostly flagship) universities in a variety of emerging economies (Salmi, 2009; Altbach & Salmi, 2011; Shin & Kehm, 2013). In particular, a distinctive approach in the form of strong government intervention has been widely observed in East Asia (Altbach & Balán, 2007; Marginson et al., 2011). These countries have chosen this approach partly to maintain and improve the status of top universities while in the process of expanding the higher education system with limited public financial resources. Japan is not an exception. Universities in Japan have enjoyed highly established academic freedom and professoriates have been respected as autonomous decisionmakers in terms of academic affairs since the end of World War II (Yonezawa, 2014). The incorporation of national and local public universities in 2004 has also promoted institutional autonomy to some degrees (Kaneko, 2009). However, the government has been still influential in allocating public funds and in setting the standards of physical conditions, such as the number of faculty and students for both public and private universities. Although it is quite difficult to find a consensus on what a world-class university is, Salmi (2009) identified three key factors that explain the characteristics of worldclass universities: abundant resources, concentration of talent, and favourable governance. In order to provide abundant resources to world-class universities within systems with limited public financial resources – as well as the contemporary demand for higher participation in tertiary education – classification or categorization of higher education institutions has been utilized. For example, the state of California (USA) has developed a three-tier higher education system called the California Master Plan, namely the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges (Douglass, 2000). This categorization of certain universities as flagships can also be observed in some Asian countries, such as the Philippines (University of the Philippines) and Vietnam (National University of Vietnam). Another typical approach is a dual system – a clear distinction between N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 103–118. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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university and non-university higher education sectors, such as polytechnics in Singapore. Japan, however, has already abolished a similar, official categorization called ‘imperial universities’ and eliminated a dual system by upgrading semmon gakko (polytechnics) to universities in higher education reforms just after World War II (Amano, 1998). Currently, it is becoming difficult to set up tiered or dual systems without continuous assessment, especially with widespread ideas of neo-liberalism and new public management. For example, this can be seen in the abolition of a dual system in 1992 and the introduction of performance-based financial allocation, especially in research, in the UK (Kyvik, 2004; Willmott, 2003). Under these circumstances, the excellence initiative – the selection of internationally competitive research units based on performance assessments – is spreading widely around the world. In East Asia, in the 1990s, South Korea and China, in particular, started targeted financial investment to upgrade their top universities into world-class institutions, even before the wide usage of world university rankings from the mid-2000s onward (Moon & Kim, 2001; Huang, 2005). As to the concentration of talent, most of the East Asian higher education systems have developed effective screening systems to collect domestic talent in their top universities through nation-wide entrance examinations and hierarchical higher education systems. In addition, Singapore and Hong Kong have made a strategic effort to construct world-class universities by attracting cosmopolitan talent based on global academic networking and strong financial investment by their governments (Altbach & Salmi, 2011). Salmi’s (2009) stress on the idea of ‘favourable governance’ – as exemplified by supportive regulatory framework, autonomy, academic freedom, leadership team, strategic vision and the culture of excellence – should be examined carefully. Given the highly diverse and complex social contexts of respective higher education systems, these do not necessarily share common academic and intellectual values. In Japan, however, top universities have basically enjoyed academic freedom, a culture of excellence, a supportive regulatory framework, and autonomy of the professoriate under a democratized regime after World War II. At the same time, all the national universities and most of the local public universities have operated as public corporate bodies since 2004, so these universities have been able to develop strategic visions and strong leadership teams (Kaneko, 2009). These trends in the pursuit of world-class status, mainly in emerging economies, have also stimulated a quite reactive change among countries with long-established academic traditions, such as Germany and Japan (Hazelkorn, 2011). Both countries have begun ‘excellence initiatives’ in the form of targeted investment in internationally competitive research units or institutes, partly based on earlier models in other countries, such as Brain Korea 21 (BK21), South Korea’s WorldClass University project, and Projects 211 and 985 in China (Yonezawa, 2003; Hur & Bessey, 2013). In Japan, these excellence initiatives first took the form of concentrated financial investment, including Twenty-First Century Centres of Excellence (21COE), from 104

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2002 to 2009, and then Global Centres of Excellence (GCOE), from 2007 to 2014. These projects supported internationally competitive research units over a five-year term, in order both to raise research performance and to foster the next generation of researchers. In addition, various types of funding projects have sought to support graduate schools and research institutes in becoming world-class, such as the World Premier International Centre Initiatives (WPI), which is a more concentrated, longterm (10-year) investment into an extremely limited number of institutions (nine have been selected since 2007) (Yonezawa & Hou, 2014). However, considering the constraints on its overall national budget – as a mature economy facing an aging demographic – Japan can no longer expect a drastic increase in its science and technology investment, as seen in emerging economies. In addition to these direct investments in research, the Japanese government has also driven its top universities to internationalize, partly to recruit world talent and also to transform Japanese universities’ governance and management into internationally competitive systems. International profiles are clearly weak even among Japan’s top universities (Newby et al., 2009), and this is recognized as fatal to efforts to connect Japanese academics to global networks (Huang, 2009). At the same time, this approach, developed within an established economy, is completely different to the approaches to world-class research and education typically seen in emerging economies, that is, rapid increases in financial investment, especially in top universities. In this chapter, the authors examine the challenges of internationalization among Japan’s top universities, both for the government and the universities themselves. First, the authors reflect on the historical background of Japanese higher education, which developed as an early front-runner in Asia, along with the dynamics of national identity and global trends. Second, the authors examine a series of governmentfunded programmes for research and internationalization, especially focusing on these programmes’ functions in governance reform. Last, the authors reflect on how the construction of world-class universities not only implies concentrated financial investment but also a comprehensive transformation of university governance in a global context, both by universities and governments. The authors also point out the major challenges for top Japanese research universities, in terms of maintaining and improving their international presence, and then clarify the implications both for other East Asian economies and for mature economies facing demographic challenges. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Japan was among the first to establish a highly developed higher education system in Asia. By the end of the twentieth century, the research performance of Japanese top universities was recognized in Asia, according to Asian university rankings in Asiaweek at that time (Yonezawa, 2013). However, the high international prestige given to the academic performance of top Japanese universities was not achieved 105

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by the integration of the Japanese system into global, ‘cosmopolitan,’ or Englishspeaking systems, as typically seen in Singapore and Hong Kong, but rather through the strong protection of a national higher education system based on the national language and culture. The protection of national identity through social development programmes, including research, education, and technology is not a new phenomenon in Japan. When East Asia faced the threat of the first wave of Western colonization (by Portugal and Spain) in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, East Asian countries such as China, Korea, and Japan chose to protect their societies by limiting and controlling trade and other sociocultural interactions with Western societies. In Japan, the Netherlands was selected as a trade partner, in addition to China, a strong neighbour, and only one official trading port and encounter zone (Nagasaki) was opened, until the government reopened the country to the USA in 1854, and then other Western forces, by signing trade agreements. At the same time, the Japanese government sent students and delegations to Western countries to seek out models of modern higher education from the midnineteenth century onward. As a result, the University of Tokyo, the first modern university, and other Western style higher education institutions were created in the latter half of the nineteenth century (Kaneko, 2004). In these universities and higher education institutions, the government first entrusted the system’s design and teaching to foreign experts invited from Europe and North America. However, these experts were soon replaced by Japanese academics trained in Western countries and then in Japan (Institute for International Cooperation 2003). Since then, an absolute majority of researchers, even in the top universities, have been trained inside Japan using the national language (Yonezawa et al., 2013; Huang et al., 2014). Since the defeat in World War II in 1945, top Japanese researchers have also been given opportunities to study in the USA and Europe, as is widely done in other East and Southeast Asian countries. However, the impact of those researchers trained in Western countries on the national academic system has been much smaller compared to their current impact in other new leading industrial countries in East Asia. In this context, the internationalization of higher education in Japan has been understood as a ‘two arena’ model (Teichler, 1999), namely the double pursuit of exporting its system to other countries and adjusting its system to the world. Even now, a strong national identity is widely observable in the research and education styles of Japanese universities, such as the stress on laboratory work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, and the development of academic research through dialogs in Japanese in the humanities and social sciences. Mainly because of the geopolitical setting, the strength of national boundaries in educational and research activities has remained extremely strong. Since the end of World War II, Japan has been the only country with Japanese as its official language. In addition, a relatively large population (127 million in 2014) and a strong economy (the third largest gross domestic product in the world) have protected the absolute 106

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majority of national university faculty and students from direct exposure to global competition. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, it became evident that Japan was having difficulty maintaining a distinguished, or even competitive, place in a rapidly globalizing research and higher education community. A variety of evidence reveal the weakening competitiveness of Japan’s top universities in research and education. In specific, in the QS world university rankings, the University of Tokyo dropped from nineteenth in 2008 to thirty-first in 2014. The number of Japanese universities ranked among the top 200 has remained relatively stable: from nine in 2008 to 10 in 2014. However, other Asian countries’ universities ranked in the top 200 have increased from 29 in 2008 to 36 in 2014. A Thomson Reuters report (Adams et al., 2010) on Japanese research performance in terms of publications showed that total publication is shrinking, although its quality, as measured in citations, is improving. Saka and Kuwahara (2013) indicated that trends in the number of co-authored publications within nations is not significantly different for Japan, the UK, France, and Germany, but Japan is noticeably behind in the increase in international co-authorship when compared with these countries. In terms of student intake, China and South Korea are becoming competitors in recruiting students from Asia, Africa, and even Europe and the Americas. On the other hand, the number of Japanese studying abroad has decreased from 82,945 in 2004 to 57,501 in 2011 (MEXT, 2014). Over all, the strong national identity of Japanese universities has turned into a weakness with globalization. The mediocre international profile of Japanese students, academics, and the higher education system as a whole is now considered a critical obstacle to Japan’s sustainable development in a globalized knowledge economy. CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE PROGRAMMES

In this context, how have Japanese universities and the government tried to improve the international presence of Japanese higher education? Until the end of the 1990s, most national policies on internationalization mainly focused on accepting international students, with the objective, set in 1983, to invite 100,000 international students by the end of the twentieth century. At that time, the Japanese economy had a high status among Asian economies, and the main role of internationalization in higher education was seen as the dissemination to the world of Japan’s advanced science and technology, as well as its successful model of socioeconomic development. The inherent system and educational content of Japanese universities received quite positive recognition and these were not faced with any substantial challenge from globalization. However, the emergence of newly industrialized economies in East Asia – such as Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea in the 1990s and their aggressive efforts 107

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to develop world-class universities in a globalized environment – without question stimulated Japan’s universities and government. In 2001, Atsuko Toyama, the minister of education, revealed her policy guidelines for forming around 30 worldclass universities out of the then 99 national, 72 local public, and 478 private universities in Japan. In order to achieve this goal, the government started a financial support programme, Twenty-First Century Centres of Excellence (21COE), in 2002. In this programme, 274 internationally competitive research units were chosen, and they received 5 years of financial support of 100–500 million Japanese yen a year. In 2007, the Global Centres of Excellence programme was started as a follow-up to the 21COE programme: A financial support programme that concentrated more on a limited number of research units (140 units receiving 50–300 million Japanese yen a year) and on support for young researchers and international networking. In addition to these COE programmes, the government started a programme, World Premier International Centre Initiatives (WPI), as an even more tightly concentrated programme supporting world-class research for a longer period. This programme started in 2007 by selecting only five research units, and four units were additionally selected by 2012. In this programme, universities are asked to invite top international researchers and to make English an official administrative language. These COE and WPI programmes should be understood as modelled on similar, earlier programmes in South Korea (BK21) and China (the 211 and 985 programmes), which later came to be called ‘excellence initiatives’ and which became an international policy trend (Hazelkorn, 2011; Yonezawa & Hou, 2014). Table 1 shows a list of Japanese universities that have five or more research units selected as research units in the two COE programmes and the WPI programme. The table reveals that these programmes have resulted in a concentrated research investment in a limited number of universities. However, these top universities, especially national universities, have experienced a gradual decrease in financial support from the government’s annual operating budget, especially after the incorporation of national universities in 2004. Partly through efforts to generate new income, such as university-industry links, these top universities’ total income has increased, although not as dramatically as their ‘rivals’ in other East Asian countries. Mohrman (2014) did a comparative study of financial resources of top universities in the USA, Japan, and China, which revealed that Japan’s top universities have already been matched by their Chinese competitors in terms of research funding. STRATEGIC FUND FOR ESTABLISHING INTERNATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN UNIVERSITIES (SIH)

In addition to these successful initiatives to invest financially in research, Japan’s government started a support programme to encourage university reforms toward internationalization. From 2005 to 2009, the government started a programme, the Strategic Fund for Establishing International Headquarters in Universities (SIH) (Ota, 2014). Nineteen universities and an inter-university research institutes were 108

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selected: all seven former imperial universities, eight other national universities, a local public university, and three private universities as shown in Table 1. The selected universities received from 10 to 40 million Japanese yen per year. Based on this funding, the government tried to improve the universities’ strategic approach to internationalization within nine themes: (1) organization and governance for internationalization, (2) goal setting, action plans, and evaluation systems, (3) attracting external funds for international education and research, (4) participating in and utilizing cross-border interuniversity partnerships and consortiums, (5) expansion of international activities based on specific transnational Table 1. Universities that received funding to do world-class research (Five or more units in total) Annual budget

21COE

GCOE

WPI

2002–2008

2007–2013

2007–2021

100–500 million

50–300 million

700–1400 million

N

N

Year

University of Tokyo

28

18

2007

Kyoto University

23

13

2007

Osaka University

15

12

2007

Tohoku University

13

12

2007

Nagoya University

14

7

2012

Hokkaido University

12

7

Kyushu University

8

5

2010

Tokyo Institute of Technology

12

9

2012

Kobe University

7

3

(Japanese Yen) Former imperial

National

Chiba University

4

2

Hitotsubashi University

4

2

Hiroshima University

5

0

University of Tsukuba

4

1

Kumamoto University

2

3

12

7

2012

Private Keio University Waseda University

9

8

Ritsumeikan University

4

3

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research projects, (6) training and recruiting administrative personnel for international programmes, (7) improving services and support for international researchers, (8) expanding overseas study and research opportunities for young Japanese researchers, and (9) establishing and operating overseas bases (Ota, 2014). Through the SIH programme, Japan’s top universities started to think more seriously about strategic planning and management of internationalization in higher education. The project was implemented just after the incorporation of all national and nearly all local public universities around 2004, as part of the introduction of the New Public Management policy. Therefore, the SIH programme helped integrate the efforts of Japan’s leading universities to approach internationally competitiveness more strategically. At this point, however, planning and assessment were implemented quite qualitatively, through a case study approach. In addition, the SIH programme implemented a large-scale survey on internationalization that used various indicators. Although the indicator set was not utilized for the direct assessment of the universities, this survey played a facilitative role by indicating how the government perceived the internationalization performance in higher education organizations (Tokunaga & Momii, 2011). GLOBAL 30 PROGRAMME

By the mid-2000s, Japan achieved a small-scale economic recovery within the longterm trend of an economic recession. At the same time, the increasing economic and diplomatic presence of East Asian neighbours, such as China, South Korea, and ASEAN countries, made Japan feel the need to reconsider its diplomatic strategy. In 2007, the government published the Asian Gateway Initiative report, which stated that Japan should take up a position as an ‘Asian gateway’ to encourage links with mainly the Western world. This report also pointed out the importance of strengthening the international presence of the Japanese higher education system both through research excellence and the acceptance of large numbers of international students. Following up on this report, the government revealed its plan to accept 300,000 international students by 2020, that is, to more than double the numbers from 123,829 in 2008. At the same time, to improve the international presence of Japanese leading universities, including their positions in world university rankings, the government created a plan to select around 30 universities to become globally competitive. In this policy context, the Global 30 programme started in 2008, with the first 13 universities selected in 2009. The selection criteria were clearly set so that universities with large and competitive research capacities would be selected: 340 or more postgraduate degrees granted annually, acquisition of 130 or more governmental research grants, acceptance of 300 or more international students from more than 4 countries, 50 or more students sent abroad, employment of more than 45 international faculty members, participation in international university 110

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consortiums, plans to have international students be 20% of the student body, a total number of international students of more than 2,599 by 2020, and a plan to have 10% of its faculty be international by 2020. These indicators are clearly related to the indicators utilized at that time by the QS/Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings. In addition, the universities applying to the programme were also asked to submit their plans to establish at least one undergraduate and one postgraduate degree programme in English, on top of any existing programmes. At that time, no Japanese national universities provided undergraduate degree programmes with lectures in English. These universities also had to set up offices abroad to recruit students and make these offices available to other Japanese universities – to supplement the functions of the governmental institution, Japan Student Services Organization. In this programme, seven national universities (of these, six were former imperial universities) and six private universities were selected, as shown in Table 2. However, this programme’s funding is not directed at research activities, as in the COE and WPI programmes. The five-year funding of the Global 30 programme was to encourage the internationalization of universities, and universities set their own achievement goals, such as increasing degree programmes in English at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and the number of international students and faculty members. To achieve these goals, universities published a plan of organizational reforms, and the process was monitored by interim and final assessments. At the same time, the selected universities had regular meetings with other member universities and the government and also collaborated on many occasions, such as at university fairs overseas or in dissemination seminars. In the Japanese government’s original plan, around 30 universities were scheduled to be selected. However, the first round of selections was limited to 13 universities, mainly because of budgetary constraints. Subsequently, the second round to select the rest of the universities did not happen because a new government led by the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), from December 2009 on, replaced the long-established government led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). This new government set a priority on equal access to higher education, as well as international networking among various types of universities, rather than the concentration of resources on a limited number of universities. Nonetheless, the Global 30 and Global COE projects continued until their final year as planned. In 2009, 11 top research universities (nine national: Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagoya University, Osaka University, and Kyushu University and two private: Waseda University and Keio University) established a consortium, Research University 11. These universities, which ranked within the top 200 in world university rankings, started regular meetings of their top administrators, and the consortium issued occasional policy proposals signed by the presidents of member universities. 111

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GLOBAL HUMAN RESOURCE AND STRATEGIC LINKS

In addition to recruiting international students, international experiences for Japanese students and youngsters also became a serious issue. As mentioned above, Japan’s economic development after World War II was largely achieved through strong national integrity, and studying abroad to develop professional careers was not a strong custom, in contrast to other Asian countries. Although the number of Japanese studying abroad increased up to the beginning of the 2000s, most of these came back to Japan, so the ‘brain drain’ phenomena has never been a serious political issue in this country. Led by the DPJ, the government announced its idea of sending 300,000 Japanese to study abroad by 2020 (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, 2010), eventually setting the official target as 120,000 Japanese studying abroad by 2020 (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, 2013), after the LDP and others came back into power. To facilitate study abroad activities in universities, the government started the Project for Promotion of Global Human Resource Development in 2012. The government selected 11 universities that promoted global human resource development at the university level (type A) and 31 universities that promoted specific programmes of global human resource development as a part of their university curricula (type B). In type A, only two former imperial universities were selected (Hokkaido University and Tohoku University), as well as two national universities (Chiba University and Ochanomizu University), one local public university (Akita International University), and six private universities (International Christian University, Chuo University, Waseda University, Doshisha University, Kwansei Gakuin University, and Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University). Kyushu University, another former imperial university, was selected as a type B. The selection results, however, did not necessarily match the international reputations of these universities for research performance. In addition to the above programme, the government also started a five-year funding project, Re-inventing Japan, in 2011, which aimed to develop global human resources among Japanese youths and to develop Japanese universities’ capacity for international activities. In 2011, this programme was implemented as a core project of Collective Action for Mobility Programme of University Students (CAMPUS Asia), a higher education collaboration for student exchange and quality assurance between Japan, South Korea, and China. That same year, universities of these three countries were asked to submit their student exchange plans for joint education programmes, and a selection was made by joint committees from these three countries. Proposals for joint education partnerships with universities in the USA, Europe, and Australia were also funded through a selection process in Japan only. The next year, the programme set specific targets for student exchange partnerships with ASEAN countries, in 2012 and 2013, and with Russia and India in 2014.

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These programmes for enhancing international student mobility are not necessarily linked with the idea of establishing world-class universities. Nonetheless, the top universities tend to be selected frequently, reflecting their strong international capacity, in both the academic activities and administrative functions needed to write up well-organized proposal documents. STRENGTHENING GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES

After the LDP regained power in 2012, the general policy direction started to put more focus on improving the international competitiveness of higher education organizations. In his first statement to the Diet in January 2013, the current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, identified Japan’s universities as a symbol of national strength. Through his initiative, the Japanese government set an official policy goal of making 10 universities achieve a ranking in the top 100 universities worldwide (Education Rebuilding Council, 2013). Currently, the rapid improvement of the research performance of other top universities in the Asia Pacific region is perceived as a threat to top Japanese universities’ ability to maintain their status. This issue is also attracting much attention among policy makers, and the government has strengthened its strategic policies of improving the world-class status of Japan’s universities. The government has set up two main programmes for improving the global competitiveness of Japanese research universities, creating different budgetary streams through governance and management reform. The first is the Programme for Promoting the Enhancement of Research Universities (PPERU). This started as a part of the science promotion budget, in 2013, and it was set up to support 22 selected universities for 10 years. The annual funds available are divided into three categories: 400 million Japanese yen for four former imperial universities (Tohoku University, University of Tokyo, Nagoya University, and Kyoto University), 300 million Japanese yen to two former imperial universities (Osaka University and Kyushu University), two comprehensive national university (University of Tsukuba and Hiroshima University), four national universities in the science and technology fields (Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, University of Electro Communications, and Nara Institute of Science and Technology), one private university (Waseda University), and three inter-university research institutes. Other selected universities include one former imperial university (Hokkaido University) and one private university (Keio University) that receive 200 million Japanese yen. These funds are not directly utilized for research activities but are used mainly to improve research strategy and management in these universities and inter-university research institutes. The second programme is the Top Global University Project, which started in 2014, again a 10-year funding programme. This is a part of the higher education policies budget, and it seeks to increase international recognition and competitiveness. The 113

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programme provides two categories in funding, namely type A (top universities that can aim at the top 100 in world rankings through world-class education and research, receiving 500 million Japanese yen per year) and type B (universities that can lead Japanese society in globalization, getting 200–300 million Japanese yen per year). In type A, 13 universities were selected: all seven former imperial universities, two comprehensive national universities (University of Tsukuba and Hiroshima University), two national universities in the science and technology fields (Tokyo Medical and Dental University and Tokyo Institute of Technology), and two private universities (Keio University and Waseda University), as shown in Table 2. In type B, 24 universities (10 national universities, 2 local public universities, and 12 private universities) were selected. The type A programme seeks to foster Japanese universities’ efforts to place higher in world university rankings. These universities were asked to provide their concrete plans to improve their ranking with various externally available data, such as citations, international co-authorship, international joint research projects, and consignment study projects. In addition, these universities were asked for a selfevaluation of their strong and weak fields and their strategies for improving their research performance as a whole. Both type A and type B universities were asked to provide highly detailed data and mainly numerical achievement goals not only directly related to internationalization but also to university reform in general. These included, among others, indicators related to international and gender diversity, student mobility and exchange, systems to support student mobility, provision of classes and degree programmes in foreign languages, Japanese language education, curriculum management and quality assurance of educational programmes meeting international standards, flexible academic calendars, international student recruiting and alumni networks, international dormitories, information provision in foreign languages, reforms of personnel policies and university governance, improvement of teaching and learning, entrance examination reform, and information disclosure. The government is planning to make interim assessments in the third and seventh year, in addition to the final assessment of this 10-year project. For these, the universities will be asked to report and assess how well they have achieved their plans, focusing mostly on quantitative goals. The selected universities set their achievement goals autonomously, in principle, based on their own strategic plans. However, in order to be selected, the universities had to set achievement goals that appeared to be ‘desirable’ from the national government’s viewpoint. Overall, both the PPERU and Top Global University programmes do not directly support research activities, but university governance and management reform improves international competitiveness. Overall, the amount of funds is extremely small compared to the total income of the selected, research-intensive universities. Subsequently, the governance and university reform plans of respective universities are to be made public on a website and strictly monitored by the government, which will give suggestions and make requests during selection, interim, and final assessments. 114

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Table 2. Universities that received funding for internationalization to become world-class Annual budget (Japanese Yen)

SIH

Global 30

Top global university

2005–2009

2009–2014

2014–2023

10–40 million 200–400 million 500 million (type A) Former imperial Hokkaido University

x

Tohoku University

x

x

x x

University of Tokyo

x

x

x

Nagoya University

x

x

x

Kyoto University

x

x

x

Osaka University

x

x

x

Kyushu University

x

x

x

x

x

National University of Tsukuba Hiroshima University

x

x

Tokyo Institute of Technology

x

x

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

x

Tokyo Medical and Dental University

x

Hitotsubashi University

x

Niigata University

x

Kobe University

x

Tottori University

x

Nagasaki University

x

Local public Aizu University

x

Private Keio University

x

x

x

Waseda University

x

x

x

Meiji University

x

Sophia University

x

Doshisha University

x

Ritsumeikan University

x

Tokai University

x

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CONCLUSIONS

From the above analysis of various policy initiatives and budgetary programmes, the following conclusion can be made: The construction of world-class universities not only implies concentrated financial investment but also a comprehensive transformation of university governance in a global context. However, this global context itself is not necessarily defined by autonomous decisions of the universities themselves but rather by government policy forces, at least in Japan. At the same time, considerable overlap exists between the lists of universities selected for the various funding projects. As a result, Japan’s top universities – represented by the former imperial universities and the long-established prestigious private universities – tend to strengthen their capacity in the course of both the excellence initiatives in research and university management and governance reforms, by successfully participating in funded projects. On the other hand, in the last decade or two, the gap has probably widened between these top universities and universities with defined international profiles and other colleges and universities in the middle and lower ranges, which cater more to the domestic student and labour market and have insufficient funding for internationalization. Two major challenges remain among top Japanese research universities in terms of maintaining and improving their international presence. First, it is still unclear whether the above-mentioned government-led transformation of university governance through the process of internationalization has actually led to a substantial improvement in the international presence and competitiveness for Japan’s top universities. Japanese universities still rely heavily on domestic resources in research, education, and even university reforms to achieve internationalization. Their weak exposure to market mechanisms, which are incentives to participate in the competition for international academic resources, may set limits on these institutions’ further improvement in international competitiveness. Second, the internationalization of a wider range of education and research institutions must be pursued, as a nation, to stimulate domestic competition in the internationalization of the education system and Japan’s society as a whole. The government is now setting up a cabinet-level council to revitalize the entire educational system. However, the tension between the desire for a global or cosmopolitan profile and the preservation of national identity – as well as between the drive in state policy toward efficiency and the decentralized nature of academic autonomy – is becoming more apparent. The findings and implications of this paper, based on Japan, clearly call for a more reflective examination of the historical context, current status, and future of university governance in East Asian higher education. NOTE 1

This chapter was first published in Higher Education, 70(2), pp. 173–186 (August 2015). Reprinted with permission.

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REFERENCES Adams, J., King, C., Miyairi, N., & Pendrebury, D. (2010). Global research report. Leeds: Thomson Reuters. Altbach, P. G., & Bala’n, J. (2007). World class worldwide: Transforming research universities in Asia and Latin America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Altbach, P. G., & Salmi, J. (2011). The road to academic excellence: The making of world-class research universities. Washington, DC: World Bank. Amano, I. (1998). Postwar Japanese education: A history of reform and counter reform. In E. R. Beauchamp (Ed.), Education and schooling in Japan since 1945 (pp. 152–166). New York, NY: Garland. Douglass, J. A. (2000). The California idea and American higher education: 1850 to the 1960 master plan. Redwood City, CA: Stanford University Press. Education Rebuilding Council. (2013). University education and global human resource development for the future (Third Proposal). Tokyo: Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet. Hazelkorn, E. (2011). Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Huang, F. (2005). Qualitative enhancement and quantitative growth: Changes and trends of China’s higher education. Higher Education Policy, 18(2), 117–130. Huang, F. (2009). The internationalization of the academic profession in Japan: A quantitative perspective. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13(2), 143–158. Huang, F., Finkelstein, M., & Rostan, M. (2014). The internationalization of the academy: Changes, realities and prospects. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Hur, J., & Bessey, D. (2013). A comparison of higher education reform in South Korea and Germany. Asia Pacific Education Review, 14(2), 113–123. Institute for International Cooperation, Japan International Cooperation Agency. (2003). The history of Japan’s educational development: What implications can be drawn for developing countries today. Tokyo: Institute for International Cooperation, Japan International Cooperation Agency. Kaneko, M. (2004). Japanese higher education: Contemporary reform and the influence of tradition. In P. G. Altbach & T. Umakishi (Eds.), Asian universities: Historical perspectives and contemporary challenges (pp. 115–143). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kaneko, M. (2009). Incorporation of national universities in Japan design, implementation and consequences. Asia Pacific Education Review, 10(1), 59–67. Kyvik, S. (2004). Structural changes in higher education systems in Western Europe. Higher Education in Europe, 29(3), 393–409. Marginson, S., Kaur, S., & Sawir, E. (2011). Higher education in the Asia-Pacific: Strategic responses to globalization. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. MEXT. (2014). Nihon jin no ryugaku jokyo (Study abroad by Japanese). Tokyo: MEXT. [in Japanese]. Retrieved December 25, 2014, from http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/ryugaku/__icsFiles/ afieldfile/2014/04/07/1345878_01.pdf Mohrman, K. (2014). Global competition among research universities. In Y. Cheng, Q. Wang, & N. Liu (Eds.), How world-class universities affect global higher education (pp. 177–191). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Moon, M., & Kim, K. S. (2001). A case of Korean higher education reform: The Brain Korea 21 Project. Asia Pacific Education Review, 2(2), 96–105. Newby, H., Weko, T., Breneman, D., Johanneson, T., & Maassen, P. (2009). OECD reviews of tertiary education: Japan. Paris: OECD. Ota, H. (2014). Japanese universities’ strategic approach to internationalization: Accomplishments and challenges. In A. Yonezawa, Y. Kitamura, A. Meerman, & K. Kuroda (Eds.), Emerging international dimensions in East Asian higher education (pp. 227–252). Dordrecht: Springer. Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet. (2010). On the new growth strategy. Tokyo: Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet. Retrieved December 25, 2014, from http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/ economy/growth/report20100618.pdf

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Akiyoshi Yonezawa Tohoku University Yukiko Shimmi Hitotsubashi University

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7. CHINA’S HIGHER EDUCATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Leader or Follower in the ‘World-Class’ Movement?

INTRODUCATION

A rapidly growing body of scholarly literature has evolved to describe the impressive scale and pace at which the Chinese higher education has developed over recent decades. This is often being analysed as a response to globalization. China’s desire to become a globally competitive economy is driving its policies to increase student enrolment, to improve degree standards and teaching quality, and to boost investments in research and development in a range of selected institutions, thus developing a stratified system with World-Class Universities (WCUs) at its top end and aiming to raise its global visibility. These policies are considered to be following successful Western (mostly US) models and good practices, although it is underlined that China would adopt these by ‘creative adaptation’ and with ‘Chinese characteristics.’ Yet it is time to view China not just as a follower, but also to look at its (potential) role as a global leader in higher education. Data for this project were collected by extensive desk research and through a series of international conferences, round tables, and expert interviews. Consequently, a series of some 30 semi-structured multi-stakeholder interviews was undertaken in China and Hong Kong with representatives from Chinese academia (C-ACAD), international academia (I-ACAD), Chinese administrators in universities and government (C-ADMIN), and from international administrators (I-ADMIN) and international business (I-BUS) active in China. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Higher education institutions are increasingly globally exposed and engaged, but strongly nationally embedded at the same time. Nation-states have played a crucial role since the nineteenth century in the development of the modern university, with training programmes for important state functions. They have always sought to preserve universities to serve national needs in terms of social and economic development. The internationalization of higher education has developed since, following major political and economic developments such as the post-war N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 119–137. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

M. VAN DER WENDE & J. ZHU

reconstruction, decolonization, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and regional integration in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. From the end of the 20th century onwards, the internationalization of higher education has been increasingly contextualized by globalization, with its key trends of deregulation, liberalization and privatization, towards a globally competitive knowledge economy, enhancing the role of higher education in developing human capital for domestic economic growth and global competition (Van der Wende, 2001, 2010). Globalization is characterized by the intensification of worldwide social relations (Giddens, 2000), the widening, intensifying, speeding up, and growing impact of world-wide interconnectedness (Held et al., 1999), and cannot be regarded simply as a higher form of internationalization. Internationalization refers in the literal sense to any relationship across borders between nations, or between single institutions situated within them. It assumes that nation-states continue to function as bounded economic, social, and cultural systems. In contrast, globalization puts emphasis on an increasing convergence and interdependence of economies and societies and a de-nationalization and integration of regulatory systems is expected. Whether national systems become more integrated as suggested by globalization, or more interconnected as with internationalization, can be seen as central distinctions between the two concepts. Internationalization is a process more readily steerable by governments than is globalization, which is creating a dynamic impact and an environment in which it is no longer possible for individual states or institutions to seal themselves off from global effects (Marginson & Van der Wende, 2009). Internationalization of higher education is thus one possible response to globalization and can be defined as: ‘Any systematic, sustained effort aimed at making higher education institutions more effective in response to the globalization of societies, cultures, economies, and labor markets’ (Van der Wende, 1997). The relationship between the concepts of internationalization and globalization is thus not linear or cumulative, but of a different order. It could in fact be seen as a dialectical one in the sense that ‘Not all universities are (particularly) international, but all universities are subject to the same process of globalization – partly as objects, victims even, of these processes, but partly as subjects, or key agents of globalization’ (Scott, 1998, p. 122). This chapter will explore this dialectic with respect to China’s role both as an object and a subject of globalization; as a follower and a (potential) global leader in higher education. Several scholars (Douglass, 2012; Kirby, 2014; Rhoads, Wang, Shi, & Chang, 2014, among others) engaged in this discussion point to the fast expansion of Chinese higher education, while expressing concerns about the conditions and constraints under which this is currently taking place. It is too early to assess China’s (potential) global leadership in higher education, given the fact that the criteria for determining global positions are relatively new, with very few Chinese institutions qualifying as WCUs. Moreover, change is slow in higher education. Interviewees from international business argue that it seems to be the slowest sector in China to completely open up to globalization and consequent reforms. 120

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Taking this comprehensive and complex approach seems to be crucial in analyzing China’s role in global higher education and is encouraged by China scholars like Shambaugh (2013), who stresses that after three decades during which observers have watched how the world has impacted China, it is now necessary to understand how China is impacting the world in a range of different dimensions; and Wasserstrom (2014), who states that: ‘with China and globalization, we should not choose between thinking of the Chinese state as only either being reshaped by international forces or itself reshaping the global structure. We are instead better off drawing from all of these perspectives at once.’ This may shed new light on the integration versus interconnection paradigms as discussed above. In any case, the unprecedented degree to which Chinese universities have become globally engaged and their students and faculty have become active and mobile internationally should be taken seriously into account, as well as the influential governmental interventions in the sector, which have already been followed in a range of other countries. THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA’S HIGHER EDUCATION IN RESPONSE TO GLOBALIZATION

China has been developing its higher education system over the last few decades at an unprecedented and unmatched scale and pace and its system is now the largest in the world. Building on a long tradition of academic excellence, but they are effectively restarting from a devastated higher education landscape after the nationalization (or Sovietization) of institutions in the 1950s, and their closure or destruction in the 1960s during the Cultural Revolution. Since 1978, under Deng Xiaoping’s Open Door Policy, the scale of higher education started to develop slowly and gradually and this has accelerated since the 1990s (Shen & Jiang, 2013). Quantitative expansion in terms of student enrolment rose from 7.2% of young adults aged 18–22 year in 1995 to 26.5% in 2010 and is projected to attain 40% in 2020. In 2014, a 37.5% enrolment was already achieved, signifying 35.6 million full-time students, including 312,700 doctoral students, and 2,824 institutions graduating 6.6 million students (MoE, 2015a). Qualitative growth was stimulated through large-scale national initiatives aimed at creating centres of excellence and WCUs, known as the projects 211 and 985, followed by the 2020 Blueprint (or China’s 2010 National Plan for Medium and Long Term Educational Reform and Development) (MoE, 2010) and the recent ‘World Class 2.0’ scheme (State Council of People’s Republic of China, 2015). Investments have grown substantially and China now has the second largest R&D budget in the world (since 2013), supported by the (probably) largest economy in purchasing-power parities (PPP) (Stiglitz, 2015). However, a recent White Paper notes that the average academic impact of Chinese research is not yet matching its growth in output and needs to improve in quality to support China’s aim to move towards a more sustainable knowledge-based economy (Nature Publishing Group, 2015). 121

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Like in many other countries, internationalization has been a key part of this national strategy for the development of Chinese higher education, with – also not uncommon – student mobility as its main feature. China is sending more students abroad than any other country. 712,157 in 2013, according to international data, while receiving only some 96,409 international students in the same year (UNESCO, 2015). Data from the Chinese Ministry of Education report more balanced numbers: 459,800 Chinese studying abroad versus 377,054 international students in China in 2014 (IIE, 2015). It aims to bring back Chinese who studied abroad, encourages non-returnees to contribute to R&D in China from abroad, and has engaged in Sino-foreign partnerships so as to facilitate the establishment of foreign branch campuses of (mainly Anglo-Saxon) universities, which is seen as a more affordable alternative to studying abroad. Interviews reveal that Chinese representatives are mostly positive about the universities’ current practices for internationalization. But interviewees from international business are concerned about the depth and pace of internationalization and miss a more sophisticated focus on international content. As one interviewee pointed out, ‘Globalization is still in its first stage for Chinese universities. The collaboration and joint ventures are the structural issues. On the content issue, there is still a long way to go to be globalized. […] Currently, it is still in process, the structural issue, which is the easy part.’ Higher education in China is also still first and foremost a national affair. It has a long history of education for government service and also today still has a primarily national purpose: ‘Education is the cornerstone of national rejuvenation […] The strategic goals to be attained by 2020 are to modernize education, bring a learning society into shape, and turn China into a country rich in human resources’ (MoE, 2010). And like in many nations, this human capital agenda for higher education is increasingly contextualized by globalization as a driving factor providing mainly economic rationales: the aim of developing domestic capacity (talent) for economic growth and competition in the global knowledge economy. China’s response to globalization includes an internationalization strategy as a means to enhance this capacity in both quantitative and qualitative terms rather than as a goal in itself. However, there are significant specific challenges and concerns related to the speedy growth of the Chinese higher education system, including the sometimes paradoxical nature of the country’s policies in this sector, especially with regard to internationalization. The historical, geographic, and cultural intricacies of its international engagement, as well as the national regulatory frameworks guiding it, will be key to understand China’s global agency and its (potential) role as a global leader in higher education. Growth and Beyond: New Challenges and Persistent Concerns Research and critical debate on the extraordinary growth of the Chinese higher education system involves a broad range of Chinese and international scholars (Altbach, 2009; Rhoads, Wang, Shi, & Chang, 2014; Douglass, 2012; Jiang, 2012, 122

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2015; Kirby, 2014; Postiglione, 2015; Shen & Jiang, 2013; Marginson, 2011; among others). The most commonly raised issue regards the rapid growth in quantity in relation to the necessary raise in quality. The 2020 Blueprint indeed points out that the core mission for the development of China’s higher education in the next decade is to improve quality, referring to the teaching, research, and service functions of the universities as well as their infrastructure (MoE, 2010). Clearly the challenge for China is to develop an institutional quality culture, built on systematic evaluation, assessment, and self-improvement, linked to a performance-based human resources management, including opportunities for faculty development and transparent procedures for promotion and tenure. All different stakeholders interviewed agreed that quality improvement in Chinese higher education is very much needed. The fact that many top students still choose to study abroad confirms in their view the lag in the quality and competitiveness of Chinese higher education. It is acknowledged that building WCUs is not sufficient, as also the quality of a broad range of local and vocational institutions needs to be improved. And that new international or local initiatives, such as NYU-Shanghai, Schwarzman College, or ShanghaiTech,1 cannot be expected to impact the system as a whole. Moreover, governmental efforts should not be focused solely on research, but as much on elevating teaching, beyond its often criticized focus on rote learning for memorization into more innovative methods encouraging interactive learning processes, and the development of critical thinking and creativity. The second area of concern is the growth of enrolment in the midst of high graduate unemployment rates (17.6% in 2013). Skills supply and demand are very difficult to match given the strong dynamics of China’s labour market in its transition from a developing country to an economic superpower. In interviews, Chinese administrators declare a utilitarian view and are determined that ‘the core function of Chinese universities, or even universities in the world, is to serve the need of economic development.’ Broader academic debates are more nuanced and argue on the one hand that more general education should be introduced into the curriculum to make students more all-round, adaptable and ready for an innovationoriented economy (Cao, 2010). On the other hand, it is argued that, especially newly established undergraduate colleges that tend to teach liberal arts, should be transformed into German-style universities of applied science, geared towards the current, largely manufacturing-driven economy (Jiang, 2015). Interviewees point to the problem of convergence and stress that not every university should develop into a large comprehensive institution. Instead, diversity needs to be further encouraged, because currently ‘every university wants to become Tsinghua or Beida’ (C-ADMIN). “China needs a world-class system, not just a few WCUs at the top and the rest ranging from mediocre to bad.” Meanwhile, it is noted that: ‘China may produce WCUs in terms of a top 100 ranking, but they are not really WCUs yet in terms of their organizational culture, human and financial resources’ (C-ACAD). The third area of concern regards the growing inequality that has paralleled the expansion of higher education as expressed in shrinking numbers of students from 123

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rural areas and rising tuition fees, especially for disadvantaged students in private institutions. This is combined with greater income disparity, while segregation may further be enhanced by ethnic, diversity and minority issues. Interviews reveal divergent views also on this issue. Chinese administrators highlight the success of the 211 and 985 projects as the only feasible way of developing higher education with limited resources. Chinese academics point out that this approach has increased regional inequalities between coastal areas and inland China, and among different ethnic groups. In their view, there should be a more egalitarian development in higher education: ‘Instead of aggressively creating WCUs at the expense of other HEIs, China should as a socialist country be able to demonstrate a more egalitarian development towards a world-class system.’ The fourth and probably most intensively discussed concern is the weak academic freedom of faculty, their feeble involvement in university governance, the parallel or dual governance structures, and the low degree of institutional autonomy in Chinese universities. Interviews reveal that some policy makers recognize the need for more autonomy in order to reach the next stage in the development of WCUs, while others hold that this would be possible under the current governance rules, referring to the already successful rise of some Chinese WCUs on the ARWU ranking under the current regime. An experiment has been launched in Tsinghua and Peking Universities and Shanghai City to pilot a series of ‘Comprehensive Reform’ practices, which would involve substantial change in areas such as human resources (Liu, 2015). Whether such extended autonomy would actually diminish the considerable impact of the central government in the recruitment and appointment of party secretaries as described by Huang (2015) remains to be seen. These reforms are expected to take at least a number of years before actual implementation (Jiang, 2015) and are already criticized for not taking the diversity of institutional types and missions into account (Hu & Qin, 2015). Chinese interviewees expect that: ‘The new practices of Peking and Tsinghua will impact MoE’s policy making and may become the standard that other universities will be expected to follow’ (C-ADMIN). They also acknowledge the growing bureaucratic pressures resulting from the government’s anti-corruption campaign and an increased awareness of accountability in universities as beneficiaries of public budgets in a low-trust environment. Their responses affirm a lack of knowledge of effective alternative governance models, and the need for Chinese research on international best practices in this area. Growing bureaucratic pressures have been paralleled by new governmental guidelines to suppress the teaching of ‘wrong Western values’ (see next section for more details). These ideological issues catch much attention in Western debate and media, where the common view is that academic freedom, faculty involvement in governance, and institutional autonomy are essential conditions for academic excellence. It is also argued that Chinese notions of academic freedom should be considered as distinctively different from those in the West (Marginson, 2015; Postiglione, 2015). Interviews reveal that Chinese academics may be rather pragmatic about it and would see bureaucracy, the lack of transparency, academic 124

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fraud, corruption, and seniority weight as bigger problems. Most importantly, it was noted that concerns of academic freedom seem to be relative to disciplines; engineers for instance would not experience this as much as faculty in the humanities. And for obvious reasons: ‘the Chinese government wants students to learn to see the world in the Chinese way, therefore history is so important’ (C-ACAD). This is not unique in China, as the reading and teaching of history is in many countries is biased by national inclinations. It can also be argued more generally that most of these issues are not unique: ‘China’s expansion and rise in rankings is unmatched anywhere. Its problems in access, equality and governance are shared everywhere’ (Kirby, 2014, p. 155). Yet they are clearly more politically sensitive in light of China’s exceptional size and rapid economic growth under a basically unreformed communist political system (Perry, 2014, p. 8). Paradoxes and Ambiguous Policies China’s policies for higher education reflect, certainly for outsiders, a number of contradictory elements or paradoxes. Firstly, there is the strong focus by the government on fostering an innovation-based economic growth model, while it is at the same time impeding the required reform in terms of institutional autonomy, academic freedom and modern teaching and learning approaches. This was for instance illustrated in recent publications by the Ministry of Education (2015b) on the role imposed on university campuses in generating government propaganda, i.e. in strengthening the Party’s core values and ideology, contrasting the Prime Minister’s expectations regarding their role in stimulating innovation and student entrepreneurship (Xinghua News, 2015). In our interviews, all stakeholders agree that the development of an innovation-driven economy and a manufacturingtechnology upgrade (as envisaged in the new Industry 4.0 strategy) would require a more and better qualified talent pool than currently produced by the Chinese higher education system. International business representatives highlight the need for extra on-the-job training for Chinese graduates, particularly in soft skills. Also, Chinese interviewees point to the need for students to engage in authentic innovative activities, extracurricular activities for strengthened university-industry collaboration, underpinned by China’s concern that it produces fewer innovative and creative thinkers than its global competitors. International experts argue that the government’s utilitarian focus on education for national strength and developing talent for the collective good is at odds with the concept of a more general or liberal education aimed at liberating and educating the individual to be critical thinker and an active citizen, as currently developed at top Chinese universities (Kirby, 2014). Cultural factors such as the tradition of acquiring encyclopaedic knowledge based on Confucian values – rote learning and memorizing existing facts – may actually inhibit critical thinking, creativity, and discovering new solutions (Douglass, 2012). Others state, however, that we should look beyond stereotyping claims that Chinese classrooms and science would generally or naturally 125

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lack critical thought, or creativity, or the standard critique of the examination system in that respect (Marginson, 2015; Postiglione, 2015). Nevertheless, interviewees all agree that there is a need for more elements of a liberal arts and sciences model in the Chinese higher educational system and for creativity and critical thinking. International interviewees emphasize that for creativity and innovation to flourish, fidelity to truth and freedom of inquiry is indispensable, but is currently hindered in China by the fear of doing or saying something wrong or politically incorrect. A deeper integration of the liberal arts and sciences model into the university would make the Chinese system far more globally influential, but the conundrum is this: the model may be seen as a solution for training the much sought-after 21st century skills, like creativity and critical thinking, thus serving the increasingly economic and utilitarian emphasis imposed on Chinese education; yet its humanistic, moral, and ethical values may be in conflict with China’s political and cultural persuasions and cannot be offered in the absence of academic freedom (Kirby & Van der Wende, 2016). Not only are Western scholars questioning the inconsistencies of the Chinese policies and models for higher education. Jiang and Xu (2014) point to three paradoxes in the area of civic and political education in China. In fact, they say, the sole focus is on political education at the expense of moral education. Moreover, there are no clear concepts regarding the development of world citizens, the emphasis on world citizenship education is insufficient, and there is even a narrow-minded preference for nationalism (see also Camicia & Zhu, 2011). Postiglione (2015) also refers to the tension between the goals of internationalization, institutional autonomy, and the safeguarding of national educational sovereignty, which creates an unambiguous paradox in China’s higher education policy. China’s aim to boost its global competitiveness and to develop international talent by means of sending millions of students abroad, stimulating international experience among its faculty, and encouraging Sino-foreign cooperation, is contrasted by persistent concerns about cultural colonialism or Western imperialism, and the infiltration of Western values via textbooks and the internet. This goes in part back to the role of missionary universities from Europe and the US in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, followed by antiimperialist movements in the 1920s (Rhoads et al., 2014). But after several decades of opening up started by Deng Xiaoping and sustained by his successors, the current Xi Jinping’s government is again very concerned about the national heritage at risk in the face of globalization. This is leading to a renewed wave of tightening ideological control of higher education institutions, increasing pressure on academic freedom, and the consequent risk for ‘dissident’ academics of being penalized (Sharma, 2013). Most notable was the announcement in 2013 of guidelines suppressing classroom discussion spreading ‘Western values,’ such as human rights, freedom of the press, rule of law, and civil society, that could undermine party rule. In early 2015, education minister Yuan warned against the ideological risks for education in China’s period of opening to the outside world, accusing some countries of 126

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feeding their own propaganda into China’s education system: ‘In recent years, some countries have viewed China’s rise as a challenge to their institutional patterns and political values, so they have intensified infiltrating and dividing China with more covert means.’ Consequently, textbooks should show the mainstream ideology of China, while those disseminating the ‘wrong Western values’ should be prevented from entering its universities and colleges. A range of textbooks guided by Marxism should be built so as to support mainstream ideology, the minister added (Xinhua, 30 January 2015). These views were based on the Central Committee and State Council’s ‘Opinions concerning Further Strengthening and Improving Propaganda and Ideology Work in Higher Education Under New Circumstances’ (published 19 January 2015) and echoed in a statement by Peking University’s Party Secretary Zhu Shanlu, saying that education should strongly focus on ‘Marxism and communist beliefs, the study of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and propaganda of the Chinese dream’ (Zhu, 2015). The notion that Western ideas are potentially subversive has been greeted with widespread disbelief, especially by Chinese academics, noting that Marx was not an Eastern person and that Marxism, socialism, and communism are Western imports (Levin, 2015; Yeung, 2015). Another paradox indeed. While opportunities to freely learn Western values during study abroad continue to grow, restrictions on the import of what is seen as subversive ideas seem to be sustained or (re-)enhanced. Western scholars in China report on academic ‘no go zones’ in fields such as international relations, China’s foreign policy and human rights (Shambaugh, 2013). Reports also address issues in political sciences, regarding the disruption of personal VPN connections as solutions for limited internet access, and the confiscation of Western textbooks at the Chinese border (Bell, 2015). Concerns have been raised that foreign scholars are blacklisted if their findings or even the focus of their research is seen as a threat to the party state. Moreover, a draft law regulating foreign NGOs has been presented, which would restrain activities ‘not in the national interest or threatening national security.’ This could have serious effects on collaboration with Chinese institutions and cause risks for foreign guest lecturers and international branch campuses operating in China. If they would indeed be considered to be foreign NGOs, ‘It would seriously undermine the ability of universities like NYU to operate in China according to principles of academic freedom,’ as commented by NYU-Shanghai’s vice-chancellor (Sharma, 2015). There is a contradiction between China’s desire to be a leader in the global economy and to restrict academic freedom at the same time. Admittedly: ‘To Westerners, it seems very incongruous to be, on the one hand, so committed to fostering more competition and market-driven flexibility in the economy and, on the other hand, to be seeking more control in the political sphere, the media, and the internet. To maintain economic growth, China is straining to promote innovation, but by enforcing a political chill on Chinese campuses [President] Xi risks suppressing precisely the disruptive thinking that the country needs for the future’ (Osnos, 2015). It could actually be the stagnating confidence in the rapid economic growth, which 127

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have until now confirmed the correctness of the party’s policies, that explains the recent restrictions on the discussion of sensitive topics at universities. It may be a sign of concern about possible public unrest and continued party domination. Greater ideological allowance is clearly a broader issue, as ‘Herein lies the paradox of China’s economic liberalization’ (Abrami et al., 2014). CHINA’S EMERGING GLOBAL ROLE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

China clearly is one of the winners of globalization. But as much as it may be seen as a new leader, or even a threat, it may consider itself still as a developing, poor or even backward country with a keen interest to learn from the West, i.e. as a follower. It would consider its rise first of all as a project of China’s modernization (Daly, 2015), yet in a very uneven and still incomplete way (Wang, 2015). And secondly, as a realization of the Chinese dream, which is different from the American dream in that it is not a dream about individual freedom (Ljunggren, 2015), and different from wanting to be ‘number one,’ according to Stiglitz (2015a). There is no single Chinese perception of globalization. Shambaugh (2013) analyzes the variation in China’s global identities and the gradual shift from denying China as a world power, insisting on its identity as a developing socialist country, to acknowledging it as a regional power, and actually as an emerging world power. Discussions then focus on what kind of major power and what kind of global role and responsibility it should develop. J. Wang (2015) critically notes in this respect that China should reconsider its perception of dichotomizing the world into the ‘developing’ versus the ‘developed,’ or into the West versus the non-west. Instead, it should serve as a bridge between the two. Our interviews reveal that perceptions also differ within the higher education sector and that the idea of China as a global leader in higher education is rather novel. Yet all interviewees agree that China cannot just copy other higher education systems, because ‘China is so different, its culture is unique.’ While also stating that: ‘China doesn’t want to lead, it’s not part of Chinese philosophy, but if you do well, people will follow’ (C-ADMIN). The view that, as China solves its own problems, it could possibly offer lessons to other countries, is shared by most Chinese administrators, but less so by interviewees from other stakeholder groups. China’s capacity to become a leader in global higher education, its global agency and impact, relates to broader questions regarding China’s role in the new global world order, such as its contribution to creating global public goods and its soft power. Agency meanwhile can be understood as the ability of an actor (agent) to generate social transformation, which assumes a certain degree of control over the social relations, of resources, knowledge of schemas, and the ability to apply them to new contexts (Sewell, 1992). Perry (2014) states that the fact that many of the problems with which China is currently grappling are global in compass, and, as a consequence, renders its public 128

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policy record of more than parochial interest and importance. This certainly accounts for its higher education policy, as will be illustrated below. Interviews confirmed that this line of thought is rather new, as it has been more conventional to consider China as a follower. Interviewees suggest that the attractiveness of Chinese higher education is perhaps mostly inspired by the impressive development of the Chinese economy, rather than for a globally shared set of values, and that global leadership in education could perhaps be affirmed for Chinese secondary education rather than for higher education. China’s achievements on PISA, with Shanghai as the number one in STEM, are exemplary. It is leading the tables here, and indeed becoming an example, receiving growing numbers of requests to host groups of mathematics teachers from the US and UK, sent to learn from the best practices of their Chinese counterparts. In turn, Chinese secondary education leaders are invited to the West to explain their teacher training and hiring programs. Daly (2015) confirms that there is scope for mutual learning at this level in particular, since China wants to move away from the dominance of test-driven education, while the US is interested in moving into a more test- and homeworkdriven education because of sharply dropping PISA scores. Globalization could thus work as a two-way street of mutual learning. While it seems to be premature to consider China a global leader in higher education, most interviewees do acknowledge that, unlike the past 30 years since the Reform and Opening Policy, when China mostly learned from Western higher education, China is currently taking a more proactive role in globalization. Efforts are being undertaken to seek impact at the global level, ranging from small programmes with a global outlook, like the Schwarzman College in Tsinghua University and Yan Jing Xue Tang in Peking University, to global outreach, such as Tsinghua’s Global Innovation Exchange campus with the University of Washington in Seattle; Xiamen University’s new campus in Indonesia; and new business schools in London, Mumbai, and South Africa. However, for a more substantial global impact in terms of positioning itself higher in the rank of WCUs, many interviewees commented on the paradoxical issue of pragmatism, which may both accelerate and hinder the Chinese higher education system, and its global agency. On the one hand, it has facilitated swift development by introducing the best practices in global higher education; on the other hand, it may hinder academics from achieving excellence: ‘Chinese universities and faculty are not into pursuing academic excellence, as they are too much focused on financial reward and reputation’ (I-BUS). ‘To grow from good to great in research, systemic change is required to support a truly excellent research culture. This would especially involve faculty evaluation, reward and funding structures’ (C-ADMIN Indeed most interviewees expressed a strong view that academics should shift from extrinsic motivation (indicators, funding, publications) to intrinsic motivation (intellectual curiosity) in order to achieve research excellence. Interviewees also agreed that university administration should shift to a model with more autonomy, in particular in human resources management. Less governmental 129

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intervention, a more ‘market-driven’ system with healthy competition, and a more rationalized system for performance evaluation is needed, in their view. The first comprehensive international recent report on China’s performance in science (Nature Publishing Group, 2015) made similar recommendations for funding, conducting and sharing research, and on training and hiring practices, in order improve the quality and impact of its scientific output. Interviewees view Chinese academics as part of the global academic world who actively contribute to global public goods by knowledge production and educational opportunities. They also point to the recent establishment of UNESCO research centres (at Tsinghua University) as examples demonstrating China’s role in creating these global public goods. ‘Global public goods’ can be understood as goods that have a significant element of non-rivalry and/or non-excludability, are made broadly available across populations on a global scale, and affect more than one group of countries (Kaul, Grunberg, & Stern 1999, pp. 2–3, cited by Marginson, 2015, p. 41). Meanwhile, they point out that the quality and originality of knowledge production is still lagging behind due to structural and organizational limitations. It is widely known that the required free flow of knowledge is hindered by China’s policy on internet sovereignty, constraining its contribution to, participation in, and benefit from knowledge and learning as global public good. In our interviews, Chinese academics are far more concerned than administrators on this point; while the former have to use digital work-arounds to get to Google Scholar, the latter may deny any limitations on internet access, besides sites that would spread ‘radical information’ (C-ADMIN). Soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money (hard power) (Nye, 2004). In other words, to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion, or payment. This is often discussed in relation to China’s emerging role as a world power (Shambaugh, 2013). Examples of its soft power could be seen in its enormous diaspora, the Confucius Institutes, the Englishlanguage version of CCTV, and its recently launched New Silk Road, or One Belt and One Road policy, which includes opportunities for higher education cooperation and expansion into its neighbouring region, and towards Europe. However, it is also noted that China’s soft power is held back as it should be generated by civil society and not by government. This poses a problem as such non-state actors over which the Chinese government has limited control may be critical of its ideology (Nye, 2015). Most interviewees agree that higher education could be an avenue for soft power because of its non-state status, provided that government intervention is limited. They also recognize that China is expected to accept responsibility for global stability by developing its youth into open-minded citizens of the world through world citizenship education. This is for instance proposed by Jiang and Xu (2014 with reference to Nusbaum, 1997). However, in their view this aim is overshadowed by the nationalist focus of state-imposed political education. Perhaps the most remarkable, yet mainly unintended, example of China’s global agency and impact in higher education is shaped by the Shanghai Ranking and the 130

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concept of a word-class university. China’s decision to develop WCUs by project 985 (in 1998), and its related search for the characteristics of such institutions, resulted in the first and so far most influential ranking of universities worldwide: the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), the ‘Shanghai Ranking,’ first published in 2003 by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The ranking initially served to analyze the characteristics of WCUs to inform national policies to build such institutions to support China’s growth towards an innovation-oriented country, but had no direct global or external intention. However, it quickly became perhaps the most globally impactful higher education project undertaken by China. After more than a decade, it can be concluded that its impact has been pervasive as well as transformative, becoming perhaps the most objective standard for classify the research performance of universities worldwide. It initiated an open global competition in higher education that had not previously existed by defining the global order and shaping the global model of the WCU. Ironically, or again paradoxically perhaps, this model (re-)confirms the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon comprehensive research university as the global model, also serving as a model for Chinese WCUs, rather than suggesting a model with Chinese characteristics to the rest of the world. As the ranking itself makes clear, China’s universities appear to be racing towards, rather than away from the Western or global model. 44 Chinese universities figure in the top 500 and although they are still distant from the very top, they are all on the rise, with five in the top 200 and Tsinghua and Peking University coming close to the top 100, with their positions in STEM fields already being in it (ARWU, 2015). The impact of the Shanghai Ranking, which inspired the creation of several others, and the ensuing world-class university movement, has been critically followed, analyzed, and discussed by higher education scholars worldwide. Studies point to the inevitability of further competition and its transformative effects on the global higher education landscape (Marginson & Van der Wende, 2007, 2009); the coercive effects of research-dominated ranking criteria on system diversity and the consequent need for multidimensional approaches (Van der Wende & Westerheijden, 2009; Van der Wende, 2011; Van Vught, Westerheijden & Ziegele, 2012); and their unbalancing impact on institutional policies affecting their (teaching) mission and profile, as well as on national policies, (Hazelkorn, 2007, 2011). At the same time, it is recognized that the related world-class university movement has contributed a lot to stimulating the pathways to growth in developing countries (Salmi, 2009; Altbach & Salmi, 2011), and to system-wide reform, development of excellence, and large extra investments in higher education and research in a wide range of countries (Cheng, Wang, & Liu, 2014). All interviewees seem to be aware of the significance of the global ranking, and several Chinese administrators proudly point to the fact that the world-class initiatives of the Chinese government are followed by some 30 countries. Chinese academics state that for the next level of development of WCUs, there is a need for more autonomy. Some administrators suggest that the Chinese government needs to be open to experiment with ‘Comprehensive Reform’ plans, 131

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while others argue that further success can be achieved under the current governance regulations. From our analysis, it suggests that growth in STEM fields is much more likely to succeed under the current governance system than that in the social sciences and humanities, which would compromise the growth of Chinese WCU’s as truly comprehensive universities, as well as their potential for progress in interdisciplinary fields. CHINA’S ROLE IN GLOBAL HIGHER EDUCATION: A FOLLOWER AND EMERGING LEADER

In this chapter, we have tried to examine China’s role and position as both a follower and a (potential) global leader in higher education. We conclude that it is appropriate to view China’s higher education development from both perspectives, as suggested by Scott’s thesis that universities can be both object and subject (or key agents) of globalization, and agreeing with Shambaugh (2013) and Wasserstrom (2014) to draw from the perspectives of China as being reshaped by international forces, and itself reshaping the global structure at the same time. It seems that China’s higher education focus is shifting, or rather perhaps widening and diversifying. Since China’s opening-up in the 1980s, it has been strongly oriented to the West, the US and Europe, as a follower and a learner in higher education. With regained self-confidence and geopolitical ambition, it is now engaging in a new role as a higher education leader and an example to primarily developing countries and countries in its neighbouring region. This diversification seems to coincide with China’s renewed economic policy, which aims to balance a high-end R&D intensive knowledge sector with innovation of its large-scale manufacturing sector, as well the huge regional inequalities. A more diversified higher education system should support this. For the former, its WCUs will continue to engage with their top-tier counterparts in the West. For the latter, German type Fachhochschulen may be a model for its universities of applied science in the second-tier. China’s regained self-confidence in education is so far mostly justified by its exemplary achievements in secondary education, in particular in STEM fields. But it seems premature to consider China already a global leader in higher education, as its leadership is only just emerging, still partial, and mostly regionally oriented. As confirmed by interviewees, there are still major challenges regarding a still weak internal culture of excellence in research, in the reform of teaching methods and curricula, and in retaining or attracting top global talents. At the same time, China’s global agency in higher education by means of the Shanghai Ranking and the consequent World Class University Movement cannot be denied. However, this is foremost boosting global competition, to which China and its universities are subject themselves, rather than imposing a Chinese model on the rest of the world. It was expected that China would embrace the Emerging Global Model (EGM) of the research university, with its universities being subject to the same forces of 132

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change as factories, banks, and other state-owned enterprises, i.e. dealing with a new set of primarily Western values emphasizing economic efficiency, privatization, individual autonomy, and globalization (Mohrman, 2008). But doubts have arisen, and Marginson (2015), for instance, argues that the outcome of the encounter between the Chinese tradition, and Western science and modernization, can neither be an imported Westernized education, nor a reworking of the old tradition. According to him, it could be a hybrid, something new, a ‘Post-Confucian Model.’ A hybrid with in-built tensions as it seems, reading a recent statement by PKU Party Secretary Zhu Shanlu, who said that world-class universities are not reflected just in firstclass teaching and research, but are even more so reflected in a first-class culture, school traditions, and inner spirit. He quoted Xi Jinping, who emphasized; ‘To make world-class universities in China, they must have Chinese characteristics […] The world cannot have a second Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, MIT, or Cambridge, but it can have the first of the famous Chinese schools, like PKU, Tsinghua, Zhe Da (Zhejiang University), Fudan, and Nan Da (Nanjing University).’ (people.cn, 3 February, 2015). Whether such WCUs with Chinese characteristics could become global leaders is an open question. Western experts argue that they will not be leaders without greater liberalization, less hierarchy and more academic freedom (Douglass, 2012), if they are to exist in a politically illiberal system at all (Kirby, 2014), since the technical and economic virtues of modernization cannot be singled out from the political and social institutions that generate such innovation (Daly, 2015). Although Marginson (2015), argues that: ‘While higher education fosters personal agency and a critical approach to knowledge, this does not mean that it is necessarily located in a Western liberal political agenda, nor that global imitation and policy borrowing in one arena is necessarily joined to others’ (p. 12). Will China develop an alternative model for higher education, as it did for economic development? In that case, as noted by interviewees (C-ACAD), a truly Chinese model should demonstrate a more egalitarian development towards a diversified world-class system, rather than aggressively creating WCUs at the expense of other HEIs. We admit that contextual factors and conditions are essential to understand the route to growth and global leadership, and that they are not necessarily the same in all regions and at all times. Mutual learning should be envisaged based on the assertion that problems in access, equality and governance of higher education are shared everywhere. Yet there are serious conceptual challenges to be overcome. With ‘Chinese characteristics’ raises many questions on its official descriptions with respect to ideology (socialism led by the CCP), politics (obeying the decisions of the central government) and the ‘Dream of China,’ and how it will be implemented in combination with a ‘global vision and commitment to solving local problems.’ Or should we use it for the unique dual governance structure within Chinese universities, much blamed for the resulting lack of autonomy and innovation, as cynically observed by one Chinese academic. While seeking a leading role in its neighbouring region, China will still remain at the same time an important basis (or target) for talent recruitment by the US 133

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and Europe (Van der Wende, 2015). The balance between the US and Europe may change, with the New Silk Road enticing a larger involvement of Europe in China’s large-scale Eurasian infrastructure, investment, and trade ambitions. This implies that China’s higher education sector is becoming more complex and will thus require a next level of strategic management that goes beyond the university as an instrument of governmental policy. WCUs global playing field, with a wide and complex array of challenges and opportunities, exceeds the scope of top-down and bureaucratic-style management by central governments. China’s new governance models will need to allow these institutions to seize their opportunities, while guiding the country as a whole towards a World-Class System, i.e. a diversified system of higher education institutions catering for a range of different demands, each with a strong mission and quality profile, and ample possibilities for students to transfer within the system at large. NOTE 1

These new initiatives are all characterized by small-scale, research university type academic excellence and may constitute private initiatives such as the branch campus of New York University in cooperation with East China Normal University in Shanghai and the new residential Schwarzmann college at Tsinghua University, or public initiatives such as ShanghaiTech University which was jointly established by the Shanghai Municipal Government and Chinese Academy of Sciences.

REFERENCES Abrami, R., Kirby, W., & McFarlan, F. W. (2014). Can China lead? Reaching the limits of power and growth. Harvard, MA: Harvard Business Review Press. Academic Ranking of World University. (2016). Retrieved January 10, 2016, from http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2015.html Altbach, P. (2009). China and India: A steep climb to world-class universities. In J. Douglass, C. J. King, & I. Feller (Eds.), Globalization’s muse: Universities and higher education systems in a changing world. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Public Policy Press. Altbach, P., & Salmi, J. (Eds.). (2011). The road to academic excellence: Emerging research universities in developing and transition countries. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Bell, D. A. (2015, April 17). Teaching ‘Western values’ in China. New York Times. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/opinion/teaching-western-values-in-china.html?_ r=0 Camicia, S. P., & Zhu, J. (2011). Citizenship education under discourses of nationalism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism: Illustrations from China and the United States. Frontiers of Education in China, 6(4), 602–620. Cao, L. (2010). Redefining ‘liberal education’ in the Chinese university. In B. de Bary (Ed.), Universities in translation: The mental labor of globalization. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Cheng, Y., Wang, Q., & Liu, N.C. (2014). How world-class universities affect global higher education. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Daly, R. (2015, May 4). Keynote lecture at the China Education Symposium 2015 Conference. Harvard University, Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA. Douglass, J. A. (2012). China’s futurisms: Research universities as leaders or followers? Social Research, 79(3), 639–668. Giddens, A. (2000). The third way and its critics. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.

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CHINA’S HIGHER EDUCATION IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Hazelkorn, E. (2007). The impact of league tables and ranking systems on higher education decisionmaking. Higher Education Management and Policy, 19(2), 87–110. Hazelkorn, E. (2011). Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, J. (1999). Global transformations: Politics, economics and culture. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Hu, J., & Qin, J. (2015, April 03). Who is the gatekeeper of Chinese academic power? University World News. Retrieved from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20150330041254595 Huang, F. (2015). Who leads China’s leading universities? Studies in Higher Education, 1–18. IIE. (2015). Project atlas. Retrieved January 10, 2016, from http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/ China/International-Students-In-China Jiang, K. (2012). Improving quality: Core mission for developing higher education in the national medium- and long- term education reform and development guideline (2010–20). Chinese Education and Society, 45(3), 73–88. Jiang, K. (2015). The top 5 challenges and opportunities facing Chinese higher education [PowerPoint slides]. Boston College. Jiang, K., & Xu, Y. (2014). Paradoxes of civic and political education in China’s higher education institutions. In K. J. Kennedy, G. Fairbrother, & Z. Z. Zhao (Eds.), Citizenship education in China: Preparing citizens for the ‘Chinese Century’. New York, NY: Routlegde. Kirby, W. C. (2014). The Chinese century? The challenges of higher education. Daedalus, 143(2), 145–156. Kirby, W. C., & van der Wende, M. (Eds.). (2016). New directions in liberal arts and science education in Asia. Special Issue of the International Journal of Chinese Education, 5(1). Levin, D. (2015, February 9). China tells schools to suppress Western ideas, with one big exception. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/world/asia/china-tells-schools-tosuppress-western-ideas-with-one-big-exception.html Liu, X. L. (2015). The implementation of comprehensive reform undertaken by Tsinghua, Peking Universities and Shanghai (two university and one city). Eastday. Retrieved from http://sh.eastday.com/ m/20150827/u1ai8856720.html Ljunggren, B. (2015). The Chinese dream of great renewal: Challenges for China and the world. Critical Issues Confronting China Seminar Series. Harvard University Asia Center and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Retrieved April 22, 2015, from http://asiacenter.harvard.edu/files/asia-center/files/ ljunggren_4-22-2015.pdf Marginson, S. (2011). Higher education in East Asia and Singapore: Rise of the Confucian model. Higher Education, 61(5), 587–611. Marginson, S. (2015). The mission of public higher education: Clark Kerr and the Californian legacy. (Draft) Marginson, S., & van der Wende, M. (2007). To rank or to be ranked: The impact of global rankings in higher education. Journal on Studies in International Education, 11(3–4), 306–330. Marginson, S., & van der Wende, M. (2009). The new global landscape of nations and institutions. In Higher education to 2030. Paris: OECD. Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2010). China’s 2010 national plan for medium and long term educational reform and development. Retrieved December 10, 2015, from http://www.moe.edu.cn/publicfiles/business/htmlfiles/moe/moe_838/201008/93704.html Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2015a). Statistics of education in China. Retrieved January 10, 2016, from http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_sjzl/s5990/201511/t20151125_ 220958.html Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2015b). Retrieved from http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/gzdt_gzdt/s5987/201510/t20151013_213006.html Mohrman, K. (2008). The emerging global model with Chinese characteristics. Higher Education Policy, 21(1), 29–48. Nature Publishing Group. (2015). Turning point: Chinese science in transition. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from http://www.nature.com/press_releases/turning_point.pdf

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Marijk van der Wende Utrecht University Jiabin Zhu Shanghai Jiao Tong University

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8. RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES FOR NATIONAL REJUVENATION AND GLOBAL INFLUENCE China’s Search for a Balanced Model1

BALANCING QUANTITY AND QUALITY IN TEACHING AND RESEARCH

Thirty-five years after the launch of its economic reform and opening to the outside world, China finds itself inching closer to become the world’s largest economy (Jacques, 2009; Beardson, 2013; Telegraph, 2014). To sustain the pace of economic growth, higher education is increasingly expected to play a more powerful role in China’s rise (Postiglione, 2011a). It already has the largest system of higher education and more scientific publications than any other country except the USA (University World News, 2007; Guardian, 2011; Royal Society, 2011). Moreover, it bodes well for the university systems that secondary school students in the largest city outperformed their counterparts in the 60 countries involved in the Programme for International Student Assessment of mathematics and science achievement (OECD, 2013). Yet, the search continues for a Chinese research university model that can balance quality and quantity in research and teaching (Liu, 2010; Kirby, 2014). This chapter argues that finding one depends upon deepening internationalization, defining national sovereignty, and expanding university autonomy. The chapter does this by examining selected aspects in the development of the research university systems of the Chinese mainland and China’s Hong Kong, especially with respect to the governance of research and teaching. A UNIQUE CHINA MODEL?

Beyond the race to excel on international indicators of success is the longstanding aim of national rejuvenation and restoration of China’s status in the world. China has long sought to learn how to effectively borrow and adapt, not copy, from advanced systems without muting the influence of its ancient culture. Interest never ceases about how indigenous ideas and principles can guide university education. It is common to credit scholars of the classical era, such as Confucius and Mencius, Sunzi and Mozi, and later Wang Yangming and Zhu Xi. In the modern era, Hu Shi is well known, but others such as Cai Yuanpei, Liang Shuming, Ye Yangchu, Mei Yiqi,

N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 139–156. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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Jiang Bailing, Yan Fu, Tao Xingzhi, and Pan Guangdan remain influential (Yang, 2003; Hayhoe, 1996). Educational leaders like Cai Yuanpei, an early president of Peking University, understood the German, French, and English traditions of higher education and considered how these could be brought together with the spirit of Confucianism and other historical traditions. In short, there is a lingering concern that university education has not been sufficiently shaped by indigenous ideas (Yang, 2013). For this reason, China’s emergent role on the world stage comes with a concern about what principles and ideas should drive a delicate balance between quality and quantity in research universities. This is echoed in a question posed by a Hong Kong Chinese scholar: ‘Will Asia be just producing more of the same of the Westernoriginated contemporary higher education model, or will it be able to unleash a more critical understanding and practice of higher education, a cultural and epistemological reflection of the role of universities as venues of higher learning?’ (Cheung, 2012, 186). Many agree that China forged a unique model of economic development (Ramo, 2004; Huang, 2011; Williamson, 2012). But unlike economic institutions that make financial gain an end itself, the success of research universities is measured by the creation and transmission of knowledge, not the accumulation of wealth. Nevertheless, Marginson (2011) sees a China model with a strong nationstate, an inclination toward universal higher education, national examination that drive competition and family commitment, and government determination to invest in research. Altbach (2011) believes that China has not, and will not in the near future, develop a university model to challenge the international status quo model. An indigenous model would be rooted in the Chinese academy, shu yuan (書院), which predates the four historically sacrosanct Western institutions of higher learning, namely Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, and the Sorbonne (Hayhoe, 1996). Yet, investiture of such a hallowed tradition in the contemporary university can be enormously complicated for China. While it is questionable how it would boost global competitiveness, it may enliven the intellectual climate, especially as it aligns, however ambiguously, with the growing experimentation with liberal studies curriculum borrowed and adapted from Harvard and other overseas universities. It may be wishful thinking but as Harvard’s Vogel (2003) observes: ‘The result of China’s opening and reform for higher education has been an intellectual vitality that may be as broad and deep as the Western Renaissance.’ At the end of the day, China does not yet possess a unique university model that challenges the so-called Western one. As the international popularity of the university ranking framework developed by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University makes clear, China’s universities are almost singularly focused on racing toward, rather than away from the Western model as it aspires to match the technological superiority of the West. 140

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TRANSITION TO MASS HIGHER EDUCATION AND BUILDING RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES

The economic reforms and opening to the outside world that began in 1979 lead to a recovery in higher education. Intellectuals were rehabilitated and ‘sent-down youth,’ formerly at school before the Cultural Revolution, began to return to urban areas. University entrance examinations were reintroduced, and academic standards were strengthened. By 1985, there were 1,016 institutions of higher education and about 2% of the 18–22 age groups attended university. There was also a shift in the direction of overseas study as capitalist economies in Europe and North America became favoured study destinations. Expansion of All Forms of Higher Education Between 1985 and 1998, the Ministry of Education was upgraded to an Education Commission, and universities were given some autonomy in matters of curriculum, staffing, and student selection. Enrolments grew little though and after the period of student demonstrations in 1986 and 1989. By the late 1990s, economic globalization put China on a course of unprecedented expansion of university enrolments. By the end of the twentieth century, a knowledge economy discourse signalled a determined shift from elite to mass higher education. While only about 4% of the 18–22 age group was involved in higher education in 1995, the 2005 figure had surpassed 20% (NCEDR, 2000–2009). The Asian economic crisis in the late 1990s led to faster expansion of higher education as a way of delaying entry of secondary school graduates into the labour market, and as an economic stimulant – families willingly opened their bank accounts and spent more money on university fees and expenses. By 2010, about 30% of 18–22 year olds – roughly 30 million students – were enrolled in 2,263 colleges and universities, including 1,079 universities and 1,184 higher vocational and junior colleges (Cheng et al., 2011). The largest city had a gross enrolment ratio exceeding 60% (Shen, 2003). Between 2010 and 2020, the gross enrolment rate of higher education was set to exceed 40%, and from 2021 to 2050 to reach at least 50%. The Reform of Research Universities One of the boldest efforts to reform research universities was the so-called Peking University Personnel Reform (Rosen, 2004, 2005). This reform of the faculty appointment system aroused strong feelings on and off campus and became a controversial social issue. It called for external competition in hiring and a ‘last ranked, first fired’ practice for academic staff. In the mid-1990s, salaries of Hong Kong university staff were said to be nearly 99 times that at Peking University.

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From 1982 to 2000, salaries grew by 101%. Thus, to maintain academic quality, the income of university teacher salaries in higher education was sharply increased. The average university teacher salary was said to be higher than that of other professions. Yet academic salaries in 2010 remained the lowest of the BRIC countries. Expectations were raised for establishing a system of world-class universities in 1998 when President Jiang Zemin addressed the audience, me included, at the Great Hall of the People to mark the 100th anniversary of Peking University. Government support, as indicated in the so-called 211 and 985 initiatives, provided major financial backing to top institutions with high levels of academic promise (Zhou, 2006, pp. 36–46). Enormous attention was directed at both the international rankings of top universities and the questions of how to establish and maintain a world-class university. Under the so-called ‘211’ and ‘985’ projects, Beijing pumped investment into the elite, with the aim of creating internationally competitive universities. The 211 project provides extra financial support for 112 universities selected to spearhead national economic development, while the 985 project aims to transform 40 top institutions into world-class universities. Flagship institutions – such as Peking and Tsinghua in Beijing, and Fu Dan and Jiao Tong in Shanghai – jockey for position in world university rankings. In 2010, two mainland Chinese universities were ranked in the top 200 globally in the Shanghai Jiao Tong AWRU ranking, and six in the Times Higher Education ranking (AWRU, 2013; THE, 2013). Chinese universities climbed the global ranks by boosting their presence in scientific publications. In 2008, they published 204,000 papers in peer-reviewed journals, raising their share from 4.4% in 1999 to 10.2% in 2008 (Royal Society, 2011). Only the USA had a higher share. China’s proportion of GDP for research and development grew from 0.7%, 1998, to 1.5%, 2005, and has since risen to almost 2.0%, making it the third largest R&D spender worldwide (in purchasing power parity terms) after the USA and Japan. By 2010, it spent nearly 10% of the world total (Hu, 2011, pp. 95–120; OECD, 2012). However, the high numbers of scientific publications cannot mask the fact that quality remains a problem. This is reflected in the low frequency with which the world’s scientists cite China’s scientific publications – only 4% of the time compared to 30% for the USA, placing China sixth in the rankings. Research funding has rapidly increased, but most goes to projects proposed by senior members of a department or those who are politically connected. Research universities began to change as they deepened their international engagement. By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, some research universities become unrecognizable from their former selves. Hardware infrastructure began to rival research universities in advanced countries. Yet, the software side remains weak as they struggle to improve the quality of teaching and research, and address problems such as academic corruption, and relevance of university graduates for a rapidly changing workplace. 142

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BALANCING INSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY, STATE SOVEREIGNTY, AND INTERNATIONALIZATION

At the very least, national rejuvenation is bringing the global academy more understanding of historical legacy, one that goes beyond a preoccupation with the imperial examination system, and the accompanying view that it still shapes a style of learning anathema to drive creativity and innovation (Kissinger, 2011; Vogel, 2013; Hu, 2011). Scholarship about historical struggles, developmental experiences, and institutional renovation may also be seen as a creative resistance of Western domination (Jacques, 2009; Schell & DeLury, 2013; Shambaugh, 2013). However, to avoid this kind of scholarship becoming superficial will require a feisty defence of academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Otherwise, it risks floundering as official lip service to nationalism without a critical intellectual bite. As the research universities continue to deepen their engagement with overseas counterparts, an array of possibility opens. Already, international cooperation has led to new curriculum models, funding formulas, personnel reforms, performance measures, instructional technologies, institution building strategies, and innovative experiments in learning, all of which have led toward a more open, though still ‘quality catch-up’ learning environment. The top-tier universities are increasingly coming to resemble their OECD counterparts, but they are more than state universities or state-steered. State governance of the academic system finds itself caught between the goals of internationalization and safeguarding national sovereignty. Government encourages Sino-foreign cooperation along with stern warnings of its dangers. Meanwhile, the leadership wholeheartedly supports the race for world-class universities. With capital expenditure that is the envy of other university systems in developing (and some developed) countries, national leaders expect to shortcut the process of a few hundred years that other leading international universities underwent. And to some extent, the leadership may be correct. Globalization has compressed time scales. China’s Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) managed to rocket up the global rankings in a decade (Postiglione, 2011b). Yet, as the case of the Chinese mainland’s fledgling, South China University of Science and Technology has shown the lack of institutional autonomy from government stifles vision and innovative (Xin, 2012). Amid the transition to mass higher education and the aim to improve quality, the call continued for more international cooperation in higher education. By 2013, there were 1,060 approved Sino-foreign joint ventures in higher education with 450,000 students involved. Since 2003, there have been 1,050,000 from higher education institutions (Lin, 2013). Sino-foreign cooperation in higher education comes with stern warning about risks to Chinese sovereignty, as a minister of education remarked: ‘Tough tasks lie ahead for China to safeguard its educational sovereignty as it involves our fundamental political, cultural, and economic interests and every sovereign nation must protect them from being harmed’ (Chen, 2002, p. 5). 143

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The 2003 law on educational joint ventures opened the floodgates to hundreds of partnerships between Chinese and foreign universities. Reforms are underway at top Chinese colleges to copy, adapt, and innovate on models of liberal higher education customary abroad. Attention is building about whether foreign-partnership campuses can have a significant impact on China’s current higher education system. These collaborations and partnerships constitute one type of laboratory for innovative formats in higher learning. While the jury remains out on long-term sustainability of cross-border campuses, both host and guest universities will learn a great deal from cooperation in the running of partnered colleges and universities (Wildavsky, 2012). The majority of international university programmes are taught and run by foreign academics, at a substantial premium, within Chinese universities. They are popular with middle-class parents because they give their children the cachet of a foreign education without the cost of studying abroad. In a few cases, foreign universities have gone one step further and set up full campuses with Chinese universities. Nottingham University has a campus in Ningbo; Shanghai Jiao Tong and the University of Michigan run an engineering institute in Shanghai; and Xi’an Jiao Tong and Liverpool University have established an independent university in Suzhou. In 2013, New York University, which already has overseas study programmes in 10 countries, opened a new campus in Shanghai with East China Normal University. It will conduct integrated classes in humanities and social sciences, with an equal number of Chinese and foreign students. Duke University has also established a campus in Kunshan in partnership with Wuhan University (Redden, 2014a). Others American universities with similar aspirations include Keane University and University of Montana (Redden, 2014b). The rise in Sino-foreign joint ventures has led to more discussion about sovereignty in higher education (Postiglione, 2009). An influential scholar of Chinese higher education cautions that permitting foreign entities to hold a majority (more than 51%) of institutional ownership can lead to an ‘infiltration of Western values and cultures at odds with current Chinese circumstances’ (Pan, 2009, p. 90). The Vice-Director of Shanghai Education Commission, Zhang Minxuan, makes it clear that a Sino-foreign venture in running an educational institute has to ‘make sure China’s sovereignty and public interests are not harmed’ (Zhang, 2009b, p. 33). To do so, at least half of its board of directors have to be Chinese citizens. Zhang Li of the Ministry of Education points out that China’s commitment to provide access to its educational market is larger than any other developing country, and therefore, ‘we must safeguard China’s educational sovereignty, protect national security, and guide such programmes in the right direction’(Zhang, 2009a, p. 19). The sovereignty issue has obvious implications for the governance and institutional of a Sino-foreign campus on Chinese soil. A different model is offered by the recently established South China University of Science and Technology (SCUST). Headed by Zhu Qingshi, past president of the China University of Science and Technology, SCUST aimed to be the first university on the Chinese mainland to secure independence from the higher education bureaucracy – although the result 144

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thus far has not been as expected (Science, 2012). SCUST is not a Sino-foreign campus but it has tried to follow the lead of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology which became world ranked within a decade of its establishment (Postiglione, 2011a, 2011b). SCUST enrols students not only on the basis of the national college and university examination – a terrifying exercise in rote learning and regurgitation known as the gaokao – but also on the basis of their creativity and passion for learning. SCUST faculty members are not given administrative ranks, in the hope that professors will concentrate on teaching and research rather than climbing the greasy pole (Li, 2011). These experiments in new educational models are encouraging, but do not seem to have led to larger reforms in Chinese higher education. Meanwhile, Sino-foreign ventures continue to be fringe experiments. Thus, the debate about the establishment of universities with Chinese characteristics is embedded within an unambiguous paradox, namely the incompatibility of three elements within its university system: internationalization, institutional autonomy, and educational sovereignty. While any two are achievable, handling and attaining all three simultaneously remain a work in progress. To get a fuller picture, a perspective on the reform era and transition to mass higher education is useful. THE MAIN CHALLENGE: MAKE RESEARCH AND TEACHING DRIVE CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION

Despite having the world’s second largest economy, there is widespread concern that universities produce fewer independent thinkers than its competitors (McFarlan et al., 2014). As the labour cost advantage is lost, maintaining the country’s economic ascent depends on boosting the quality of its higher education system. Generating new products and services will require universities to foster creative and innovative thinking, in addition to carrying out cutting edge research. China’s higher education system has expanded to widen student access, but the focus is turning to the reform of university governance, enlivening academic culture, and better aligning university teaching to the needs of the workplace. A major challenge is to raise the quality of higher learning after the expansion that began in the late 1990s, when China shifted from elite to mass higher education. While the top tier of 76 universities are administered by the State Ministry of Education, most higher education institutions are under local government control (MOE, 2014). Teaching is still relatively weak, and universities have a poor record of producing employable graduates. Before graduation in May 2013, only about half of the seven million graduates to be had signed job contracts. Economic globalization has led to concern about the current system ability to compete. As Richard Levin, president of Yale University and frequent visitor to China, stated what is increasingly driving higher education: ‘As never before, universities become instruments of national competition as well as instruments of peace’ (Levin, 2006). Chinese businessmen and scientists alike bemoan a lack of entrepreneurial spirit among graduates. Qian Xuesen, the father of Chinese rocket 145

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science, sees universities as failing to encourage creativity, multidisciplinary breadth, and innovative thinking: ‘…none of our institutions of higher learning is running in the right direction of cultivating excellent talent and is innovative enough’ (Zhao & Hao, 2010). Meanwhile, both domestic and foreign firms are ratcheting up demand for more broad-based skills than those provided by narrowly focused degree courses. Critics also included former premiers Zhu Rongji and Wen Jiabao, who acknowledge that the ability of the higher education system to enhance economic competiveness will depend on fostering more creative, independent thinking (SCMP, 2011a, 2011b). I heard a similar comment from Jack Ma of Alibaba, when I facilitated a discussion for the Clinton Global Initiative in Hong Kong in 2008. Lee Kai-fu, former head of Google China, said ‘The Chinese education system isn’t as well connected to the marketplace. So if you take a college student and drop him into a start-up, there are so m any errors he could make, whereas people in the US, they are more independent thinkers who are able to solve problems on the fly and are more suitable as entrepreneurs’ (SCMP, 2013). Several top research universities responded to these criticisms. Peking University’s Yuanpei programme is an experiment with liberal arts education, modelled on Harvard’s. It aims to foster creativity, multidisciplinary thinking, and leadership. Tsinghua University intensified the degree of student engagement in learning by introducing classes in group problem solving as well as improving the quality of communication between students and teachers (Hennock, 2010). Other top-tier institutions are experimenting with models of learning that break away from the lecture, textbook, memorization, and exam cycle that is still so common in many universities. Below the top tier of 985 and 211 universities, most colleges and universities still operate with fewer resources, less qualified academic staff, and less attention from the central government. Policy levers without financial support are less effective for improving the responsiveness of the larger higher education system. The expansion was so rapid and extensive that policy makers become consumed with handling the burgeoning numbers of students without a sufficient reform of teaching and learning. The promulgated National Outline for Medium and Longterm Education Reform and Development (2010~2020) targets a higher education enrolment rate of 40% by 2020, by which time 20% of the working-age population should have university degrees (MOE, 2011). Given the demographic profile, the country must spend the rest of the decade fostering talent in the shrinking proportion of youth who will have to support an increasingly aging population in the future. That should mean shaking up the current system and encouraging greater independence among both professors and students. A national evaluation of undergraduate teaching was undertaken, but it is driven by the Ministry of Education in a typically topdown manner. This contrasts with the best international universities, which have the autonomy to design, implement, and take the major responsibility for their own success or failure (Jiang, 2009; Ross & Cen, 2000). 146

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Tendencies for standardization sometimes stifle the dynamism that can emerge naturally out of diversity. The basic government – university relationship has loosened somewhat but the practice of autonomy remains in its infancy. There is far less autonomy than is found among counterparts in developed economies. Rigidity in the system sometimes prevents the free flow of information, essential for worldclass universities. As Jamil Salmi of the World Bank noted: ‘[The] rule of law, political stability and the respect of basic freedoms are important dimensions of the political context into which high quality universities operate’ (Salmi, 2011, p. 339). Government is aware that over-administration is an obstacle to achieve greatness in higher education, and it has committed itself to relieve universities of some of their bureaucratic load. But there are many doubts about the extent to which this can be achieved. It is not only a matter of the state granting autonomy to universities: To improve the quality of higher learning, universities have to be ready and willing to take greater responsibility for their own governance. Many university chiefs maintain a close relationship with government, and many remain more interested in retaining their civil servant rank than breaking the pedagogical mold. China has most of the essential ingredients to build great research universities: the aspiration, plenty of brain power, and sufficient government support. The cultural tradition values education, and academic staff are increasingly qualified enough to improve the quality of learning on campus. But university governance needs an overhaul whether China is to obtain a better balance of quality and quantity in research and teaching. With academic tenure and promotion now dependent on churning out strings of articles, teaching plays second fiddle to often dubious research. The pressure to produce has also fuelled a wave of academic corruption: Plagiarism is rife. The quality of much teaching and research will remain an issue for some time. Yet, there may be good reason to be optimistic about the future array of possibility open to higher education in the Chinese mainland. China’s Hong Kong with a population of 7 million, has more top-ranked universities than any city in Asia. The reasons may yield useful insights for the future of research universities in the Chinese mainland and also for Sino-foreign cooperation in creating improved environments for balancing research, teaching, and learning. CHINA’S SECOND SYSTEM: INVERTED ACADEMIC CULTURE AND GOVERNANCE

Thirty-five years ago, Hong Kong was relatively poor with two undergraduate institutions, and a reputation for trade, small manufacturing, and commerce, but not for higher education. The Research Grants Council was only established in 1991 with funds totalling HK $100 million (US$25 million), but twenty years later, it increased to HK$1 billion. Hong Kong had only two universities until the mid1990s. It now has three universities ranked among Asia’s top ten and the world’s top 50 (23, 33, and 40) (QS, 2012). All eight universities are academically sound 147

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and highly respectable, and five of the top eight are in the top hundred worldwide (QS, 2012). Among the reasons, Altbach and Postiglone (2012) proposed academic culture and governance as well as their major instructional language (English), internationalization, leadership of administrators, and the qualification of academic profession of research universities in Hong Kong. Steering and autonomy. Hong Kong’s government, through the Research Grants Council and the University Grants Committee, provides overall direction to the higher education sector; prioritized funding, combined with performance guidelines, shapes university policy. At the same time, the universities have almost complete internal autonomy and self-management. Effective governance. The University of Hong Kong stems from the British academic tradition, and the Chinese University brought American missionary and Chinese traditions into Hong Kong’s colonial framework. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology added the American research university model and academic governance to the mix, without assaulting the status quo. All three have strong international governance arrangements that emphasize control by the academics, while at the same time strong administrative leadership. The universities do not get bogged down in endless academic bickering, nor are they ruled autocratically. Integrated scholarship is valued. Aside from research productivity, Hong Kong’s academic profession places a relatively high priority on teaching in comparison with counterparts in countries with advanced university systems (CAP, 2007). Performance reviews combine teaching, research, and knowledge exchange dimensions. Moreover, the Universities Grants Committee requires Teaching and Learning Quality Process Reviews. All reviews are made public and include possible effects about funding to ensure follow-up by institutions. Two Systems of Academic Governance of Teaching and Research at Research Universities Finally, with respect to university governance and academic culture, the picture painted above of Hong Kong’s advantages, although widely accepted, is not reflected in the views of its academics on the basis of empirical data from the international survey of the Changing Academic Profession (2007). The results confirm that university governance is far more top down in the Chinese mainland bottom up in Hong Kong. When asked who has primary influence on approving new academic programmes, evaluating teaching, setting internal research priorities, evaluating research, and establishing international linkages, the results are consistent with few exceptions. Hong Kong academics generally see primary influence ascending (government, institutional management, academic unit, faculty committee, and faculty member), while for Chinese academics, the direction is inverted. Yet, academics on the Chinese mainland do not appear to be as troubled by their top-down form of university governance to the same extent as their Hong Kong 148

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counterparts (Figures. 1–5). Mainland academics are surprisingly less prone than Hong Kong academics to view their universities as more top down in management style. They also indicate, more so than their Hong Kong counterparts, that there is better communication between academics and management, and more collegiality in decision making at their universities (Table 1). Likewise, they indicate that their university administrators have a more supportive attitude toward their teaching and research activities, and a less cumbersome administrative process (Table 2). Even more surprising, mainland Chinese academics view themselves as more influential than their Hong Kong counterparts. Despite a high degree of transparency in operations at Hong Kong’s research universities, academics feel less informed about what is going on at their institutions and less prone to view administrators as providing competent leadership. Yet, Hong Kong academics view their universities as having a stronger performance orientation. This confirms that Hong Kong has a far more efficient and meritocratic system of research universities. Mainland universities would be hard pressed to institute a Hong Kong system of academic performance reviews when only about 15% of academics in higher education have a doctorate. While universities on the Chinese mainland search for an indigenous model that can balance quantity and quality in teaching and research, it will be difficult at the current stage of development. This is not to say that the bulk of the academic profession on the Chinese mainland would be willing to go full throttle to

Figure 1. Percentage of academics agreeing that government has the primary influence. At your institution, which actor has the primary influence on each of the following decisions? (%)

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Figure 2. Percentage agreeing that the institutional management has the primary influence. Source: The Changing Academic Profession (2007)

Figure 3. Percentage agreeing that the academic unit managers have the primary influence. Source: The Changing Academic Profession (2007)

150

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Figure 4. Percentage agreeing that the faculty committees have the primary influence. Source: The Changing Academic Profession (2007)

Figure 5. Percentage agreeing that the individual faculty member has the primary influence. Source: The Changing Academic Profession (2007)

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embrace the Hong Kong model, especially if salaries and conditions matched international standards for research universities in advanced economies. However, the resistance of academic staff to the Peking University Personnel Reform Plan indicates – otherwise – that the Western model for academic personnel was highly unpopular. Table 1. Views about institutional management and administration: % agreeing or strongly agreeing Mainland China Hong Kong, China A top-down management style

46

74

A strong performance orientation

60

65

Cumbersome administrative process

54

62

Source: The Changing Academic Profession (2007) Table 2. Views about institutional management and administration: % agreeing or strongly agreeing Mainland China

Hong Kong, China

Good communication between management and academic

34

25

Collegiality in decision-making processes

36

23

I am kept informed about what is going on at this institution

44

36

Lack of faculty involvement is a real problem

52

40

Source: The Changing Academic Profession (2007) CONCLUSION

For there to be a renaissance in Chinese research universities, the viewpoint of the academic community must reach a critical mass toward a change in governance and academic culture. This does not seem to be the case at present. The slow, though growing, trickle of returnees from overseas has only slightly fostered change. A more significant factor may be found in the demography of China’s academic profession. It is younger than many other leading academic professions around the world (Table 3). Growing up in a market economy, young academics find their salaries inadequate for their academic lifestyles. They see many others with far less education become more prosperous. In fact, China’s academic salaries are lowest among other BRIC countries, and many academics have taken second jobs to raise their income (Altbach et al., 2012). This may be one reason why mainland academics indicate that a lack of faculty involvement at their universities is a real problem. 152

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Table 3. Average age of academic staff in 17 jurisdictions Country

Average age

US

51.8

Japan

51.7

Italy

49.6

Mexico

48.2

Canada

47.4

Australia

47.1

Norway

47.0

Argentina

47.0

Hong Kong

46.4

UK

46.3

Korea

46.1

Germany

45.3

Brazil

44.3

Portugal

43.4

Finland

43.3

Malaysia

39.5

China

38.8

Total

45.5

Source: The Changing Academic Profession (2007)

Unlike the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong has managed thus far to successfully attain three key elements: a high degree of university autonomy, a high degree of internationalization, and the preservation of Chinese sovereignty as set out in the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Administrative Region of the PRC (Postiglione, 2013). The Hong Kong case indicates what inhibits the potential of the Chinese mainland’s research university system. While the latter’s investment in the facilities and worldclass hardware in its top research universities has been highly impressive, the soft elements of the academic system, namely institutional governance and academic culture, are less able to drive a better balance between quality and quality in research and teaching. NOTE 1

This chapter was first published in Higher Education, 70(2), pp. 235–250 (August 2015). Reprinted with permission.

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Research universities for national rejuvenation and global influence OECD. (2013, December 3). Asian countries top OECD’s latest PISA survey on state of global education. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/education/asian-countries-top-oecd-s-latest-pisa-surveyon-stateof-global-education.htm Pan, M. Y. (2009). An analytical differentiation of the relationship between education sovereignty and education rights. Chinese Education and Society, 42(4), 88–96. Postiglione, G. A. (2009). China’s international partnerships and cross-border cooperation. Editor’s Introduction to Chinese Education and Society, 42(4), 3–10. Postiglione, G. A. (2011a). Higher education: University challenge. China Economic Quarterly, 15(2), 22–25. Postiglione, G. A. (2011b). The rise of research universities: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In P. G. Altbach & J. Salmi (Eds.), The road to academic excellence: The making of world class universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Postiglione, G. A. (2013). Anchoring globalization in Hong Kong’s research universities: Network agents, institutional arrangements and brain circulation. Studies in Higher Education, 38(3), 345–366. QS. (2012). Top universities worldwide. Retrieved from http://www.topuniversities.com/universityrankings/world-university-rankings/2012 Ramo, J. C. (2004, May). The Beijing consensus. London: The Foreign Policy Centre. Retrieved January 28, 2014. Redden, E. (2014a, February 12). Phantom campus in China. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/12/china#sthash.XjQmRUiI.dpbs Redden, E. (2014b, March 12). Bucking the branch campus. Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/03/12/amid-branch-campus-building-boom-someuniversitiesreject-model#ixzz34fcVHp8L Rosen, S. (2004). The Beida reforms I. Chinese Education and Society. (New York, NY: M.E. Sharpe.) Rosen, S. (2005). The Beida reforms II. Chinese Education and Society. (New York, NY: M.E. Sharpe.) Ross, H., & Cen, Y. H. (2000). Chinese higher education and evaluation in context. Chinese Education and Society, 42(1), 3–7. Royal Society. (2011, March 28). New countries emerge as major players in scientific world. Retrieved from https://royalsociety.org/news/2011/new-science-countries/ Salmi, J. (2011). The road to academic excellence: Lessons of experience. In P. G. Altbach & J. Salmi (Eds.), The road to academic excellence: The making of world class research universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Schell, O., & DeLury, J. (2013). Wealth and power: China’s long march to the twenty-first century. London: Little Brown. Science. (2012, August 31). With eye to innovation, China revamps its universities. Retrieved from http://www.sciencemag.org SCMP South China Morning Post. (2011a, April 23). Zhu Rongji resurfaces to criticise education reforms. Retrieved from http://www.scmp.com/article/965804/zhu-rongji-resurfaces-criticiseeducationreforms SCMP South China Morning Post. (2011b, April 29). Wen in renewed plea for wider political reforms. Retrieved from http://www.scmp.com/article/966328/wen-renewed-plea-wider-political-reforms SCMP South China Morning Post. (2013, August 8). Former Google China head Lee Kai-fu sows seeds of change. Retrieved form http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1295061/lee-kai-fu-nurturesstartups-and-hopes-better-china THE Times Higher Education World University Rankings. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/ Shambaugh, D. (2013). China goes global: The partial power. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shen, Z. (2003, February 17). Shanghai jiang shuaixian shixian gaodeng jiaoyu puji hua: 2002 nian gaodeng jiaoyu maoruxuelu yida 51%, 5 nianhou jiangda 60% yishang (Shanghai will take the lead in the massification of higher education: Gross enrolment rate reaches 51% in 2002 and set to move beyond 60% in five years). China Education Daily. Retrieved from http://www.jyb.com.cn/ gb/2003/02/17/zy/jryw/1.htm Telegraph. (2014, April 26). China ‘to overtake America by 2016’. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/9947825/China-to-overtake-America-by-2016.html

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Gerard A. Postiglione The University of Hong Kong

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9. TRADING BETWEEN VISIBILITY AND PERFORMANCE AT GLOBAL AND LOCAL LEVELS The Example of Research Universities in France

INTRODUCTION

Existing Consensus on Visibility and Performance for Basic Research Knowledge has been exchanged worldwide for thousands of years, and scientific research in particular is one of the most organized ways of discovering and producing new knowledge. For this reason, research has been shared internationally since its inception a few centuries ago. As a result, the performance and visibility of basic research in natural and medical sciences have been evaluated at an international level since the 16th century – first in an informal manner but then in increasingly structured ways. The creation of Science Academies in different countries, the diffusion of scientific journals, the emergence and generalization of peer reviews as well as international awards, such as the Nobel Prize or the Fields Medal, established evaluation processes and increased visibility and performance almost simultaneously. The global success of university rankings based on measurable research criteria comes largely from the general consensus on the ways to evaluate basic research. For an institution, having strong research capabilities means that its affiliated scientists conduct activities that yield results published in the most read journals, cited frequently by numerous other scientists and eventually bring international recognition through a prestigious award. In other words, in this area, performance is almost equivalent to visibility as it is achieved through publication, citation and international exposure both at the local and global levels. Measuring Visibility and Assessing Performance outside Scientific Research However, as soon as we leave the realm of research in natural and medical sciences, we venture into a different world where performance evaluation is more complex and objective measurements are difficult to establish. Here the system is less established and more diverse in terms of publications, journals and media. Visibility depends strongly on the observed object, on the observer and on their point of view.

N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 159–178. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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For example, language and culture play an important part in the diffusion and evaluation of research in some disciplines. This is the case for literature but also for history where the focus on different subjects depends heavily on national or local culture. These cultural biases will also dictate the amount of attention this research receives and its perceived value. The question of the tools used to assess performance or to measure visibility is also of very high importance. Bibliometrics in basic science and medicine rely on shared, public data. Its use both to evaluate performance and to measure visibility does not raise many methodological questions. On the other hand, measuring an institution’s reputation through the use of polls without specifying who is surveyed raises immediate questions about potential biases: are all economic sectors, countries, regions or genders represented correctly in the group of people polled? The gap between visibility and performance is perfectly illustrated in France, with the comparison of two specific rankings and the reactions their publication triggered: the ARWU ranking by Jiao Tong University since 2003 and a ranking produced by the école des Mines de Paris (2011) between 2006 and 2011. Both rankings are based on publicly available data. But while the first one uses several indicators related to research – even when assessing education performance – the second focuses only on education. The first one relies on bibliometrics and international awards granted to faculty members and alumni; the second is based on a single indicator i.e. the number of chief executive officers of a Fortune 500 company who are alumni of the institution. The comparison of these two rankings in France received a lot of attention due to the very different positions the French institutions received in these two rankings. Most of the prestige of the small, elite institutions of higher education in France (the ‘grandes écoles’) comes mainly from their history, their highly selective student recruitment process, and the high profile positions held by some of their alumni in big French corporations or in the government. However, almost all were ranked poorly in the ARWU because of their limited research potential. Since the French general public does not consider research performance a key indicator for institutions of higher education – and that is probably specific to France – some people were shocked to see that the top two French institutions in the ARWU ranking were Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC) and Paris Sud University. On the other hand, the ranking produced by École des Mines de Paris a few years later aligned with the general expectations of these people, with seven of the French elite institutions ranked in the first 30 positions. In this example, the apparent contradiction of results between the two rankings and the difference of visibility and performance of the two types of institutions can easily be explained by the different points of view resulting in the choice of quite different indicators. Generally speaking, the source of contradiction between visibility and performance, and a large part of the discussion and controversy about ranking comes from the lack of common, global references shared at international and local levels to measure visibility and to evaluate performance. 160

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Defining Criteria Adapted to Different Stakeholders To define its strategy or increase its resources, a university often depends on a set of stakeholders: international organizations; national or federal governments; regional, provincial or state governments; cities; foundations or charities; companies that hire graduates, sponsor university research or sign licences; and students and their families. These stakeholders expect the institution to deliver the services and fulfil the missions they consider important. Stakeholders therefore rely on their own set of criteria – explicit or implicit – to determine performance. In terms of the impact of education or research on society, some local governments focus on the activity and impact of the university in a specific geographic area, on research applied to specific economic sectors, or on a specific group of students. They are not eager to take into account the performance of the institution outside their constituency or these scopes. That said, the attribution of a Nobel Prize is certainly appreciated by most stakeholders interested in academic activities because it is considered – at a global or local level – to be the highest honour. As a result, within the same institution of higher education, the indicators may be very good for some stakeholders who then will consider the institution to be performing very well, and not as good for some others, who will be therefore more sceptical about the university’s activities. Defining Criteria Adapted to Different Policies and Contexts This diversity of indicators also comes from the large diversity of practices and policies existing in different fields of university activity. For instance, I will show that the national law applicable to the ownership of intellectual property generated by a university faculty member may have a big impact on some technology transfer indicators. The rules or practices of student recruitment and the process of awarding diplomas have huge consequences on the added value of education in the job market. It has generally been shown that students coming from families with parents holding a diploma granted by a university have a higher probability of earning such a diploma than students whose parents have not received any higher education. As a result, universities enrolling students belonging to the first group may seem to have better performance in terms of student success than a university which enrols students of the second group. In order to neutralize this bias, the French government recently introduced some indicators to assess the added value of a university. They rely on the assessment of the average so-called socio-cultural background of the enrolled students of a university and the overall performance of these students in the process of earning a diploma. An institution whose overall student performance is lower than that of another university will still be assessed with a higher added value if its students come from more challenging backgrounds. 161

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However, for the same type of stakeholders and consequently for the same criteria, it may become very difficult to compare policies, practices and indicators, since the value or level of some of the indicators connected to the criteria depends on the environment. For example, the added value of a diploma in terms of graduate premium on salaries depends on the job market where most of the graduates work. The impact of education may as well depend largely on the scale of salaries in this job market. We face this situation in many other areas. Perception and Visibility of a University In terms of visibility, most observers are sensitive to the prestige accumulated by an institution of higher education through its history and its ability to communicate its success stories. The older an institution, the more visible it is. This is probably the reason why the Times Higher Education introduced a ranking of the top 100 universities under 50 years old. Moreover, some institutions are much more effective in communicating their activities than others. Therefore, even if two establishments have roughly the same actual performance level, the better communicator will have higher visibility. According to the general sensitivity of the public, visibility also depends on the disciplines covered at the university or the industrial sectors associated with the university. In a country without a food crisis but with an ageing population, research and higher education in agriculture will attract less attention and have a lower visibility than medical research. We will also discuss the difficulties of trying to assess the impact of research on the economy and the society at large. For example, a technology transfer success that is well publicized by the media can inflate the perception of the university’s actual impact. Focusing on Two Areas There are questions in several areas that are of great importance for institutions of higher education and especially for research universities where there is a strong impact on the economy and the society at large through two main channels: innovation linked to research results, and education or training. I will now describe how a French research university such as Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC) addresses these questions. THE IMPACT OF UNIVERSITY RESEARCH ON THE SOCIETY

The impact of university research on society at large is a broad question. Research expenditures, doctoral education, student spending, consulting activities by faculty or university staff members, scientific volunteering in the academic community, or the graduate premium on alumni salaries, may all have a large impact on the 162

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economy, as described by the consultants BiGGAR Economics (2015). But here we will limit our focus to the economic impact of three types of activities: universityindustry partnerships in research, including industry-sponsored research; intellectual property management and technology transfer; and the creation of new spin-off business from universities. University-Industry Partnerships in Research The nature of these partnerships.  In most research universities, scientific partnerships with companies represent a significant part of research revenue. Every year UPMC signs approximately 100 agreements with companies to set up such projects. They range from derma-cosmetic research to the development of new tools for oil prospecting, and from eye disease studies to mathematical modelling of combustion in aircraft engines. These partnerships include a variety of relationships between the university and the company. Research projects supported by companies: in kind or with money? First, a company can present a problem to a university laboratory and ask the scientists there to find solutions. At the very beginning of the partnership, its potential is still being explored. The company may hire a university student as an intern to study the problem with the support of one of his/her professors. If the problem turns out to require a more thorough study, a doctoral student may be hired or his/her recruitment funded by the company to enable him/her to prepare a PhD thesis in the university lab. In several European countries, governments have introduced funding schemes to support this type of public-private joint doctoral project. But the university lab may also decide to deal with the problem by setting up a larger, dedicated task force. In this case, a contract is generally signed by the company and the university in order to define the scope of the project, its cost, its funding and the ownership of the eventual results. Collaborative projects funded by tax-payers. In Europe, there are also different programmes funded by taxpayers and operated by the European Commission, governments or public agencies to support research projects conducted jointly by companies and universities. They have become more and more popular over the last 20 years and now represent a large proportion of university-industry research partnerships in France. For this type of project, there is no direct financial transfer between the company and the university, since their respective expenditures are both subsidized by public money. Public-private joint research labs. If they decide to develop the partnership even further, a company and a university lab can also decide to set up a joint research team made up of scientists from the company and faculty or staff members from the university. In France, there are several of these joint research teams that can be hosted on the company’s or on the university’s premises. At UPMC, this type of joint research team has been successfully established with the derma-cosmetic firm Pierre Fabre at our Banyuls-sur-Mer marine biological station on the French Catalan coast. 163

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Generally, the financial transfer between the company and the university is very low in comparison to the actual involvement of both partners in the relationship. However, in this type of scheme, the intellectual property coming from the research project is generally co-owned by the two partners with specific licensing rights granted to the company. Company-sponsored chair. Finally, a company can also decide to fund a university chair dedicated to a larger thematic spectrum in which it is interested. In this case, the company can take advantage of fiscal incentives but is not allowed to claim any intellectual property. All these partnerships may have a strong impact on the economy because they allow companies to develop their understanding and their control of the objects, phenomena or processes they need to rely on for their own business. Ultimately, they can bring products or services to the market that are better, more adapted to the consumer needs and at a lower cost. Assessing the performance of university-industry partnerships in research. A university’s high visibility in this field often comes from good press coverage of successful partnerships or because of partnerships with big or well-known corporations. But assessing the economic impact of these partnerships is a difficult task because of their different natures and the different types of impact on the market place. Is the level of research funding by companies a good indicator? The most commonly used indicator to measure the performance of these activities is the total amount of direct payments by companies to the university. These payments cover the company’s part of the expenditures for partnership projects. The underlying assumption is that if a company continues supporting this type of research project with a university, it is because it expects that they will create new technologies and, eventually, more sales. But the level of funding for the university does not in fact represent the true value of the input that university scientists bring to the economy. First, this funding level also depends on the financial negotiation between the university and the company or on the state of an eventual market place for publicprivate partnerships in research. This negotiation may have a broader spectrum than the single research project: it may refer to an umbrella partnership or include some in-kind trade such as the gift of scientific equipment. Companies may also assign some of their R&D staff members or graduate students they have just been hired to a joint research project or to a joint research lab. The university-industry liaison officers may be more or less aggressive in negotiating the price. Depending on the country, the industrial sector, the size, or the internal culture of the company, it is more or less inclined to pay the full cost of the project within the university. As a result, the same laboratory may have an equivalent level of partnership with two different companies without receiving the same level of funding. Moreover, as explained above, there exist different collaborative programmes funded by the taxpayer and operated by government or public agencies to foster 164

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public-private partnerships in research. This means that there are some important partnerships existing between universities and companies without generating financial transfers on the books of the universities. In order to determine the actual level of these public-private partnerships we must take into account the revenues coming from companies and corporations but also the subsidies received from governments or public agencies that support these partnerships. At UPMC, the first revenues represent on average 10% of the research resources outside block funding from French national budget appropriations, and the subsidies are 10% on average as well. Large corporations vs small businesses. For a university laboratory, working with a large company is less challenging and less demanding than establishing a partnership with a small business. As a matter of fact, a large company generally has a well-established R&D department with officers who quite often hold a doctoral degree that they generally got after preparing a PhD thesis in a university laboratory. They are therefore familiar with the academic community and the relationships are easy to establish. On the other hand, it is by far more difficult to work with a small business. In this type of company, there is not always an R&D department or people holding a PhD or even a master’s degree. Managers may not even be familiar with research. For them, the identification of questions for which state-of-the-art answers do not apply is a difficult task. As a result, working with a small business requires a deeper commitment from universities. Some stakeholders support this kind of commitment. For instance, the French National Research Agency supports public laboratories through an overhead system that takes into account the level of funding coming from companies with a specific bonus attached to funding coming from small and medium-sized businesses. This means that in their assessment of a university’s performance in partnering with companies, they pay attention to the relationships with small businesses. Defining a strategy to foster scientific partnerships with companies.  Faced with many stakeholders that have diverse criteria and a broad spectrum of different indicators, a university must make choices. But selecting the best indicators to assess or illustrate its performance depends mainly on the missions the university has decided to fulfil or to put at the top of its agenda. The real choices are not about the indicators but about the missions. We believe that one of the most important missions is to contribute to economic, social and human development through our research activities. These activities yield results that can be useful to develop a new product or a new service, to better control an industrial manufacturing process, to save energy and protect the environment, to introduce new drugs and save lives. However, we believe that this commitment cannot offset our fundamental commitment to the general progress of knowledge. In other words, we do not believe that doing research with companies is more important than doing basic research. We do believe that pure basic research is a central mission for a research university. The advancement of science prepares the 165

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groundwork for the development of new technologies. Graduate students preparing a PhD in basic science are educated to face, address and solve new problems in industry or in society at large. The new scientific equipment or methods developed for basic research often turn out to be quite useful in the economy. In addition, there are numerous examples of basic research that have eventually yielded disruptive innovation leading to great social and economic profit. The bigger the scientific breakthrough, the stronger the impact. UPMC’s Kastler Brossel Laboratory for fundamental and quantum physics – and home of three Nobel Prize laureates – has developed inventions that are now used to create better atomic clocks used in GPS, laser manufacturing and telecommunications. Selecting economic sectors? In order to define our strategy to maximize this impact, we naturally have to look at the priorities of our stakeholders. But in terms of industrial sectors, as a research-intensive university engaged in science, engineering and medicine, we believe that we do not have to focus on a limited number of sectors that may be chosen by some of our partner companies. Our faculty members would not agree to give up an entire potential application field. Selecting companies? Some stakeholders, such as local governments, would prefer that we work mainly with locally-based companies. However, as a global university, we do not hold to this principle. As for the size of the partner companies, UPMC tries to adopt a kind of positive discrimination to work with small and mediumsize business, in spite of it being more challenging. Many European institutions of higher education and research also have this approach because it can offer bigger rewards or because they are convinced that small businesses are better innovators and engines of economic growth. Promoting comprehensive sets of indicators. When we want to assess the real impact of university-industry partnerships, instead of measuring only the flow of industry money arriving in the university’s accounts, we try to use a large number of indicators: the number of industrial partners is a good indicator of the commitment and openness of our faculty members; the number of economic sectors involved says a lot about the industrial coverage of a university; the percentage of small businesses among industrial partners is a proxy of the ability of the university to adapt to this type of industrial partner; the number of foreign or international companies gives an good idea of the ability of our scientists to work at a global level and to be globally visible. We also track the support received from public agencies to develop collaborative projects with companies. The dynamics of these indicators is very important as well to identify the trends and to assess the evolution of the performance and visibility of our research. Broadening the scope of all our stakeholders. Finally, we explain that cooperating in research with a large international corporation may lead to the creation of a new local subsidiary. Attracting big companies for collaborative research may help smaller local ones to do more business. In other words, we try to convince our stakeholders to adopt a more systemic approach acknowledging that the fulfilment of our research mission is about capacity building and that the corresponding 166

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human, intellectual and material investments have a positive impact on their constituencies. Intellectual Property Management and Technology Transfer A university may also have a large impact on the society through the transfer of technology based on research results. These results – described in invention disclosures – can be protected through patent applications or copyrights and then licensed to a company. This transfer may ultimately result in new products or services being brought to the market place. Measuring visibility and assessing the performance of technology transfer.  For intellectual property (IP) management and technology transfer, visibility frequently comes from so-called blockbusters, i.e. sets of patents licensed to companies that generate high revenues. Some universities may be quite visible thanks to one blockbuster while in fact having little technology transfer activity. Tables, such as those produced every year by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) for North-American research institutions, are generally considered good tools to assess university performance. They show the numbers of invention disclosures, patent applications, patents granted, signed and executed licenses as well as revenues from licensing. Inventions either invented or owned by universities. However, once again, patent activity and technology transfer provide good examples of the conflict between visibility and performance. As a matter of fact, depending on the country or institution, in numerous cases, for legal or cultural reasons, inventions made by university employees always belong to their home institution; while in other cases, the university employee may keep ownership; there are also situations where ownership is transferred directly to a company even before any patent application is filed due to a pre-existing, implicit or even unspoken agreement. AUTM tables focus only on patent applications filed by universities. As a result, applications linked to inventions developed in a university but not owned by this university are not taken into account in these tables. For this reason, several economists specialized in the study of innovation have tried to focus on patent applications with academic inventors as well as patent applications filed by universities (Lissoni et al., 2007). Analysis by Lissoni et al. (2007), shows that there may be large differences between the visibility of a university in terms of its patent applications and intellectual property portfolio and its actual activity. Is technology transferred from universities or from faculty members? We face the equivalent gap in measurements of technology transfer activity: as long as the ownership of IP is in the hands of universities at the disclosure of invention, the number of licenses signed and the revenue coming from the execution of these licenses is a good indicator of technology transfer and, as a result, of the economic impact of the research. This is the case with most research institutions in North 167

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America and it is the reason why AUTM tables provide a relevant ranking of institutions according to their technology transfer activity. But what happens when patents belong to faculty members and licenses are signed between these faculty members and companies? There may be an actual activity of technology transfer, a high level of performance but very poor global visibility. At the same time, there is also a difference in terms of revenue for the university since in the first case, the licence yields payments and royalties received by the institution and in the second case, the licence generates revenues only for the faculty member. Defining and promoting a university technology transfer strategy.  The mission statement of a large number of research universities includes the dissemination or diffusion of research results to the public. The licensing of technologies is one of the most common ways to fulfil this mission. At UPMC, we created our tech transfer office at the end of the 1990s. Relevance of technology transfer. But some French stakeholders are not comfortable with the principle of technology transfer in itself. For instance, they believe that academic research should make its results available for free since universities are heavily supported by taxpayers. Some others even think that patent applications are complex, expensive and not worth the work. Altogether they would like to see university laboratories focusing on research projects conducted with companies and giving up any claim to the inventions coming from the research conducted in these projects. As a result, these stakeholders do not even see the interest of assessing the performance of technology transfer. As research universities, we must defend our mission statement by explaining that inventions from basic research activities may have a very high economic value and must be protected and licensed to a limited number of companies to make sure they have an interest in investing in the technological and commercial development of these inventions. There is also no reason to offer a free licence to one company rather than another. Location of the licensee companies in technology transfer. The question of the location of the licensee company is also under focus. Some local or national governments do not think there is any benefit to their communities when their university signs a licensing agreement with a company outside their region. From their point of view, a university delivers more benefit if the licensee company is local or at least national. The American Bayh Dole Act passed in 1980 even introduced recommendations for research institutions sponsored by federal money to transfer technologies to domestic companies. The same act also gives priority to small businesses, which is preferable to technology transfer to large companies. The French government also issued such recommendations in 2014 (Ordonnance n° 135 du 17 février 2014). But as the world economy becomes more and more global, some governments and the public opinion understand that the performance of a university in terms of technology transfer does not depend on the location or the ‘citizenship’ of the licensee company. As for international trade, where most countries consider it natural to export and import goods and services, it is generally admitted that a country 168

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may export and import technologies and intellectual property. MP3 technologies were developed in a Fraunhofer Gesellschaft laboratory based in Erlangen, Germany, but was brought to the public through a licence signed with a French IT company, Thomson, now named, Technicolor, based in Paris. The perceived impact of the German laboratory on the economy has not been hampered in Germany by the fact that the licensee company is French. If we are not allowed to sign licences with foreign companies, will our national companies be able to license technology from a foreign university? Promoting existing indicators. Since some French stakeholders are less convinced than their counterparts abroad that technology transfer is a key activity for research universities, we must communicate better about our success stories and about the high economic potential of inventions coming from basic research activities. But to build our visibility in this domain, we need better and more comprehensive databases. More and more universities now avoid the situation described above where they do not own the IP created by their employees. In France, with some exceptions, this principle has been generalized by law, and because more and more institutions are aware of the stakes. Creating New and Innovative Companies When there seems to be no existing company eager to license a technology, the best option may be to create a new business. This activity has been developing in France since the end of the 1990s. For example, at least 60 companies have been created during the last 15 years with technologies from UPMC faculty, staff members or former students. At the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, 10 of the 113 founders of French start-ups taking part in the show were UPMC alumni. Our university thus appears to be the number one institution of higher education in France to train the founders of future start-ups in this area. Moreover, some of the most successful start-ups and fastest growing companies in the world were created from universities. Measuring visibility and assessing the performance in the creation of new business.  In this domain, the main sources of visibility for a university are through success stories and well-presented case studies. The majority of successful new companies created from research results remain small, even if they manage to work globally. They remain unknown to most observers who rely on examples made popular in the media or through specific indicators. The indicators that are generally used to assess university performance in the creation of new businesses (by university researchers, staff members, students or recently graduate alumni) are: the number of companies created, their sales, the number of employees on their payrolls, and the amount of capital they have been able to raise. A theoretical model. But once again, some criteria put forward by a few stakeholders, such as local governments, are largely based on the location of the 169

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new company’s activities. For some of these stakeholders, an actual success story about the creation of a new innovative company must start in a university laboratory located in their constituency. The new business (including both headquarters and production facilities) should be located in their community. The investment of local venture funds adds to the success. These stakeholders would be even happier if the company becomes public on the local stock exchange and continues growing in the local community, selling products manufactured locally, providing services and creating jobs in their constituency. And the reality. Although this type of success story may happen, most of the time, only some of the events look like that. Frequently, invention – as with research itself – is global. The technology does not have a single place of origin because it was developed through cooperation between different scientific teams. In other words, inventing is not always a local phenomenon. For instance, the inventors are based in Chicago, Illinois, and Strasbourg, France. But the company must be incorporated in only one place. Sometimes, even though proximity to the university laboratory is often a key factor for success, the founders of the new company may decide to settle in another region of the country or even another part of the world. The venture capital industry is a very concentrated business. There are probably less than a dozen cities in the world with this kind of access to large investment funds. As a result, quite often local investment funds are not the only ones to invest – if they invest at all – in the new company. If the start-up is successful, a part of the added value will go somewhere else. Moreover, a large part of successful new businesses will end up being acquired by a larger or wealthier corporation. And the fact is most spin-offs fail. Relevance of start-up creation. As a result, there is a distinct gap between the model and the reality of new business creation. Some stakeholders are publicly doubtful about the interest in the creation of new businesses and think that it should not be taken into account in assessing the performance and the economic impact of an institution. At the other end of the spectrum, other stakeholders would like to only take into account the creation of new companies that fit perfectly with the only-local model, no matter what their actual economic potential is. Defining and promoting a university strategy for the creation of new business.  As with technology transfer to existing companies, supporting the creation of new business by our faculty or staff members or by our new alumni based on our research results matches perfectly with our mission of diffusion and dissemination of our newly developed technologies and our mission of contributing to the social and economic development of our society. Communicating about and with our start-ups. First we must admit that too often we do not invest enough in communicating ‘our’ successful spin-offs. Our websites, brochures and flyers do not mention all the companies created from our university. One of the main reasons for this is our lack of close connections with our spinoffs. With overburdened technology transfer offices occupied with new disclosures, 170

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patent applications and licensing agreements, there is no time left to monitor the evolution of our spin-offs. We need to adopt the same type of commitment to these companies as we have with our alumni. We must develop long-term relationships. Convincing stakeholders that creation of new innovative business is an essential, global activity. We also have to convince our institutional partners that finding an existing, interested and interesting company to bring one of our inventions to the market is not always possible. Many times, after signing a licence with a company, we realize that its commitment to the invention was not adapted to the challenge. When a new business is created to bring a technology to the market, there is total commitment to the transfer project and often a higher chance of success. New innovative companies are good forward scouts on innovative markets and prepare the groundwork for larger companies. We must also convince stakeholders that it is impossible to have a steady flow of newly created business pouring out of our campus without facing failures. But even a high rate of failure in new businesses is not exclusively negative, since the people involved in these start-ups gain invaluable experience that may serve as a new basis for the creation of another company in the future. Demonstrating that business creation is a global activity and about capacity building. At UPMC, we think globally, and therefore the location of any of the elements of a technology transfer is not relevant. This includes the location of a licensee company, the start-up created or the investment funds. While we are deeply committed to the economic development of the towns, cities and regions where we are based, we see innovation as being as global as the research itself. However, we are also optimistic that the largest economic impact will be seen in the regions around our campuses. Developing and nurturing a favourable environment for the creation of new business. A fertile environment for the creation of new businesses also relies on the existence of technological skills and seasoned business founders. For newcomers, we try to educate and support our faculty and staff members as well as our students to take part in or to create new innovative businesses, whether it is just an idea or already a firm plan. Our technology transfer officers always adopt a positive attitude when they meet with these innovators. If the creation of a new business turns out to be the best way to succeed, our technology transfer officers will strongly support the project. In 2000, we took part in the creation of an incubator that provides these founders with advice, services, space and introductions to the financial industry. In 2013, we created a seed fund and in the coming years we will build a research park on our campus in the very heart of Paris. ADDED VALUE OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

The visibility and performance of education and training are very important and sensitive issues for universities. As educational institutions, universities impact society in many ways. Moreover, this impact is analysed differently by different 171

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stakeholders. Each of them has its own agenda from which it defines its set of priorities. As a result, this impact can be addressed through different questions: Where do students come from? What is their social and cultural background? Are they selected by the university or assigned by the government? How many students enrolled in a university earn a degree? How many years do they need for that? How many of them drop out without any diploma? What is the graduate premium of a diploma? What is the reputation of a diploma or a university among employers? What type of career path do the alumni follow in their professional life? In France, as in a lot of other countries, the visibility and the reputation of a diploma come mainly from history and prestige. The reputation of an institution depends on how long ago it was founded; the success stories related to the career of a few well-known alumni; the selection process during the recruitment of students; and the perceived quality of the teaching. For the most part, these criteria are more related to the brand image of the university than to actual facts and data. In other words, prominent public figures – past or present – who are alumni of a university contribute more to its visibility than survey results. Some international rankings address this question of the impact of education but they rely on different indicators: we have already seen that some of them are based on public and factual data; others depend on surveys launched among a set of employers about the reputation of alumni. Generally, they do not explicitly present the links between the indicators used in the rankings and the goals which are supposed to be associated with these indicators. The French government is the most important stakeholder for French universities because the higher education ministry is the main source of university revenues. This ministry defines different indicators related to the added value of higher education. Below, we will present an indicator dedicated to alumni employability. But the French government used to take into account just one indicator to determine the level of financial support it provides to each French university: this so-called ‘performance indicator’ is based on the percentage of students enrolled in a curriculum and taking examinations, whether they pass them or not. In fact, measuring the impact of higher education has the same types of challenges in terms of visibility measurement and performance assessment as any other impact with the exception of basic research. Here, we will only address two factors: the impact of higher education on the employability at the beginning of a career; and the part played by research universities in the education of future technical and scientific officers in companies and high-ranking officials in institutions of higher education and research. Impact of Higher Education at the Beginning of a Career The added value of a university education in the job market at the very beginning of a career is considered very important because we can assume that the education and diploma are more important to company human resources departments at an 172

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early stage of a career. Later on, a candidate’s experience becomes increasingly more important and relevant to the company when they are choosing someone to fill a position. This question is very important for some stakeholders who are eager to see the impact of the support they give to an institution of higher education on the local economy: do local students stay in the region after graduating and take part in the local creation of wealth? Is the education they receive in local universities adapted to the local industry? Visibility and performance of universities in terms of employability of young alumni.  In terms of visibility, the media coverage (journals, radio or TV) that talks about the numerous job positions offered to students even before graduation does more for visibility than comprehensive surveys. A national survey. However, in France, a general survey has been set up by the national government, regularly conducted and dedicated to the master’s level. Only French alumni who are no longer studying – thus excluding foreign alumni and PhD students even if they are considered university employees during their doctoral studies – are surveyed 30 months after receiving a master’s degree. The survey yields results on employment rates, type and size of the employing company or institution, the level of the position in this company or institution, wages and salaries and location of the job. On this last point, the survey also provides data on alumni working in the area of the university that granted the degree, somewhere else in the country or abroad. In order to assess the relative performance of the university, the higher education department provides national and regional data on the general employment rate and on salaries. In other words, comparisons are made between the wages obtained by alumni and the mean wages in the area. This survey relies only on data provided by the institutions of higher education themselves. There is no validation procedure to check the quality of this data. It is publicly available on the website of the higher education ministry. Several journals specialized in higher education also use this data to build repertories and, in some cases, rankings. Therefore, this database, in spite of its limitations, plays an important part in the visibility of master’s degrees awarded by universities in France. The example of Pierre and Marie Curie University. Our alumni that received a master’s degree in science in 2011, and who were not PhD students, had an employment rate of 92% in 2014, while the national employment rate is 90% for science and engineering. The mean monthly net wages of our alumni are €2,230 while the regional Paris area and the national mean values are respectively €1,990 and €1,800. In terms of job location, 67% of our alumni work in the Paris area, 25% somewhere else in France and 8% abroad. This data gives information on the added value of a master’s degree from our university for local, national and global stakeholders. Competition between different types of curricula in some sectors. It is generally considered that French higher education is based on two systems that should be in competition: the universities on the one hand and the ‘grandes écoles’ on the 173

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other. But in fact, this competition does not take place for all types of education. Universities are the only institutions to offer professional education in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry or law. But for higher education in engineering and business administration, universities and ‘grandes écoles’ are in competition with the first having the advantage of size and the second the advantage of prestige. As a result, in these areas, if employment rates are very close for graduates of both systems, the difference is seen on the level of wages. It is noticeable that these two domains present the highest employment rates (generally above 93%) as well as the highest mean monthly net wages (generally above €2,100). In terms of performance, when measured at the level of an individual, ‘grandes écoles’ as a whole may seem to hold a better position (slightly higher employment rate, higher wages) than universities. But at a societal level, the added value of universities is quite high due to the numbers of their alumni entering the job market every year. UPMC awards more than 2,000 master’s degrees every year, while most ‘grandes écoles’ award less than 200 diplomas per year. Moreover, French law forbids a selection process for students accepted into university programmes. Taking this into account shows that our performance in educating so many students who manage to find a job at almost the same level of remuneration as the ‘grandes écoles’ is in itself a great performance and has a huge impact on the economy, on society and on the life of our students. Defining a strategy for the employability of young alumni.  In countries where the unemployment of young people is high, the arrival of recently graduated alumni is a sensitive issue that must be addressed by potential employers but also by institutions of higher education. National and local governments are very interested in this issue and we must meet their expectations as well as those of our students. Preparing students to enter the job market. Teaching them science and engineering is no longer sufficient to help them enter the job market under the best conditions. As we put the employability of our students at the top of our agenda, we have adapted our curricula to prepare them for this key step of their professional life: we have introduced mandatory courses to sensitize them to this issue. Our learning centre has a special section dedicated to career orientation and placement. Our main campus in Paris regularly hosts job fairs. Above all, we have closer relationships with local, and also national and international, employers in order to improve the impact of our brand as a teaching institution and the employability of our students. Proposing additional and more global criteria. At UPMC, we also decided to develop an adapted version of the national employability survey to examine some additional and interesting features of the education and training we offer. We introduced several specific indicators, such as the satisfaction of alumni as employees and the perception of the fit between their university education or training and their jobs. From our experience, we can see that there are also large differences of perception in the performance of a university even when the data comes from one single survey. For instance, the national survey does not consider doctoral positions to be an actual job opportunity. As a research university, we do not agree with this 174

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point of view. We have adapted this survey in order to clearly count PhD students receiving a salary as graduates with an actual job. The employment rate shifts from 92% with the national indicator to 96% with this new indicator. Because we are committed to the success of all our students – whatever their citizenship – we also adapted our survey to include foreign students, because the national survey does not take them into account. Their employability is as important to us as that of domestic students. Educating Future CTOs, CSOs and Senior Officials in Academia University education at the doctoral level is designed to train people to do effective research through a supervised research project. It is therefore interesting to try to assess the impact of a research university on the development of research careers in industry, government or research organisations (such as research foundations or hospitals) or in academic careers at institutions of higher education. Unfortunately, there is less data available to study this question with the very important exception of data related to international awards received by alumni. While many non-academic local stakeholders are committed to supporting doctoral education and the beginning of research careers, only a few of them find the education of future senior officers or officials interesting. This is because the job market for research and higher education is one of the most global markets in the world with high international mobility. It is therefore impossible for a university to convince a local government that educating people who will work anywhere in the world has any impact on the local economy. On the other hand, teaching people who will take these high-level positions constitutes an important global stake for a research university as they are international ambassadors for our reputation and will encourage top foreign professionals to come to France. It is probably one of the areas with the largest gap between local and global points of view. Visibility and performance of universities in this field.  Some studies on the very beginning of a research career do exist. But the little information available on older alumni comes from resumes posted when they are appointed senior officer in a company or senior official in academia. At UPMC, we have some data from professional social networks, but in both cases, they are difficult to validate. PhDs granted and the alumni with a research or engineering activity. A research university is defined by the proportion of its general activity dedicated to research. When separated into the number of diplomas, it shows that PhDs represent a large part of the degrees granted by a university. At UPMC, 10% of our students prepare a PhD thesis and we grant 750 PhDs every year in science, which is about 10% of the total number of scientific doctorates granted in France (DEPP, 2015). In terms of activity, a study dedicated to professional activities of new PhD holders in the Paris region shows that more than 40% of them work in research – industry R&D or academic research – two years after obtaining the PhD. 175

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Developing a career in R&D and in academia. Many of them will go on working in these fields, with some of them attaining higher and higher positions of responsibility. It turns out that seven of the 35 largest industrial companies quoted on the Paris stock exchange have a CSO or a CTO who are alumni of UPMC. At the same time, many high-ranking officials in institutions of higher education and research are also alumni of UPMC, which thus appears to be one of the places where many future industry R&D senior officers and senior academic officials were granted a PhD. Defining a strategy to prepare PhDs to go on with research after receiving their degrees. Although very few stakeholders are sensitized to the mission of educating these future senior officers and officials, we value it highly. We try to provide all of our doctoral students not only with an advanced scientific education and training at the level of the PhD, but also with a deep exposure and study of other matters that will help them in their career development. At the beginning of their doctoral studies, they must set up a continuing education plan for the duration of the thesis. They may learn about the history of science, business intelligence, career development, company organization, management, intellectual property, innovation, entrepreneurship, communications, and also how to become a principal investigator and a teacher. For instance, they can take part in Doctoriales, a one-week session dedicated to innovation and technology transfer. It is easy to see that this type of comprehensive education is not only well adapted to the beginning of a career in industry R&D or in academia, but also constitutes an actual executive education for those who will obtain high positions in their company, university or research institution. We make use of this dual competence to find support from our stakeholders to develop both aspects – for the short and long term – of our doctoral education. FINDING A PATH BETWEEN VISIBILITY AND PERFORMANCE

For each of the above activities that contribute to the development of the economy and society through research and education, I have presented how a university may deal with differences of visibility and performance. Sometimes, we have to focus on one set of stakeholders, priorities, criteria and well-defined indicators, and to disregard others that we do not consider relevant for a research university in general or for our institution. In this case, we must continue to ensure the missions we consider important without getting any interest from some of our stakeholders. A research university cannot provide the same services as an institution only dedicated to bachelor’s and master’s degrees. However, UPMC, as with many French research universities, fully accepts apparent or actual contradictions between perceived visibility and assessed performance, because they come from natural and quite legitimate differences in points of view by observers and stakeholders who are all valuable to us. In this 176

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case, we try to publicly explain the situation and why it is important for us to meet challenges which sometimes seem to be contradictory. We look for a balanced policy between visibility and performance. As in an example previously given, even if it is easier to have research sponsored by large corporations, we are also committed to the development of research partnerships with small businesses. But moreover, we try to convince our stakeholders that some of these contradictions mainly come from differences of scope and may disappear as soon as our stakeholders adopt indicators that are relevant to the longer term and in a bigger picture. We are becoming more and more global and so are the regions and cities where we are based: international students, alumni working everywhere in the world, funding coming from bi-lateral or multilateral international research cooperation agreements, and research grants coming from overseas agencies or charities. Most of our stakeholders have also understood that capacity building has a lot do with spill over and side effects. Research and technological facilities, education and skills, partnerships and relationships built on trust, talent and money from other parts of the world: these are all essential elements needed to fulfil our missions, but they also play a decisive part in the development of our national, regional and local communities. Our stakeholders increasingly tend to think in a more systemic framework. They expect the emergence or the development of competitive and innovative clusters in their constituency and they know that it will not be possible without a research university at its very heart. In conclusion, the resolution of the contradictions that emerge from different perceptions of visibility and criteria of performance first requires a deep analysis of the real mission of the university, an accurate definition of its strategy, and its priorities clearly set. We can then turn to our stakeholders, have an in-depth discussion on our respective priorities, try to broaden the scope of their analysis and together define the right performance indicators while being sure to avoid any misunderstandings. REFERENCES Adoc Talent Management. (2014). Emploi 2014: la poursuite de carrière des docteurs récemment diplômés en Île-de-France (2e éd.). Retrieved from http://adoc-tm.com/2014rapport.pdf BiGGAR Economics. (2015). The economic contribution of LERU universities. DEPP/Direction de l’évaluation, de la prospective et de la performance; ministère de l’enseignement supérieur et de la recherche. (2015). Repères et références statistiques: enseignement, formation, recherche. 261. Retrieved from http://multimedia.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/reperes_ references_2015/index.html - 263/z école des Mines de Paris. (2011). Classement international professionnel des établissements d’enseignement supérieur, enquête 2011. Retrieved from http://www.mines-paristech.fr/Donnees/ data03/334-10.-Classements.pdf Lissoni F., Llerena P., McKelvey M., & Sanditov B. (2007). Academic patenting in Europe: New evidence from the KEINS database (CESPRI WP, 2). Retrieved from ftp://ftp.unibocconi.it/pub/RePEc/cri/ papers/WP202LissoniLlerenaMcKelveySanditov.pdf

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Laurent Buisson Sorbonne University, UPMC – U. Paris 06 (Pierre and Marie Curie University)

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10. GLOBAL VISIBILITY AND LOCAL ENGAGEMENT: CAN THEY GO TOGETHER? The Case of the National Research University Higher School of Economics

INTRODUCTION

Recent wide-scale reforms in the higher education sector in Russia affect all segments of the academic market. In mass education, the goal is to improve quality, to provide equal access for high-quality education to young people from different backgrounds, and also to improve efficiency of government spending by closing inefficient higher education institutions. In the top-quality education sector and research, the Russian government has set an ambitious goal to create several worldclass universities in the country. At the end of 2012, a presidential decree was signed with a target of at least five Russian universities by 2020 in the top 100 of world university rankings. While such a target seems probably too ambitious, it clearly indicates the priorities articulated by the state. Such values are also clear (at least to some extent) to the professoriate. Thus, according to the recent survey on academic profession in Russia, almost 90% of the Russian faculty in public universities believe that strengthening the nation’s capacity to compete internationally should be among the top priorities for higher education in the country (Yudkevich et al., 2013). In line with this aim, the Russian government in 2013 announced a competition for additional support to higher education institutions, which should enter the top-100 global rankings, the ‘5–100 Programme’. The main indicators that are the basis for initial support of universities are: position (accurate up to 50 positions) in the leading global universities rankings (for universities and educational programmes) that a university is targeting to achieve; number of articles in Web of Science and Scopus per faculty member; average citation index per faculty member calculated from the total number of articles in Web of Science and Scopus; share of international faculty; share of international students studying on HSE’s main educational programmes; share of revenues from non-budgetary sources in the makeup of university revenues; and the average USE scores of students admitted to HSE for full-time bachelor’s and specialist studies, financed by the federal government. Then the progress of each university is measured in terms of how they manage to move up in rankings (namely

N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 179–188. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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THES, AWRU and QS), so universities have to adjust their policies to improve the values of the indicators that are important in ranking methodologies. Fifteen universities were selected based on a thorough evaluation of their roadmaps and potential, and the National Research University Higher School of Economics was one of them. In last few years, the Russian academic sector in general has managed to improve significantly their research performance (see Figure 1 and 2) and it has put a lot of effort into internationalization – both with regards to students and faculty.

Figure 1. Dynamics of publications affiliated with Russian institutions (Web of Science). Source: Office of Research Evaluation (HSE)

Figure 2. Articles and reviews affiliated with Russian institutions only (Web of Science, Q1). Source: Office of Research Evaluation (HSE)

Universities that were chosen as potential world-class institutions are not only national leaders in research but historically have also had important positions and played key roles in the national academic market and national economy. These universities are usually flagship universities that do a lot for the regions with regards to regional economies, culture and education. In respect of teaching and training specialists for the national economy, such a local engagement is to large extent supported by some core characteristics of the higher education system in the country. Indeed, there is a long-standing separation between universities and research institutions, with universities more focused on 180

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teaching, while research is developed at non-teaching research institutions. So traditionally, universities are more concerned with training specialists for different industries, rather than doing basic or applied research. That is why high-quality institutions are quite concerned with the demands of society and industry, and the whole process within the university is built around education (not research). In particular, it explains why Russian universities have relatively good scores in the ‘educational’ component of the global rankings (for example, the student-teacher ratio in QS). So universities have strong traditions in local engagement which are now supplemented by new goals to improve research performance and reach global visibility. To what extent these goals are contradictory and require different efforts, and will some efforts contribute both to global and local positioning? In this chapter, I discuss this question using the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) as an example. HSE BACKGROUND

Being one of the selected participants in the 5–100 Programme, the National Research University Higher School of Economics is the largest centre of socio-economic studies in Russia. The university was established in 1992 as a new specialized Higher Education Institute (HEI) initially focused on economics (as a good source on history of the HSE, see Froumin (2011)). Now HSE has four campuses located in Moscow (est. 1992), St. Petersburg (est. 1998), Nizhniy Novgorod (est. 1996) and Perm (est. 1998). Higher School of Economics incorporates more than 50 research centres and 22 international laboratories, which are involved in fundamental and applied research. HSE runs bachelor’s, specialist’s, master’s and advanced postgraduate programmes, and at the beginning of the 2014/2015 academic year, the HSE has about 25,000 students (with the largest campus in Moscow – more than 16,000 students). There are several things that make HSE special and distinguish it from other participants of the 5–100 Programme. First, it is new and it doesn’t have any longstanding traditions, which have both positive and negative consequences in terms of creating and developing research culture. Second, while having large and fastdeveloping faculties of mathematics, computer science and engineering, HSE in its core is substantially focused on social sciences, which means that compared to universities with strong medical and natural science faculties, HSE will always be less productive in terms of research articles and citations. Third, HSE serves as a think-tank for the government and does a lot of government consulting. Many people are actively involved in expert and analytical activities and government consulting, and also substantial empirical fieldwork and empirical data analysis are related to this important component of HSE. Finally, HSE is a university that is situated in several buildings in the very heart of the city and actively works to contribute to cultural environment around it. So HSE has a lot of events open for public both at 181

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HSE campuses but also in different places around the city (such as lectures in major public museums and parks). As other 5–100 participants, HSE is not immune to the ‘ranking fever,’ since the very design of 5–100 Programme is aimed to improve positions in rankings. The programme office evaluates results and also provides further resources according to formal improvement in rankings. So HSE has to take rankings into account. HSE has improved its position in the rankings (so far, mostly in QS subject rankings: in 2015, HSE was listed in the QS World University Rankings by Subject: 51–100 – Development Studies, 151–200 – Economics & Economics, Sociology, Philosophy). To do that, HSE undertook major transformations and reforms related to many aspects of university governance and life. These transformations are the part of the path along which HSE is moving in the last few years (see Table 1). To start with, the HSE organizational status has been reconsidered both formally (the status of National Research University was assigned to HSE in 2009) and substantially as HSE expanded its role from local provider of high-quality education in social sciences according to European standards, to the role of large multidisciplinary research centre integrated into global market. In the national market, HSE is now in many respects considered to be a trendsetter and standard-setter, and also plays a role as an integrator of leading Russian universities for many important national initiatives. Until 2014, HSE had approximately 30 faculties and schools. However, the university is now in the process of major structural reform aiming to combine faculties and schools into disciplinary clusters (so called mega-faculties). 11 mega-faculties were recently created in the Moscow campus and they were given more autonomy in financial issues and decision-making, as well as additional responsibilities. This restructuring not only introduced the concept of mutual obligations and expectations into governance discourse, but was also accompanied by the change of the Germanstyle chair system to a department model, with functions of faculty recruitment and curriculum design separated and assigned to different academic structures. Faculty recruitment was initially based on friendship and personal ties (which was easily justified by the absence of a national academic market) and was organized by faculty chairs, who were mostly responsible for providing faculty capable to teach the courses of the core curriculum. This model has now been substituted by a departmental model with recruitment organized both through the open national market, and also includes international recruitment. As the university grew from the small ‘team of associates’ where ‘everybody knows everyone’ towards a large university located, not only in different cities, but also in different locations across each city, the relationships both within the faculty and between faculty and administration became impersonal. This has forced universities to develop competitiveness and transparency rules upon which the distribution of resources both at individual and departmental level is based. While some faculty feel that such system allows them to effectively build and develop their individual career at HSE, others complain that these rules are too formal and overloaded with 182

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technical details that are extremely complicated to get through. Hazelkorn et al. (2014) documents administration in European universities and suggests that the ambiguity of rankings impact on improving sta­ff morale (general atmosphere, staff­ motivation). According to the responses of 171 universities that took part in the survey, 37% of respondents mentioned a positive impact, 2% a negative impact, while 17% said that rankings have both helped and hindered efforts to improve the general atmosphere among faculty in their institutions. At HSE, the situation is Table 1. Organizational transformation of HSE HSE transformation

Adaptive change 1990s

Strategic change 2000s

Radical change 2010s

Status/ Organizational identity

Local university provides education in social sciences according to European standards

Leading university in social sciences, think-tank for reforms in economy and public administration

Research University oriented towards global competitiveness

External image Marginal at national level

Pioneer

Trendsetter

Underlying academic units

Departments (kafedra)

Faculties

Megafaculties

Expansion of academic disciplines

Economics, Philosophy, Political Management, Sociology, Science, Psychology, Law History, Media

Mathematics, Computer Science, Philology, Engineering

Internal state

Team of associates

Fast-growing university with ‘permanent newcomers’

Large impersonal university

University dynamics

Adaptive change Legislations, Teaching standards, Buildings, Student recruitment

Strategic change Extensive and proactive growth, absorption, new niches

Radical change Productivity, Optimization, Excellence in Research

Recruitment strategy

Friendship and professional ties, Personal recruitment

Weak ties, poaching strategy, alumni.

International recruitment, open market

Academic core

Associates

Professionals (basic and applied research, education in Social Sciences)

Productive in terms of international publications, Public international scholars

Source: Pavlyutkin & Yudkevich (2016)

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pretty much the same: while some people among administration and faculty think that reforms and rapid changes improve faculty morale, others believe that there are both positive impacts (related to an abandonment of seniority culture in favour of a merit-based one) and negative impacts (associated with stress and growing tension between faculty and administration). In general, the nature of university dynamics changed substantially. While in the first period of HSE’s existence, this change was mostly adaptive, it was followed by a period of strategic change with quite extensive and proactive growth in size and in disciplinary scope (from economics and social sciences to mathematics, computer sciences, humanities and engineering). Now the change is of radical character and is based on the principles of increasing productivity and efficiency, and aims at research excellence. In 2013, HSE started a regular assessment of publication productivity for faculty and researchers, introducing strict performance requirements for researchers of all academic ranks. Its criteria assume that each researcher should have at least one publication in English in the previous two years (or, in the case of younger researchers – at least a working paper in HSE English working paper series). While this requirement is not too challenging, even this has created significant tensions within the university since it has pushed people to reconsider substantially their strategies, time and effort allocation, etc. Several international research centres at HSE with the active involvement of international scholars have been created. HSE concentrates a lot of resources on these centres and considers them to be an effective tool for creating good teams, raising research standards and creating a healthy and competitive research environment. CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN LOCAL ENGAGEMENT AND GLOBAL VISIBILITY

These massive efforts to improve global visibility have already created some positive trends and significant results. In particular, HSE has managed to substantially improve publication productivity (see Figure 3). However, there are obvious contradictions between policies oriented towards global visibility and those aimed to local engagement. Indeed, global visibility requires a university to focus more on research and make research productivity core criteria for faculty assessment and promotion. That means that teaching is less valued and that the faculty allocates less effort and time to teaching. Some tensions between teaching and research have always existed at HSE, and these tensions increased in recent years. While HSE was founded initially as a teaching university, some good teachers highly valued by students do not do any research (and in particular, do not publish papers in peer-review journals) and until recently were not obliged to do so. However, according to new performance rules, they experience significant problems at the moment of contract extensions, since they can be easily replaced with more research-productive colleagues – and who might not have such a passion for teaching. In particular, some people have complained that the international recruitment efforts, 184

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bringing young PhDs from different universities across the world onto tenure-track positions, while supporting research at HSE, may have a detrimental effect on the teaching culture, since these young people are quite often more interested in doing research and do not want spend too much time teaching. Aiming for global visibility also assumes a focus on publications in international, peer-reviewed journals. That makes some faculty members (especially in the humanities) complain that they are forced to publish in English when their research is rather Russian-specific and is mostly interesting and relevant (and important) for a Russian audience. They argue that switching into English will bring harm to the national culture and national discourse in many important aspects. While some of this rhetoric is at least partly explained by a lack of academic skills, low proficiency in English and a lack of instrumental skills necessary to write papers for good peerreviewed journals, there is also some rationality behind it.

Figure 3. Dynamics of HSE publications (compared to several other participants of 5–100 Programme). Source: Office of Research Evaluation (HSE)

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So while there are obvious tensions between teaching and research, and also between nationally-oriented research and research well fitted and integrated into the global research agenda, the latter is of a different magnitude for various disciplines at HSE. Indeed, while discipline such as computer science, mathematics and engineering represent disciplines which have long tradition of being ‘a part global science’, for many decades, the social sciences in Soviet Russia were developed in relative isolation from European and US research centres. So faculty in these disciplines are used to publishing in national, Russian-language journals. Now forced to publish in English in international journals, they argue that in these journals their work will find a smaller audience and thus their papers will have a marginal impact for the relevant academic community. It creates tension, not only between faculty in these disciplines and the university administration, but also to some extent between the faculties of various disciplines. Rules are sometimes criticized as ‘designed primarily for technical sciences,’ and as discriminatory toward social sciences and humanities. In addition, faculties from these disciplines complain that they are ‘forced to write journal articles while monographs are much more important in their fields,’ which also contributes to the growing tension. WHY THERE IS STILL IMPORTANT COHERENCE IN THESE MISSIONS

One may conclude that there are only contradictions between a global visibility and local engagement. However, I argue that building world-class universities also provides some positive externalities for the Russian higher education market and thus plays an important role for the local community. To understand why such a synergy is possible, it is important to take into account the starting conditions of the system. Since the Soviet period, Russian universities were local monopolists both with respect to students and faculty. Indeed, with the exception of Moscow and St. Petersburg, higher education institutions primarily targeted and accepted students from the same city or the nearest regional area where an institution was located. Moreover, under the planning system, there was no open competitive market for candidates for academic jobs, which was substituted with a centralized system of mandatory job placement for graduates. In the post-Soviet period up to today, while there is no obligatory job assignment and universities can hire whomever they want, they still prefer to hire their own graduates (see Yudkevich, 2014; Horta & Yudkevich, 2015). As a result, there is a significant level of nepotism, universities do not exchange faculty, and local cultures are cultivated. As a result, universities are rather closed and self-defending systems. So until recently universities learned to defend themselves against each other rather than to cooperate and compete. In the light of this, any cooperative movements that make universities cooperate and coordinate their activities (even in the sector of leading universities only) may be good for the system in general. A good example here is the establishment 186

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of ‘Global Universities’ association which united all participants of the 5–100 Programme. While this association has been created as a mechanism to share and discuss universities’ experience and ideas within the programme, it also creates positive externalities for the whole higher education system. It can be done via several mechanisms. One of them is the introduction of quality standards into the system. For example, one of the recent initiatives was to create a national learning platform – ‘Open Education’ – that provides courses prepared by leading universities for all universities in the country, and to give access for students from lower-quality universities to top-quality education. Such access should increase student mobility in the future since strong undergraduate students from weaker universities will be able to catch up and enter master and PhD programmes in stronger universities in Russia and elsewhere in the world. Another mechanism is sharing experience of one university with others within the 5–100 group. Junior faculty support programmes that exist at HSE are such an example. Initially created at HSE 10 years ago to integrate junior members into university life and provide them with guidance and support during the critically important early stage of their academic career, this programme now is a major instrument for including young scholars into academic governance and improving university corporate culture. So HSE successfully shares this experience with other universities, helping them to work out their own faculty support programmes. Even when not in the framework of associative actions, some university innovations, once introduced in one university to comply more with international standards, may have a huge impact on the system in general. An example here is faculty mobility – both international and national. As mentioned above, until recently, mobility between universities was quite low and HSE was the first public university to introduce international recruitment according to international rules. Now other universities are also starting to introduce this practice and it is getting easier as Russia becomes known as a possible academic destination and a part of the global academic market. HSE also recently introduced an open system for national recruitment. While recruitment procedures should be, according to existing law, open for candidates both from inside and outside of the university, in reality, in most Russian universities, it is just a formality. Patronage and a single university career is an institutional equilibrium, so, knowing that, external candidates almost never apply, since they understand that they have practically zero chance of filling the open vacancy. Nevertheless, HSE was able to start to change that, putting substantial effort into persuading people that it really is open all. After two years of such efforts, one can see positive results. The previous equilibrium state is no longer stable. So by solving its own problems, HSE has also produced positive externalities for the Russian higher education market in general. In more general perspective, leading universities need to recognize that the HE system consists not only of top universities and learn how to cooperate and compete with other institutions. 187

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CONCLUSIONS

The aims of global visibility while orientating towards local engagement are to a large extent contradictory and create obvious tensions and dilemmas for the university. However, under conditions of a weak national academic market, a focus on global visibility and gaining a position in the global academic market creates positive spillover for the national higher education system in general. The nature and characteristics of the national academic market are of crucial importance for finding the balance between aiming for global visibility and providing services for local community. The university’s actions and efforts that contribute towards improving the national academic market also contribute to the search for a healthy response to global ranking pressure, allowing it to define and strengthen the university national mission and to develop the strengths associated with the specific features of a national academic system. REFERENCES Froumin, I. (2011). Establishing a new research university: The higher school of economics, the Russian federation. In P. G. Altbach & J. Salmi (Eds.), The road to academic excellence: The making of world-class research universities (pp. 293–321). Washington, DC: The World Bank. Hazelkorn, E., Loukkola, T., & Zhang, T. (2014). Rankings in institutional strategies and processes: Impact or illusion. Brussels: European Universities Association. Horta, H., & Yudkevich, M. (2015). The role of academic inbreeding in developing higher education systems: Challenges and possible solutions. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2015.06.039 Pavlyutkin, I., & Yudkevich, M. (2016). The ranking game on the Russian battlefield: The case of the higher school of economics. In M. P. Yudkevich, P. A. Altbach, & R. Rumbley (Eds.), The global academics rankings game. Changing institutional policy, practice and academic life. London: Routledge. Taradina, L., & Yudkevich, M. (2016). Ranking fever: Do we know the remedy? In E. Hazelkorn (Ed.), Global rankings and the geo-politics of higher education: Understanding the influence and impact of rankings on higher education, policymakers and society. London: Routledge. Yudkevich, M., Kozmina, Y., Sivak, E., Bein, O., & Davydova, I. (2013). Changing academic profession (HSE WP Series 10).

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11. A UNIVERSITY FOR THE TROPICS

INTRODUCTION

The theme of the World-Class Universities Conference in 2015 was visibility and how it interacts with performance. Imbedded within the overarching conference theme were questions as to whether universities can be both globally visible and locally engaged, and as to whether visibility and performance can be integrated. These matters are salient in the context of an active international discourse about the future of higher education and particularly the question of what strategies universities can adopt to secure their futures. The discourse about the future of higher education and the strategies that institutions can adopt to ensure prosperous and sustainable futures have intensified in the presence of what some commentators have described as an unprecedented confluence of changes. There are claims, for example, that the forces of change are so great that we are have reached an unheralded ‘inflection point’ (Coffait, 2012). In this tumultuous environment, universities may adopt a range of strategies that will enhance success. At the heart of many of these strategies is performance, especially in research, which is a significant driver of the credible international ranking schemes. Visibility and reputation are both outcomes and drivers of measured performance in these same ranking schemes. A precept of this chapter is that ‘worldclass’ can be achieved through a variety of organisational strategies. While it is most often associated with large, often long-established institutions of higher education, it is also acknowledged that strategies based on specialisation and niche positions can also lead to being ‘world-class’. In this chapter we provide a brief overview of the context of change in higher education, which is an important backdrop to the pursuit of both performance and visibility. Our argument is that in an environment of unprecedented change, performance (in the sense it is used here) and visibility are elements of a futures strategy that some institutions will adopt. Visibility is an attribute that is pursued by universities at all levels, from individual researchers through to the institution at large. Institutional-level visibility takes on a particular interpretation in the context of the case of our own university – James Cook University (JCU) – in that it derives from a strategic niche positioning, based on geography. Following brief consideration of (a) change in higher education, and (b) activities at different levels within universities to enhance visibility, the chapter turns to the example of James Cook University and entails an overview of the strategic positioning of the University and its performance N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 189–201. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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and standing in research. We then draw attention to the State of Tropics project, which provides an interesting exemplar of the raising of visibility, drawing on our strategic niche positioning, and which involves work that is both locally relevant and globally important – i.e. glocalization, ‘the simultaneity – the co-presence – of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies’ (Robertson, 1997). UNIVERSITIES OF THE FUTURE

Blue Skies, a project of The Pearson Think Tank, ‘is a deliberate attempt to fundamentally broaden the conversation about higher education’ (Coffait, 2012, p. 10). In the introduction to their 2012 volume of essays, Louis Coiffait, Head of Research at Pearson Think Tank, opened his remarks with the question ‘Are universities currently experiencing an unprecedented volume, velocity and variety of change?’ (p. 12). He closed his remarks by saying ‘I would argue that universities are facing a unique confluence of trends at the same time, creating an unprecedented “inflection point”’ (p. 16). The leading trends he identifies are funding, quality, fairness and technology. Professor Stephen Parker, Vice-Chancellor at the University of Canberra, commented that (Parker, 2012): The future of higher education globally is bright, but the current conception of a university in countries like Australia is not sustainable in the long term, except perhaps for a small number of institutions. The organisational forms, cultures and practices which developed over the centuries to provide university education for society’s elite have been stretched and panel-beaten as far as they will go for an era of mass participation in higher education. The model is too expensive, capital-intensive and inflexible. Parker’s comments capture two of the essential arguments here. First that higher education is in a period of significant change and, secondly, that universities must find new strategies if they are to remain viable in the future. On the theme of profound change in higher education, a report delivered by Ernst and Young in 2012 was provocatively titled ‘University of the future: A thousand year old industry on the cusp of profound change’ (Ernst & Young, 2012). Figure 1 summarizes what Ernst & Young identified as the main drivers of this profound change. A consistent, though somewhat different representation, identifies six influences of change (JCU – The Future Taskforce, 2013). Internationalization. An influence is manifest in many dimensions, including the increasing mobility of students and staff, and the internationalization of research. Of great significance for us – and indeed universities everywhere – is the shifting balance of economic power towards Asia, along with strong commitments amongst 190

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several nations within Asia to significant investment in education generally and higher education specifically. Quality. The quality agenda has emerged strongly and is evident in national research assessment exercises (e.g., the REF in the UK, ERA in Australia) and in the closer regulation of higher education through agencies such as the Tertiary Education Quality Standards Agency (TEQSA) of Australia. More widely, the ranking of universities has emerged as an industry in itself.

Figure 1. Drivers of change. Source: Ernst & Young (2012)

Pedagogy. Very much to the fore has been the convergence of open access education and the opportunities for this afforded by digital technologies. Unlike the predictions before the dotcom crash of a transformation to online learning, there is more substance to the current trends. This substance lies in the fact that well respected universities – Yale, Harvard, Melbourne and the ANU – have invested in the new online opportunities such as Coursera and edX. Of course, there is also enhanced functionality this time around, which makes for even more innovative delivery. In a very real sense, students can now learn anywhere, anytime, from many, many providers; and there are implications for universities as they seek to articulate and enact distinctive added value in this new environment, and identify the specific contributions they can make to the student experience of learning. 191

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Participation. Within Australia and in other nations, there are strong drivers to support the widening of participation in higher education. Participation amongst socio-economic groups that have been poorly represented in university education is very much to the fore. This has several implications, not the least being the prospect of growth in student numbers and the attendant issues in terms of infrastructure and learning resources. It also raises questions about pathways into higher education. There is a real opportunity here for higher education providers to be explicit about their value proposition of delivering the transformative effects of higher education more broadly. Public versus Private. The debate about the balance of public versus private benefits that accrue from higher education is quite active. The debate goes immediately to how the costs of university education should be apportioned between governments and individuals. There are interesting implications that might arise from increased private contributions. In particular, will this drive a more vocational emphasis amongst students, subtly but profoundly reshaping the nature of what universities do? Competition. The competition internationally for students – both undergraduate and postgraduate – is intensifying strongly. Additionally, the increased access to online content presents another source of competition and one that is also increasing strongly (see above). For any university, the question then looms as to what the value proposition is – why would a student choose one institution over others, including the many that offer learning online? At an even more fundamental level, and in the context of online and/or blended learning environments, we need to ask also, what is the added value of students coming on-campus for their learning? The forces of change upon higher education have many and varied implications. They go directly to issues of business sustainability for example, as income is threatened by competition and as costs escalate through necessary investments in new learning technologies. Also, the nature of work at universities will change. For example, a shift towards online delivery through MOOCs and earlier initiatives such as the Khan Academy,1 and an associated move towards more individualized learning opportunities could cast professional academics more in the role of mentors and tutors, or intelligent bundlers of resources. There is talk of ‘blended’ positions, where the distinctions between professional and academic staff become increasingly blurred. Staff mobility might increase, if the forecast growth in the ‘multinational university’ (MNU) is realised. More immediately, some universities have already acknowledged that the division of academic labour is differentiated through, for example, the designation of ‘teaching oriented’, ‘practice oriented’ and ‘research oriented’ classifications. In the face of the quite profound changes that are upon higher education, institutions should plan carefully. Important questions include: • What opportunities and threats lie in the various changes? How well prepared is the university to grasp these opportunities and minimise the threats? Is the university’s culture today an asset or a liability in the face of change? 192

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• What assumptions about how the university operates today may not be valid in the context of anticipated change? • Is the university sufficiently prepared for particular changes that the future might bring? What are the specific vulnerabilities? • Are there things that could be done today to improve resilience? • What are a university’s current strengths and areas of distinctiveness that will enable it to be successful in the future? These questions in turn go very much to the matter of institutional strategy and how universities can position themselves to endure in the presence of profound and challenging change. The 2012 Ernst and Young report posits three possible strategic futures for universities. One is characterized as the ‘streamlined status quo’. This is a strategy that involves innovation in digital technologies and in the development of partnerships, but little else that is genuinely transformative. As a survival strategy, this is essentially the preserve of the ‘big and old’ – those that are well-established, large, resilient and relatively well-resourced. While all of this might suggest a comfortable future, Harding and Harrison (2015, p. 8) observe: Institutions like universities, particularly those that are older and larger, may be particularly prone to the negative effects of their ‘structural inertia’, meaning their capacity to adapt quickly to changes in their operating environment may be limited. In general, such institutions are better adapted to a coarse-grained operating environment2 where time is on their side as they seek to adjust what have been successful operating routines and processes. The second strategy described by Ernst & Young is referred to as the ‘niche dominators’. The strategy involves greater transformation of services, markets and delivery than the ‘streamlined status quo’, but is most obviously distinguished by the fact that the strategy entails choices at the institutional level about what to focus on. Harding and Harrison (2015, p. 8) comment: Specialisation can also be important to survival and growth in a dynamic environment. Generalist organisations, including perhaps more comprehensive universities, typically do well in coarse-grained environments, while specialist organisations are more likely to thrive in both fine- and coarse grained environments.3 Here, the relevance of these portrayals of possible future conditions for universities goes directly to the case study of James Cook University, an institution that has intensively pursued niche positioning based on a world geography, a strategy that is underpinned by credible research performance, matched to a purposeful campaign to bolster visibility. JCU thereby stands as an institution that can claim performance of international standing, and a mission that seeks to demonstrate local relevance of a globally important mission and agenda. In the context of the discussion above, the 193

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strategy to maintain and develop a sustainable and prosperous future is anchored in niche positioning, scaffolded by performance, visibility and reputation. VISIBILITY

Universities seek to increase the visibility of their activities, notably research, to: • • • • •

Demonstrate their contributions to economic, environmental and social outcomes; Enhance reputation, influence and positional goods; Recruit and attract staff and students; Improve prospects in competition for research funding; and Position themselves to work effectively with multiple research-users – industry, government, NGOs and community.

However, treating universities – or the types of universities that feature in reputable global rankings – as if they were coherent single-brand entities like firms or public sector agencies is misleading. Thus, given the emphasis on visibility in the theme of the conference, it is useful to sketch out the different scales and drivers of activities carried out by: • • • •

Individual researchers and/or small teams/labs; Research centres and institutes or analogous ‘aggregators’; Institutions; and Consortia of institutions.

Researchers Much of the work and activity to enhance visibility within the academy is undertaken by individual researchers and/or their research groups. Strategies include: • Leveraging formal and informal networks, e.g., through conferences, professional societies; • International co-authorship; • Open access publications and data; • Maintaining researcher profiles and IDs – e.g., through ORCID, Scopus; • Participating in network platforms – e.g., ResearchGate, Google Scholar; • Social media (targeting academics in their disciplines or fields of research as well as broader communities of interest, mainstream media and the general public); • Publication strategies for optimising searches, e.g., deliberative use of keywords, descriptive titles. For researchers, such activities are multipliers of high quality, distinctive publications and contribute to building impact, profile and credibility. These ‘bottomup’ activities to enhance visibility may have direct connections with institutional performance, for example, where citation impacts are key indices in rankings. 194

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Institutions may provide some support for such activities and articulate performance expectations, but it is reasonable to assume that such activities are considered to be a normal part of academic work. Researchers, particularly research leaders, may seek to build visibility beyond their academic field by using their expertise and academic credibility to develop profile and standing in the media, industry, or public debates, including through participation in expert panels, notably in areas where governments are primary research users, regulators and/or funders, as in public health and environmental management. Research Centres and Institutes Centres and institutes can be effective aggregators that provide visibility through critical mass, access to branding/media resources, developing portals and capacity to effectively ‘narrow-cast’ to relevant end-users and partners. Universities Universities have a wide range of instruments or functions that help provide shape to activities intended to enhance visibility. These may include, for example: Platforms to enhance access to scholarly activity: • Institutional repositories; • Open access (publications and data); and • Accessibility of webpages, e.g., templates for profiling staff. Branding: • Articulation of strategic missions; • Marketing and media campaigns; and • Funding intermediary entities/platforms/aggregators, e.g., research centres and institutes. Performance expectations: • As the focus on external impact grows, a thoughtful use of broader performance metrics to include, for example, altmetrics, contributions to media, and engagement activities. • Universities – or more typically faculties, colleges, departments or similar levels of organisation – can seek to enhance visibility through recruitment strategies for ‘stars’ or more generally seek to align recruitment with strategic intent. Consortia In some contexts, the visibility of consortia or peak bodies has added new avenues to pursue visibility. Within higher education, groupings of universities such as the 195

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Russell Group (UK) or the Group of Eight (Australia) have been influential. In more general terms, consortia associated with grand challenges or other narratives can bring visibility or help frame organising principles at a meta-level in a way that no one institution can. Despite the quite different scales and types of activity to enhance visibility of scholarly activity and institutions, what they all have in common is the power of leveraging networks to build and sustain trust and reputation. A UNIVERSITY FOR THE TROPICS

James Cook University is a leader within Australia and internationally in teaching and research that addresses critical challenges facing the tropics worldwide. The University is committed to research of excellence and high impact, particularly on issues of importance to the world’s tropics. Unusually, the University’s niche-based mission was inscribed in the founding legislation, wherein the institution’s purpose is proclaimed to be ‘to encourage study and research generally and, in particular, in subjects of special importance to the people of the tropics [emphasis added]’ (James Cook University Act (1997)). Within Australia at least, there are no other universities for which their mission is so distinctively defined. JCU’s embrace of this institutional mission has waxed and waned over the University’s 40-plus year history, but it is very much at its zenith now. Accordingly, JCU’s scholarly activities are inspired by its location in the tropics, and the University’s Statement of Strategic Intent4 is headlined with the ambition to contribute to ‘A brighter future for the tropics, through graduates and discoveries that make a difference’. The University brings perspectives and understanding to its local communities that are informed by its interactions globally, while its window on the global tropics is framed by its experiences locally. From its location in the tropics, it seeks to develop relationships with research organisations, employers, campuses and users of new knowledge wherever they may be around the world. It explores, implements and supports opportunities for collaboration and learning, both physically and virtually, by encouraging staff and student mobility, and using information and communication technology to give its activities global reach. Over the past eight years, teaching and research at JCU has been focused on four themes: • • • •

Tropical Ecosystems and Environment; Industries and Economies in the Tropics; Peoples and Societies in the Tropics; Tropical Health, Medicine and Biosecurity.

These four themes lie at the heart of the University’s Plan5 and have recently been embellished through the overlay of a ‘grand challenges’ framework, which orients 196

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broadly to ‘sustainable futures for the global tropics’, and more specifically to the challenges of: • • • •

Ecological resilience Human wellbeing Resource security Good governance

Within this framework, JCU’s learning and teaching and its research are aligned through a matrix format that pairs the grand challenges with the four themes of the University Plan.6 JCU recognizes that the University is judged not only on its quality but equally on its wider relevance, impact and the force and integrity of its intellectual leadership. As a regionally-based university, it recognizes its obligation to engage with industry, government and the community and to share our research findings. Accordingly, it has formed partnerships with other research organizations to extract the most out of our research effort. James Cook University recognizes its ‘power of place’ and works within its own communities, promoting socially inclusive and sustainable regions. The University aims to be a good corporate citizen, responding proactively in terms of our civic responsibilities, interacting with our stakeholders in mutually beneficial ways to ensure that our regions grow and prosper sustainably. The University’s fields of excellence in research align strongly with its niche positioning, focused on the tropics. Thus, its reputation and standing is based especially on work in the environmental sciences and ecology, tropical marine science and management, tourism, earth sciences, public health, tropical diseases, and people and societies in the tropics. The University’s international standing in some of these fields is demonstrated in Table 1, which identifies areas of research (key words) in which JCU is amongst the top 100 institutions worldwide (2010–2014). Table 1. JCU standing in areas of research (2010–14) Area of research (keyword)

JCU standing*

Aquatic Science

10th in the World, 4 researchers in top 100

Aquaculture

17th in world, 3 researchers in top 100

Coral reef science

1st in world, 16 researchers in top 100 including 7 of the top 10

Sharks

2nd in world, 5 researchers in top 100 including 1st and 5th

Tropical fisheries

1st in world, 8 researchers in top 100 including 4 in top 10

Tropical rainforests

1st in world, 9 researchers in top 100, including 2nd and 10th

Note: World ranking is based on number of outputs over the period 2010–14 Source: Scopus – data downloaded 8 August 2015 with SciVal

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Table 2. JCU standing by all science journal classifications (2010–14) Scopus – All science journal classifications

JCU standing*

Ecology

35th in world, 2 researchers in top 100

Ecology, evolution, behaviours and systematics

37th in world, 6th by Field Weighted Citation Index (FWCI)

Global and planetary change

99th in world, 2nd by papers in top 10%, 4th by FWCI

Nature and landscape conservation

24th in world, 8th by FWCI, 3 researchers in top 100 including 6th & 7th

Oceanography

57th in world, 12th by FWCI, 1 researcher in the top 100

Parasitology

59th in world, 1 researcher in the top 100

Note: World ranking is based on number of outputs over the period 2010–14 Source: Scopus – data downloaded 8 August 2015 with SciVal

A less nuanced view, but one which also confirms world-class standing in areas of research relevant to the tropics, is provided by an analysis of the Scopus – All Science Journal Classifications (2010–14) (Table 2). In terms of the overall institutional standing, JCU fares reasonably well in the international rankings, with most placing the University in the top 400 (Table 3). The primary argument here is that JCU represents an example of a university that has actively pursued a niche-based organizational strategy (cf. Ernst & Young, 2012) and by virtue of that has achieved a high-level of research performance (world-class) in its areas of focus (e.g., Tables 1 and 2) and also at an overall institutional level (Table 3). The argument turns now to how reputation links to visibility through the example of the JCU-led State of the Tropics initiative. Table 3. James Cook university in the international rankings International rankings

JCU position

Academic Ranking of World Universities 2015

301–400 band • 101–150 band in Life Sciences

National Taiwan University 2015

414th • 21st in world & 2nd in Australia in Environmental/ecological sciences

QS World rankings 2015/6

387th

THE World University Rankings 2015/6

251–300 band

US News 2016

354th • 22nd in world and 2nd in Australia for Environment/ecology • 61st in world Plant and animal science

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THE STATE OF THE TROPICS

In early 2011, a group of leading research institutions7 with an interest in tropical issues united to examine the condition of life in the tropics. The group met in Singapore in mid-2011 to scope a project that would draw on shared expertise to report trends across a broad range of environmental, social and economic indicators. The intent was to shed light on a simple question: Is life in the tropics getting better? Initiated by James Cook University, the landmark State of the Tropics report (State of the Tropics, 2014) draws on the knowledge, experience and diverse backgrounds of leading institutions across the tropical zone. It is the first in-depth objective assessment of the tropics as an environmental and geopolitical entity in its own right. Its importance was reinforced by Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi launching the State of the Tropics Report in June 2014, along with simulcast launches in Singapore and Australia. A defining feature of the tropics is its extraordinary biological, cultural and sociopolitical diversity, yet its people are connected by an ability to survive and thrive in this diverse and dynamic region. The State of the Tropics explores this diversity and the inextricable link between natural systems and human health, well-being and prosperity. It provides a basis from which to work towards a prosperous, sustainable and equitable future for the tropics, making it a valuable resource for policy makers, geopolitical analysts, researchers, students and other stakeholders interested in the tropics. The State of the Tropics report demonstrates that nations in the tropics have made extraordinary progress across a wide range of environmental, social, and economic indicators in recent decades. It also shows that rapid population and economic growth will dramatically increase the influence of the tropics in the future, reframing global dynamics and ultimately changing the way the world views itself. This report confirms the great potential that the tropics hold – arguably the future does belong to the tropics. The State of the Tropics report was the product of a collaborative effort among 11 universities around the world and it served the purpose of drawing attention to a geopolitics that has not featured strongly in representations that seek to make sense of inequities in the global order of things (cf. the North-South debate, the Brandt Line). But it also has served to emphasise the geography that defines JCU’s niche – i.e., the tropics. Indeed, the State of the Tropics report has drawn attention to challenges and the potentialities of the middle band of the globe in an uncommonly powerful way. In doing so, it has certainly served to increase the visibility of the University. Thus, it has built a potent reflexivity, whereby JCU’s niche is validated by the claimed relevance of the tropics as a geography of interest, and the University’s research reputation confirms its authenticity as a contributor of knowledge and understanding in the study of the tropics. The State of the Tropics project is as an example of how niche positioning can be leveraged to achieve global visibility, anchored in an established tradition of research excellence. Visibility, capability and reputation are thereby all interwoven. 199

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Lastly, in concert with the themes of this conference, it is relevant to draw attention to the interaction of local and global in this story. To a significant extent, JCU’s research reputation is anchored in the study of things that resonate powerfully at the local scale and that also are expressed internationally. Historically, JCU’s research portfolio has been founded on the study of coral reefs, drawing inspiration from the University’s location adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef. The capability and expertise developed locally is now applied across the tropics, to understand coral reef ecology and humanenvironment interactions at the international scale. In a not dissimilar way, JCU’s interest in tropical health and diseases is strongly defined by its place in northern Australia, but holds relevance to human health and welfare throughout the tropics, including nations in the near north (e.g., Papua New Guinea, Indonesia). The potential reflexivity in these examples is that local context provides knowledge and understanding that usefully serves an international community, while the lessons learned beyond Australia can be brought back to serve our immediate regions – globalization, if you like. CONCLUSIONS

In this chapter we sought to engage with the themes of the conference that raise questions as to whether universities can be both globally visible and locally engaged, and as to whether visibility and performance can be integrated. James Cook University has energized the power of place through an institutional focus on the tropics, drawing inspiration from its local geography and its location set amidst a global geopolitics that is of increasing relevance. The University is in a very real sense blessed by the vision that inscribed this focus in the institution’s founding legislation. The niche positioning, which is firmly instilled in the firmament of the organisation, delivers a brand and purpose that provides real value in a competitive higher education sector. A commitment to research quality throughout the University’s short history, largely inspired by its location, has established JCU as a credible institution on the global stage. Backed by its ability, the University has also focussed attention on its mission and purpose through participation in the State of the Tropics project. Thus, performance and visibility are brought together in a synergistic way. At the same time, the University has capitalized on subjects of inquiry evoked by its immediate place – northern Australia – to at once make a difference locally and globally. With higher education inexorably engaged in a period of transformation, JCU looks to the interplay of its niche positioning, its standing as a research university, the visibility of its mission and work, and the local/global nexus as essential elements of our future sustainability. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This chapter draws upon the work of many staff within James Cook University. We acknowledge particularly the work of the JCU – The Future Taskforce, Patricia 200

A UNIVERSITY FOR THE TROPICS

Brand, Heather Gordon, Stephanie Hunter, and Sally Kift. We acknowledge also the work of the State of Tropics project team. This chapter reproduces text from several official JCU publications, including particularly Crystallising Our Purpose (JCU – The Future Taskforce, 2013), University Plan 2013–2017 (James Cook University, 2013) and The Future Belongs to the Tropics (James Cook University, 2015). NOTES The Khan Academy is a website that delivers a free online collection of learning resources through YouTube. 2 Harding and Harrison (2015, p. 8) define granularity in these terms: ‘Granularity goes to the degree of mix in spatial or temporal distribution. A mix of diverse organizations is said to be fine grained, whereas large areas of homogeneity is coarse grained. Temporally, grain refers to the length of typical periodicities. Fine grained is when fluctuations occur frequently, coarse grained describes a longerterm tenure of any one fluctuation.’ 3 Harding and Harrison (2015) argue that the current operating environment for higher education is ‘fine grained’ and dynamic. 4 Please see http://www.jcu.edu.au/about/strategic-intent/ 5 Please see http://www.jcu.edu.au/about/plan/index.htm 6 Please see http://www-public.jcu.edu.au/news/JCU_119851 7 James Cook University, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University, University of Hawaii, The University of the South Pacific, Escuela Superior Politechnica del Litoral, National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, University of Papua New Guinea, Instituto Nactional de Pesquisas da Amazonia, University of Nairobi, Organisation for Tropical Studies. 1

REFERENCES Coffait, L. (2012). (R)evolution in higher education? In L. Coffait (Ed.), Blue skies: New thinking about the future of higher education. London: The Pearson Think Tank. Ernst & Young. (2012). University of the future: A thousand year old industry on the cusp of profound change. Australia: Ernst & Young. Harding, S., & Harrison, R. (2015). Changing times, changing universities: Leadership, governance and management in a dynamic environment. International Journal of Chinese Education, 4, 5–27. JCU – The Future Taskforce. (2013). Crystallising our purpose. Australia: James Cook University. Parker, S. (2012). Time to trade in a well-worn university model. Campus Review, 13. Robertson, R. (1997a). Comments on the ‘Global Triad’ and ‘Globalization.’ In I. Nobutaka (Ed.), Globalization and indigenous culture, institute for Japanese culture and classics. Japan: Kokugakuin University. Retrieved from http://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/global/index.html State of the Tropics. (2014). State of the tropics 2014. Cairns, Australia: James Cook University.

Chris Cocklin James Cook University Bradley Smith James Cook University

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12. DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL GRADUATES

INTRODUCTION

In the past, university graduates became entrepreneurs out of necessity and a lack of employment opportunities. In recent years, they are becoming entrepreneurs out of choice. They are motivated by the successes of alumni and inspiring role models from the Silicon Valley, as well as from several other locations from around the world. Moreover, governments around the world are putting in place innovation and entrepreneurship-friendly policies and incentives to help national economies and productivity growth. They are emulating countries known for innovation such as the USA and Israel. Innovative countries seem to have either enterprising culture or ecosystem, or both (Figure 1 A and B). The emulating countries are compensating for limited enterprising cultures by providing an appropriate ecosystem (Figure 1 C). Countries around the world are motivated by the inability to provide employment opportunities for the growing number of university graduates and the need to ensure sustainable growth of respective economies in a competitive, post-globalized world. While there is growing interest among university students to set up their own start-ups, not every student is keen or able to do so. On average, about one in a hundred students seriously considers becoming an entrepreneur upon graduation, and the remainder are inclined to take up job opportunities in conventional careers. Proponents of inculcating an innovative and entrepreneurial spirit among all students via curriculum and pedagogy assume such skills are helpful and are needed, irrespective of a student’s career choice. Their main assumption is that in a postglobalized competitive world, for economies, companies and organizations to be sustained, they need enterprising, innovative and passionately engaged employees. And the post-globalized world is enabled by trends such as the mass-customization of products to serve local needs, nations building respective research, innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, and a growing emphasis on local relevance while becoming globally visible (Coelen, 2015; de Wit & Leask, 2015; Kwiek, 2015; Ramakrishna, 2015). This chapter illustrates various approaches to developing innovative and entrepreneurial graduates.

N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 203–214. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

S. RAMAKRISHNA & A. S. MUJUMDAR

NET GENERATION STUDENTS

‘Net generation’ students are those who grew up with modern digital technologies. They seek information from the internet, and are constantly connected with friends and peers via social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and WhatsApp. They multi-task and may have a limited attention span. Unlike earlier generations who took up jobs that they came across to fulfill family obligations, the net generation is much more selective and ambitious with career options. Some of them have a higher appetite for risk, and prefer to experience different options before committing to a specific one. About one percent of them are more inclined to embark in start-up companies with innovative ideas, either immediately upon graduation, or after some relevant work experience. Clearly there is need to provide them with opportunities to learn, and experience innovation and entrepreneurship during their time at the university.

Figure 1. Relative influence of culture and ecosystem on innovative countries INNOVATION IS GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED

Asia, home to half of the world population, has been according greater importance to higher education, scientific research and innovation (Ramakrishna, 2011, 2012; Ramakrishna & Krishna, 2011). Like developed countries, emerging countries are ramping up respective innovation capabilities to prosper in a post-globalized competitive world. Figure 2 shows the share of patents for Asia, North America, Europe, Latin America, and ASEAN. The trend displayed in Figure 2 suggests that innovation is being pursued around the world by many more countries when compared to a limited number in 19th and 20th centuries. Last year, for the first time, Thomson Reuters announced a list of world’s top 100 most innovative universities (see Table 1). Key parameters used for ranking are (a) industrial co-authorship of research papers, (b) patents filed or granted, (c) publications cited in patents, and (d) publication downloads by the industry 204

Developing Innovative and Entrepreneurial Graduates

Figure 2. Share of patents for regions (R) ASEAN, Asia (R2), North America, Europe, and Latin America. Source: Thomson Reuters (2015) Table 1. Geographical distribution of most innovative universities by Thomson Reuters Nation

Number in top 100 innovative universities

USA

50

Japan

9

France

8

South Korea

8

Germany

6

England

5

Switzerland

3

Belgium

2

Canada

2

Israel

2

Netherlands

2

China

1

Denmark

1

Singapore

1

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sector. It is to be noted that depending on the criterion selected, as well as the weight for each criterion, different ranking organizations provide different rankings. These proxy indicators are far from perfect in measuring the innovation and entrepreneurial performances of universities (Thomson Reuters, 2015). With several universities embarked on innovation and entrepreneurship, a further fine-tuned ranking would be welcome by the diverse stakeholders. Also, it would be interesting to see the outcomes if the rankings are normalized according to the size of economies and nations. Taking the emerging changes into consideration what should be the strategies of universities to prepare future-ready graduates? Strategy 1: New Courses and Approaches It is a general perception that the university education is static while in fact it has been changing with increasing pace over time (see Table 2). In the past, quality assurance and accreditation agencies emphasized, for example, curricula, credit hours, faculty student ratios, faculty members’ qualifications, and facilities and infrastructure, etc. In recent years, universities have additionally focused on preparing students for the globalized world with improved multi-cultural and communication skills. Ethics and social responsibilities are also emphasized in most university courses. In the post-globalized world, nations are expecting respective higher education institutions as well as graduates to be engaged locally while visible globally. In other words ‘glocal’ mindset is needed for the future success of graduates. Moreover, net generation students seek exposure to innovation and entrepreneurship experiences (Ramakrishna, 2014). After a detailed review and discussion, the US National Academy of Engineering suggests that: …in addition to their technical and analytical expertise, engineering students need to be flexible, resilient, creative, empathetic, and have the ability to recognize and seize opportunities. All of these skills can and should be taught to engineers as part of their formal education. It is thus the responsibility of engineering educators to instill these qualities in students to enable them to be more innovative and entrepreneurial. (Byers et al., 2013) Resonating with the changing expectations, the Faculty of Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has improved its curriculum.1 The revised curriculum emphasizes innovation and entrepreneurship, with 32 modular credits out of the 120 credits for an undergraduate curriculum. Students study two innovation modules worth eight modular credits. Students also intern in start-up companies for six to 12 months. The Innovative Local Enterprise Achiever Development (iLEAD) initiative facilitates students who want to intern in Singapore based startups. The NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) help students who want to intern in startup companies in innovation hubs around the world. The NOC has also set up an 206

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Table 2. Changing emphasis of university education Up to 2000 (pre-globalized world)

2000~2015 (globalized world)

Future (post-globalized world)

Fundamentals

Global Skills

Glocal Skills

Curricula

communication skills

innovation

faculty members

multi-cultural skills

entrepreneurship

facilities infrastructure

interdisciplinary skills

transcendent (imagination-altering) experiences

credit hours staff student ratios

ethics

knowledge of spiritual & moral options

accreditation quality assurance

social responsibilities

sustainability concepts

National Ranks

Global Ranks

Innovation & Relevance Ranks

entrepreneurial-themed residence, known as N-House, where entrepreneurial activities such as sharing discussion sessions, business idea pitching and networking events are organized. Such internship experiences help cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset of the students, and given about 12 modular credits in the curriculum. Students can also choose to do related design projects, worth 12 modular credits. Moreover, the NOCs have tie-ups with incubators and accelerators so as to enable enterprising students upon graduation. David Brooks, an influential columnist with the International New York Times, writes that US universities are very professional, but in some ways there is emptiness (Brooks, 2015). US universities are good at teaching students on how to do things, but they fall short in facilitating students to reflect on why they should do them or what we are here for. Students are inundated with career options, but they are on their own when it comes to developing criteria to determine which vocation would be best for them and lead them to the fullest life. There is a need for university education to present various spiritual and moral options to the students and encourage them to reflect on them via transcendent (imagination-altering) experiences. While the majority of the 20,000 universities around the world follow mainstream trends in curriculum and pedagogy, there are some notable exceptions. For example, Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) innovatively modified its curriculum and pedagogy so that it enables students to cultivate self-knowledge and self-discovery in relation to the universe, in addition to earning degrees in specific disciplines. As part of their education, students are deeply involved in social service in remote rural areas, and healthcare centres for less privileged people. Such transcendental approach will accrue beneficial consequences to the individual as well as to society. Hence it is essential to reboot university education with its philosophical roots. 207

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Strategy 2: Unbundling Education – Fractal Approach The semester system introduced some 200 years ago is common at most universities around the world. Some universities follow the quarter system which started in the 1900s. Net generation students need more flexibility in learning at their own pace and mode, and hence universities need to further fine-tune the curriculum and pedagogy. The unbundled modular curriculum structure is where the student learning experience is carried out in a fractal module form instead of the traditional 13 to 15 weeks format. IIT Hyderabad, India is pioneering the fractal approach. A typical three lecture course has three credits leading to 42 lecture hours in a semester. Fractional credits can be 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0 having 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and 42 lectures hours respectively. This approach allows for the involvement of high quality international faculty members and experienced professionals from the private sector, who are hard-pressed for time. Such flexibility also enables students to sample internships in diverse sectors of their interest, both locally and internationally, and gain exposure to a larger number of topics. This fosters student creativity and enables them to think differently. These will enable students to be ‘glocal’ i.e. they are sufficiently internationalized while rooted locally so that they can work with confidence in cross-border, cross-cultural and cross-functional teams. Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA had constituted a task force to review the curriculum and pedagogy which recommended unbundling education (MIT, 2014). This mode also leverages the advances in Information and Communication (ICT)-enabled education and learning. Using a fractal approach, private education provider Udacity in the USA is offering nano-degree programmess to working professionals who want to acquire new skills to stay competitive. While ICT-enabled learning has raised expectations, they are yet to improve the learning outcomes of students. A large proportion of universities around the world lack resources to invest in new learning tools, and there is also lack of enthusiasm among the faculty members to retrain themselves. Strategy 3: Learning beyond Classroom A good proportion of graduates are found to be unsuitable for employment as they lack real world experience and skills that match workplace needs. There is a need for them to have an appropriate attitude and abilities to collaborate across diverse cultures in coming up with innovative and customized solutions to local challenges. In this regard, open-source software and hardware platforms are helpful. Multiple good solutions for the projects motivated by real world scenarios are crowd sourced, analysed and prototyped. Open-source platforms are co-creation platforms where any student from anywhere can propose, collaborate, build and share a complete ecosystem for creation, from concept to product. They enable students to develop collaborative skills across diverse mind-sets, cultures and approaches. 208

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Learning outside of the classroom makes education wholesome, hence more than 80% of undergraduate students at the National University of Singapore go abroad for attachments, internships and summer programmes around the world. They experience a rich combination of lectures by guest speakers, dialogue sessions with entrepreneurs, small group discussions and project presentations, as well as visits to research institutes, businesses and government organizations. National University of Singapore benefits from the proactive national policies of Singapore. Innovation is considered to be an essential engine of sustainable economic growth. On the occasion of announcing the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE2020) Plan for up to 2020, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said: It is an investment in our human talent, in the possibilities of science and what it can do to change our lives, and in our understanding of the world and human knowledge which can be applied in many areas over many, many years. The nation’s science and technology research budget will rise to a record $19 billion in the next five years, as the government reaffirms its commitment to research. (Figure 3 shows Singapore’s investment in R&D over the past two decades.) Building on innovation capabilities and pipeline, increasing emphasis is placed on nurturing enterprising culture to ensure sustainable economic growth. On 1st April 2016, Singapore launched a new initiative, SG-Innovate, which will match budding entrepreneurs with industry mentors, introduce them to venture capital firms with smart money, help them to access talent in universities and national research institutes, and open up new markets. The SG-Innovate initiative will expand existing accelerator programmes to new and emerging sectors such as Smart Energy, Digital Manufacturing, Fintech, Digital Health, and Internet-of-Things. Singapore will also invest in a national, one-stop trade information management system that will provide electronic data sharing amongst business and government agencies. It will work as an open innovation platform to help other service providers with the big data needed to develop value-added services and applications, with the potential to improve productivity. Singapore is also building a new Jurong Innovation District, an industrial park of the future to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship. The district will serve as a space for entrepreneurs, researchers, businesses and students to design, prototype, and test their new innovations, products and services of the future. During his 2016 budget speech, Singapore Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said: Innovation is enabled and enhanced by the use of technology but innovation goes beyond that. It is fundamentally about new ways of doing things to meet the needs of people and industries better. Innovation is the engine of value creation and growth. We must make innovation pervasive in our society. Figure 4 illustrates the priority of areas of Singapore. Singapore is taking a holistic approach towards facilitating start-ups (see Figure 5). Universities are encouraged to partner with national agencies and the private sector in running 209

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incubators and accelerators. For example, the NUS Enterprise teamed up with the Media Development Authority (MDA) and SingTel Innov8 to establish a strategic incubation program – Plug-In@Blk71. The entire Blk71, which was a run-down, old building in Ayer Rajah industrial estate, was transformed into a dynamic hub for the IDM sector. Blk71 is now home to hundreds of tech-related organizations, including start-ups, venture funds, equity funds, and incubators. The Singaporean government introduced the Technology Incubation Scheme, investing up to 85% of a startup’s required funding while venture capitalists, equity investors and angel investors bring in the remaining 15%. Internships at the start-up companies allow students to gain real world experience. In addition, they are connected with mentors and professionals via business and accelerator networks. For example, Europe’s start-up creator, Entrepreneur First, has tied up with Singapore’s Infocomm Investments to invest in budding entrepreneurs. EF recruits 40 to 50 individuals for each cohort. The program comprises two three-month phases. During the first three months, each participant receives a monthly stipend of US$3,500. Should a company be successfully formed after the first phase, EF Singapore will invest a further US$25,000 for an 8% equity

Figure 3. Singapore investment in R&D

210

Developing Innovative and Entrepreneurial Graduates

stake. The total investment, including stipends, in each successfully formed company is about US$50,000. The Innovation and Capability Voucher Scheme (ICV) allows companies to engage university academics and students on specific projects. Based on a set of criteria shown in Figure 6, Singapore is ranked among the top ten start-up ecosystems.

Figure 4. Research, innovation and enterprise priority areas of Singapore

Strategy 4: Glocal Faculty Members A net generation student’s family ecosystem and social fabric is different from those of earlier generations. They often come from nuclear families with relatives spread far and beyond. They also have limited opportunities to interact well with relatives, and often have a small network of good friends. They need alternatives to hone social and emotional skills, and seek career guidance in today’s informationoverloaded and complex world (Harth, 2015). Their time in university is becoming important to gain such skills and guidance. Hence the role of faculty members is now more than imparting technical skills and knowledge. Glocal faculty members, experienced and aware of opportunities locally and internationally, are in a better position to mentor net generation students. They could impart a glocal mindset to students which will enable them to navigate well in the post-globalized world.2 In order for faculty members to develop a glocal mindset, they need opportunities too. For example, the National University of Singapore (NUS) partnered with the 211

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Figure 5. Singapore’s start-up ecosystem

Figure 6. Top 20 global startup ecosystems. (http://e27.co/meet-top-20-global-startup-ecosystems-20150813/)

Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee (SIPAC) in China and established the NUSRI (NUS Suzhou Research Institute) to jointly pursue research, education and enterprise. About 50 faculty members from NUS are involved in the activities of

212

Developing Innovative and Entrepreneurial Graduates

the NUSRI and are training more than 1,000 participants. Nottingham University in Ningbo, Liverpool University in Suzhou, and Duke University in Kunshan, are other examples in China. An example from India is the IITB-Monash Research Academy, a joint venture between IIT Mumbai, India and Monash University, Australia.3 Students spend time in both Australia and India, with co-supervisors from IITB and Monash University. The agreement was signed on 7 March 2006 in the presence of then Australian Prime Minister John Howard with support from industries, such as BHP Billiton and Infosys, for joint research and commercialization. The Academy’s focus includes clean energy, water, biotechnology, infrastructure engineering, stem cell research, advanced computational engineering and nanotechnology, all of which concern both countries. This is work in progress. The success of such programmes can be evaluated only after a decade or so, but the chances of success seem bright. Faculty members involved in international projects, transboundary educational programmes, overseas studies, attachments, and work experiences are valuable to universities. CONCLUSIONS

There is a general perception that universities are slow to change while at the same time they advocate change. As universities function in post-globalized world, it is necessary for them to fine tune curriculum and pedagogy to suit the needs and expectations of net generation students. They seek innovation and entrepreneurship experiences beyond the classroom. In order to prepare future ready graduates, faculty members also need to have a glocal mindset. To realize these, universities must adjust their courses and alter their teaching, research and service programmes to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. Specific strategies to develop innovative and entrepreneurial graduates include (a) new courses on innovation and entrepreneurship, (b) unbundled education via a fractal approach, (c) facilitating learning beyond the classroom and (d) developing glocal faculty members. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank the participants of WCU-6 who provided valuable inputs after the presentation at the conference in Shanghai. Part of this chapter appeared in the Proceedings of WCU-6, Journal of Innovation and Policy, and Drying Technology. They are reproduced with permission. NOTES See http://enterprise.nus.edu.sg/educate See http://www.goingglocal.nl/index.php/about 3 Refer to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IITB-Monash_Research_Academy#History 1 2

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REFERENCES Brooks, D. (2015). The big university. The New York Times. Retrieved October 6, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/06/opinion/david-brooks-the-big-university.html?rref=collection% 2Fcolumn%2Fdavid-brooks&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module= stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=19&pgtype=collection&_r=0 Byers, T., Seelig, T., Sheppard, S., & Weilerstein, P. (2013). Entrepreneurship: Its role in engineering education. The Bridge, 43(2), 35–40. Coelen, R. (2015). Why internationalize education? International Higher Education, 83, 4–5. De Wit, H., & Leask, B. (2015). Internationalization, the curriculum and the disciplines. International Higher Education, 83, 10–11. Harth, C. (2015). Going glocal: Adaptive education for local and global citizenship. Independent Schools Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.nais.org/Magazines-Newsletters/ISMagazine/Pages/GoingGlocal.aspx Kwiek, M. (2015). Internationalists and locals in research: Similar productivity patterns across Europe. International Higher Education, 83, 7–8. MIT. (2014). Institute-wide taskforce on the future of MIT education. Retrieved from https://future.mit.edu/ NUS. (2015). Entrepreneurial education. Retrieved from http://enterprise.nus.edu.sg/educate Ramakrishna, S. (2011, November 1–3). Global rankings narrow the influence gap between universities in developed nations and emerging nations. Presentation at the 4th International Conference on World-Class Universities (WCU-4), Shanghai, China. Ramakrishna, S. (2012). Is Asia a choice for careers in innovation? Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy, 1(2), 133–147. Ramakrishna, S. (2014). Attributes of engineers and engineering education for the 21st century world. Journal of Engineering Education Transformations, 27(4), 17–28. Ramakrishna, S. (2015). Strategies for the universities to be locally engaged while globally visible. Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy, 4(3), 271–287. Ramakrishna, S., & Krishna, V. V. (2011). Emergence of Asian universities as centers of new knowledge generation and a base for nation’s competitiveness. In N. C. Liu, Q. Wang, & Y. Cheng (Eds.), Paths to a world-class university: Lessons from practices and experiences. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Thiveaud, E. (2015b). The world’s most innovative universities. Retrieved from http://stateofinnovation.thomsonreuters.com/the-worlds-most-innovative-universities?utm_ source=elq&utm_medium=edm&utm_content=ranked&utm_campaign=reuters-top-100 Thomson Reuters. (2015a). ASEAN research landscape report. Global Research Reports. Retrieved from http://sciencewatch.com/global-research-reports.

Seeram Ramakrishna National University of Singapore Arun S. Mujumdar McGill University

214

YANG ZHANG

13. EXPLORING THE LINKAGE BETWEEN RANKINGS AND STRATEGIC PLANNING

INTRODUCTION

In today’s era of globalization, colleges and universities are increasing their efforts in the global recruitment of students and talent, as well as expanding international collaboration at the institutional and programme levels. Institutions are, in turn, broadening their focus from domestic, national rankings to include various international rankings, as the importance of international rankings in promoting and marketing themselves in a global context becomes apparent. This chapter explores the linkage between rankings and strategic planning at a large research university in the US. Through an in-depth case study, the author aims to provide a better understanding of how international rankings could be used to go beyond marketing and promotional purposes, by linking them to, and utilizing them in, strategic planning efforts for the university’s development and growth. UTILIZING RANKING IN UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT

In recent years, there have been numerous papers focusing on the methodologies of different university rankings and how institutions are ranked (Aguillo, BarIlan, Levene, & Ortega, 2010; Huang, 2011; Lukman, Krajnca, & Glaviþa, 2010). There is also an ongoing debate on the impacts of the ‘ranking phenomena’ on higher education (Ishikawa, 2014; Cantwell & Taylor, 2013; Rauhvargers, 2013; Amsler & Bolsmann, 2012, Hazelkorn, 2010). Researchers acknowledge the various needs and usage of university rankings, such as student and faculty recruitments, benchmarking, and institutional planning; as well as expressing concerns regarding the negative consequences associated with the global obsession with rankings. Recently, a new line of research emerged that focuses on practical issues in higher education relating to rankings. For example, Efimova and Avralev (Efimova, 2013; Avralev & Efimova, 2013, 2014) explores the use of rankings at an institution in Russia, in areas such as assessing the competiveness of universities in a global context, encouraging international collaboration and research innovation, and promoting the institution’s global education market. Docampo (2011) uses the ARWU ranking to assess the research performance of university systems in different countries. Researchers have also examined university rankings and subject N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 215–223. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

Y. Zhang

rankings in a model of how international students make decisions in choosing universities (Wu, Duan, Tian, & Chen, 2013). They have examined specific topics of using rankings in university management or policy analysis. However, there is a lack of a systematic and comprehensive review of how rankings can be used to enhance different aspects of an individual university. This paper aims to fill that gap in the literature by conducting using the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa a case study. THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA AND ITS STRATEGIC PLANNING

The University Setting The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (referred to here as UH Mānoa) was founded in 1907 in Honolulu as a land grant college of agriculture and mechanical arts. It has now developed into a land grant, sea grant, space grant,1 and sun grant comprehensive research university with an international standing, and offers 100 bachelor, 85 master, and 58 doctoral degree programmes. Its body of nearly 20,000 students comes from over 126 counties and regions in the world, and all 50 states in the US. UH Mānoa is the flagship campus of the University of Hawai’i (UH) System, which has 10 campuses across the state of Hawai‘i. UH Mānoa has received global recognition for its research excellence in recently released international rankings. For example, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), which is based at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, ranks UH Mānoa in the range of 66–78 in the U.S., and 151–200 globally. This is out of the 1,200 best research universities in the world that are eligible for ranking. Other popular international rankings, such as the UK-based QS Ranking and Times Higher Education’s Ranking, ranks UH Mānoa between 200 and 350 among all universities in the world, and in the range of 60 and 70 among universities in the US. As the best-known university-ranking publisher in the US, the US News and World Report (USNWR) ranks UH Mānoa the 314th in the world, and the 104th in the U.S. The table below summarizes how UH Mānoa was ranked globally and in the U.S. in 2015. Table 1. UH Mānoa 2015 ranking performances Rankings Academic Ranking of World Universities NTU Ranking THE World University Ranking

216

Global

U.S.

151–200

66–78

203

80

201–250

67

QS World University Ranking

327

65

USNWR Best Global Universities Ranking

314

104

Exploring The linkage between Rankings and Strategic Planning

UH Mānoa 2015–2021 Strategic Plan UH Mānoa created a new strategic plan (2015–2021) that would guide the university for the next six years (UH Mānoa, 2015e). A strategic plan is a critical statement and commitment from a university to its community and the outside world about its mission and strategic direction over a relatively long period of time. As the largest and only research-intensive campus among the 10 campuses in the UH System, UH Mānoa’s new strategic plan aligns its eight major sectors with UH System’s four strategic goals: Table 2. UH system and UH Mānoa strategic goals UH system strategic goals

UH Mānoa strategic plan major sectors

High performance system of higher education

1. Being a Native Hawaiian Place of Learning and Indigenous-Serving Institution 2.  Defining Mānoa’s Structure and Role in the UH System

Hawai‘i Graduation Initiative

3. Enhancing Student Success 4.  Recruiting a Vibrant, Prepared Student Body

Hawai‘i Innovation Initiative

5.  Advancing the Research Enterprise 6.  Fostering Excellent Faculty and Shared-use Facilities

21st Century Facilities

7.  Creating 21st Century Facilities 8.  Becoming a Sustainable Campus

International rankings are now widely used by institutions in recruiting students and talent. Our question is how international rankings could be used to go beyond marketing and promotional purposes, by linking them to, and utilizing them in, strategic planning efforts for the university’s development and growth. To address this question, this chapter conducts an in-depth case study analysis at UH Mānoa. CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

Playing a major role in UH Mānoa’s new strategic planning and rankings-related research and analysis, the Mānoa Institutional Research Office (MIRO) investigated how the institution was positioned in rankings, and how to best utilize ranking results in the strategic planning process. Interviews and online surveys were conducted with university executives and offices in May and October 2015. Information collected was used to understand the usage of rankings from different perspectives. In total, 28 responses were collected through the online survey. Participants were mainly executives such as Vice Chancellors, Deans, or Directors, and officers with marketing or communication responsibilities. Results showed a high frequency of working on ranking related issues among offices across the campus: about 22% of survey participants indicated that they worked on ranking related issues 5 or more 217

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times a year; and 45% said one to four times a year. A majority of survey participants said it was very important (18%) or moderately important (64%) for them to use ranking information at work. Most survey participants also indicated that they were either very interested (39%) or interested (43%) in improving their knowledge of rankings. These results demonstrated the relevance of rankings information to executive level administrators’ work. Survey participants were asked to provide a narrative response to the open-ended question of how they used rankings in their work. A majority of survey participants acknowledged the importance of using rankings for marketing and promotion purposes among various audiences, such as prospective students and employees, outside collaborators, the university community, and the public in general; and for various purposes, such as recruiting students and employees, seeking outside partners, and enhancing the university’s positive image among internal and external constituencies. Some participants also said they find ranking results helpful in benchmarking with other universities. After carefully examining information collected, and coming to an understanding of the important role rankings play in the mission of the university, it was suggested that ranking results could be directly or indirectly linked with five out of eight strategic planning goals in UH Mānoa’s new strategic plan. The recommended linkage between rankings results and strategic planning directions are described in detail below. Defining UH Mānoa’s Structure and Role in the UH System The first strategic goal centres on the structure and role of UH Mānoa as the flagship campus in the University of Hawai’i system. The Carnegie Classification recognizes and describes UH Mānoa as one of 108 research universities with ‘very high research activity’ in the U.S., which accounts for only 2.3% of all the institutions in the U.S (Summary tables, n.d.). Among the 108 institutions, 73 are public institutions, which are committed to serving the public good in their corresponding states. As the largest institution among the 10 campuses in the UH System, UH Mānoa is not only dedicated to academic and research excellence, but also committed to serving the citizens of Hawai’i, as well as ‘the local, national, and international communities’ that surround the institution (Achieving our destiny, 2011). With competing needs for resources and attention, how to balance research, teaching, and serving the public good remains a challenge. Rankings, especially international rankings, provide an important perspective on how UH Mānoa is positioned amongst the best research universities in the world. UH Mānoa’s prestigious rankings can help the campus make a convincing argument for its unique and critical structure and role in the UH system, and in the state of Hawai’i. At times when budget cuts are called for, rankings may help UH Mānoa lobby for resources needed to maintain its prestigious research excellence and status. 218

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In addition, the various perspectives and methodologies that rankings provide allow UH Mānoa to position itself in the multiple missions that it is committed to. According to the 2015 College Scorecard released by the Department of Education in the US, students at UH Mānoa pay less for the cost of attending, have a better chance of graduation, and earn significantly more after graduation when compared to national averages (UH Mānoa, 2015b). Meanwhile, major international rankings affirm UH Mānoa’s world-class research university status with consistently high rankings in the world (UH Mānoa, 2015a). Rankings help assert UH Mānoa’s value both to the students who attend, and to the prestige and standing of the UH System by assessing its merits from multiple perspectives. As UH Mānoa Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman states, ‘These rankings demonstrate that we are truly among the great universities of the world. We’re also pleased to see that, in terms of a student’s cost to attend, we’re actually ranked below the average nationally. So this dynamic combination of highranked programmes and reasonable cost really shows that we are on the right track. Our university and state have a lot to be proud of’ (UH Mānoa, 2015). Enhancing Student Success The second strategic goal focuses on student success, and how communicating ranking results across the university community can play a role in this mission. Research shows that improving student engagement is an effective way to enhance student success (Tinto, 1975, 1993; Astin, 1977, 1985; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, Whitt, & Associates, 2005; Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, & Hayek, 2006). Creating awareness amongst students of the university’s national and international prestige, as well as some of its exceptional disciplinary rankings, can help promote a sense of ‘collegiate pride’. In this way, ranking information can be used to promote student engagement through enhancing the university’s public image and reputation. In collaboration with multiple offices on campus, such as Chancellor’s Advancement team (Communications), Enrollment Management, Admissions, Academic Affairs, and Research, MIRO developed a ranking webpage as the central place for students, faculty, and administrators to seek ranking-related information. For example, the Advancement office uses this information to engage students with the excellent ranking results the university earns by communicating them across multiple channels, such as print and video news releases, UH News platform, web, social media and student email listservs. Through this collaboration with a range of interests across campus, MIRO ensures that the potential for ranking information to be used for student engagement purposes can be maximized. Recruiting a Vibrant, Prepared Student Body The third strategic planning goal focuses on student recruitment. With its unique geographic location bridging east and west, UH Mānoa has a long-standing history 219

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of international collaboration and recruitment. However, international student recruitment is not yet satisfactory, partially due to the vacation destination image associated with the Hawaiian Islands. In recent years, MIRO collaborated with the enrolment management team and the admissions office in developing a ‘fast facts’ report to communicate key facts about the university. Ranking results were added to help the admissions officers make a convincing case about academic and research excellence to enhance student recruitment. Similarly, by positioning UH Mānoa in a global context, international rankings are especially helpful in recruiting students from abroad, as students are able to compare UH Mānoa, not only with universities in the US., but also with institutions in their own countries with which they are more familiar. One of UH Mānoa’s major international recruitment efforts is to develop a ‘3+2’ joint degree programmes between graduate programmes at UH Mānoa and undergraduate programmes in foreign universities, with a special interest in Chinese partner institutions. UH Mānoa’s 3+2 programmes were created to collaborate with prestigious universities overseas to recruit a high-performing, diverse, and vibrant international student body. The prestigious institutional and discipline rankings become extremely useful when making efforts to convince potential foreign programmes to partner with UH Mānoa through the 3+2 programmes and other collaborations. In order to make ranking information readily available and easily understood, MIRO gathers and tracks ranking information on its ranking webpage, to provide official, convenient, and easy to navigate ranking information for both internal and external audiences. Advancing the Research Enterprise The fourth strategic planning goal focuses on advancing the research profile of UH Mānoa. International rankings can be used to advance the institution’s research enterprise both by providing valuable information about its research profile, and by aiding international recruitment efforts. Measures used in international rankings are more focused on research excellence using hard data, such as research publications and citations, than US national rankings. By tracking multiple international rankings, such as the ARWU, QS, and Times Higher Education rankings, UH Mānoa is able to keep close tabs on its research profile as an institution, as well as at the field and discipline levels. When major research revenue or expenditure occurs, ranking results can be used to examine short- and long-term impacts on the institution’s research profile. Additionally, in order to sustain the university’s high research profile, it is critical to recruit talent globally. Prestigious international rankings help the university’s global recruitment efforts by providing information on how the university and specific disciplines are well positioned in the world. This creates a positive cycle whereby research activity can be used to improve rankings, which attracts high quality global research talent, which in turn improves the institution’s research profile and eventually the international rankings. 220

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Fostering Excellent Faculty and Shared-use Facilities The fifth strategic planning goal is associated with fostering excellent faculty. For a research intensive university like UH Mānoa, an important indicator associated with excellent faculty is scholarly productivity. Most international rankings apply methodologies that focus on publications, citations, and awards, which faculty play a vital role in producing. Departments and programmes may benefit from their ranking results through gaining an understanding of how they have been positioned in national or global contexts across the years, allowing them to adjust their strategies to maintain or advance their research status. In addition, prestigious rankings can help to recruit and engage excellent faculty and scholars internationally, by raising awareness of, and affirming, the institution’s and programme’s international recognition in research excellence. RECOMMENDATIONS

The recommendation is that in order to ensure appropriate usage of ranking data, both institutional researchers and key stakeholders should improve their knowledge and understanding of ranking results, methods, and limitations. As suggested in ongoing debates about ranking methods, data sources, validity, and impacts, university rankings do have limitations. Holding the position of the central data and information management unit on campus, it is critical that the institutional research office makes diligent efforts to understand various ranking methodologies and how their universities are ranked. However, gaining sufficient knowledge only within the institutional research office is not enough. Institutional researchers should also find effective ways to help improve the campus’ overall understanding of ranking issues, especially among key stakeholders such as the enrolment management, admissions, research, advancement, and communications offices, as well as executives such as chancellors, vice chancellors, and the college deans who also share international recruitment and collaboration duties. At UH Mānoa, MIRO has conducted research and developed training to allow for the accurate and effective use of ranking results for community engagement purposes. MIRO surveyed university stakeholders, and used the information gathered, to design training and reports to better address common ranking related questions and concerns. MIRO also surveyed major ranking organizations in order to gain a deeper and more thorough understanding of their research methodologies and guiding philosophies. Responses from the ranking organizations have been made public through MIRO’s ranking webpage (http://manoa.hawaii.edu/miro/ rankings/). This unique information and insight was then applied to help address stakeholders’ needs at UH Mānoa. In addition, MIRO collaborated with key stakeholders to develop strategies and guidelines for sharing ranking information and using ranking results, which were disseminated throughout the campus. In fall 2015, MIRO developed an analysis brief to explain how UH Mānoa was ranked 221

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using ranking results recently released (Zhang, 2015). This analysis brief was made useful in two university website front-page articles that focused on ranking results (UH Mānoa, 2015c, 2015d). These articles caught the attention of various local media outlets in Hawai’i and led to high-profile reporting on them. It is an example of how institutional researchers’ efforts in decoding ranking information can bring positive impacts to the university’s public image. In summary, ranking results can provide helpful and valuable information for different areas of university administration and management. At UH Mānoa, institutional researchers have found multiple ways to link ranking results with new strategic planning goals. It is hoped that this chapter offers some useful ideas to other institutions in their efforts to improve various areas through the strategic use their universities’ ranking results. NOTE 1

The US government provides funding support to select educational institutions that have the capacity for advanced research and education in specialized scientific fields. UH Mānoa is only the third US institution to claim Land, Sea, Space and Sun Grant status.

REFERENCES Aguillo, I., Bar-Ilan, J., Levene, M., & Ortega, J. (2010). Comparing university rankings. Scientometrics, 85(1), 243–256. Amsler, S. S., & Bolsmann, C. (2012). University ranking as social exclusion. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 33(2), 283–301. Avralev, N., & Efimova, I. (2013). University rankings as a tool to enhance competitiveness, clustering and transnational governance of higher education in the context of globalization. Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, 16(3), 357–361. Avralev, N., & Efimova, I. (2014). Global university rankings as indicators of the implementation of the integration process and competitive tool in the context of globalization of higher education. Life Science Journal, 11(10), 648–652. Astin, A. W. (1977). Four critical years. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Astin, A. W. (1985). Achieving academic excellence. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Cantwell, B., & Taylor, B. (2013). Global status, intra-institutional stratification and organizational segmentation: A time-dynamic to bit analysis of ARWU position among U.S. universities. Minerva, 51(2), 195–223. Docampo, D. (2011). On using the Shanghai ranking to assess the research performance of university systems. Scientometrics, 86(1), 77–92. Efimova, I. (2013). Rankings as tools to promote global education market. World Applied Sciences Journal, 25(10), 1400–1404. Hazelkorn, E. (2010). Attitudes to rankings: Comparing German, Australian and Japanese experience. In S. Kaur, M. Sirat, & W. G. Tierney (Eds.), Quality assurance and university rankings in higher education in the Asia Pacific, challenges for universities and nations. Penang: USM Press & IPPTN. Huang, M. H. (2011). A comparison of three major academic rankings for world universities: From a research evaluation perspective. Journal of Library and Information Studies, 9(1), 1–25. Ishikawa, M. (2014). Ranking regime and the future of vernacular scholarship. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 22(30), 1–23. Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., Whitt, E. J., & Associates. (2005). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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Exploring The linkage between Rankings and Strategic Planning Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Buckley, J. A., Bridges, B. K., & Hayek, J. C. (2006). What matters to student success: A review of the literature. Report prepared under contract for the National Symposium on Student Success, National Postsecondary Education Collaborative, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, DC. Lukman, R., Krajnca, D., & Glaviþa, P. (2010). University ranking using research, educational and environmental indicators. Journal of Cleaner Production, 18(7), 619–628. Rauhvargers, A. (2013). Global university rankings and their impact. Report II. Brussels: European University Association. Summary Tables (n.d.). In The Carnegie classification of institutions of higher education. Retrieved from http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/summary/basic.php Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from higher education: A theoretical synthesis of recent research. Review of Educational Research, 45, 89–125. Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition (2nd ed.). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Wu, Q., Duan, Y., Tian, D., & Chen, H. (2013). A decision support system for international students. Paper presented at the 3rd World Conference on Innovation and Computer Sciences, Antalya, Turkey. UH Mānoa. (2011). Achieving our destiny: The 2011–2015 strategic plan. University of Hawaii, Mānoa, HI. Retrieved from https://manoa.hawaii.edu/strategicplan/vision-2011-2015/pdf/achieving-ourdestiny.pdf UH Mānoa. (2015a). UH Mānoa rankings summary (Mānoa Institutional Research Office). Retrieved from http://manoa.hawaii.edu/miro/rankings/#efs-tooglepane-1-0 UH Mānoa. (2015b). U.S. department of education college scorecard. Retrieved from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?141574-University-of-Hawaii-at-Manoa UH Mānoa. (2015c). UH Mānoa impressive in national and international college rankings. Retrieved from http://www.hawaii.edu/news/2015/09/14/uh-manoa-impressive-in-national-and-internationalcollege-rankings/ UH Mānoa. (2015d). UH Mānoa advances in all major rankings in 2015. Retrieved from http://www.hawaii.edu/news/2015/10/14/uh-manoa-advances-in-all-major-rankings-in-2015/ UH Mānoa. (2015e). In University of Hawaii at Mānoa. Retrieved from https://manoa.hawaii.edu/ strategicplan/ Zhang, Y. (2015). How is UH Mānoa ranked in 2015? Decode rankings to understand our university better. Mānoa Institutional Research Office Research Brief. Retrieved from http://manoa.hawaii.edu/ miro/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/2015-ranking-analysis-brief_website.pdf

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TONY CHAN, MICHAEL FUNG AND NATALIE CHANG

14. THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES, THE RISE OF RANKINGS, AND INTERNATIONALIZATION

INTRODUCTION

In tandem with the rise in prominence of university rankings and the internationalization of higher education over the past decade, institutions globally have had to respond to increasing competition for faculty, students, funding and international standing. Rankings have been used as a source of reference by different stakeholders to satisfy informational needs. However, there are clearly limitations as to what can be measured, and an overemphasis on the pursuit of rankings performance will result in unhealthy development for the higher education sector. As Albert Einstein noted: ‘Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.’ University leaders need to strike a balance on how their institutions deal with rankings, through reflection on the mission of universities in local, regional, and global contexts. The experience of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) is shared here as a case study. THE RISE OF UNIVERSITY RANKINGS

The history of global university rankings is relatively short, yet the influence of such rankings on the higher education landscape has been disproportionately large. The emergence of global rankings coincides with an increasingly competitive and globalized environment and rising mobility. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the number of international students worldwide rose from 0.8 million in 1975 to 3.7 million in 2009 (OECD, 2011). This increase in student mobility has created a market for simple tools, such as international and domestic rankings, enabling students and parents to easily compare and select institutions in their home country and around the world. At the same time, expectations related to accountability and quality assurance in higher education provision have also increased. These expectations come from stakeholders such as governments wary of rising costs, the public concerned about use of communal resources and quality of education, and employers seeking competent graduates (Salmi, 2010). As rankings incorporate various indicators as proxy measures of quality, they have often been perceived as a convenient way to achieve accountability, transparency and quality assurance in higher education

N. C. Liu et al. (Eds.), Matching Visibility and Performance, 225–242. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.

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institutions (HEIs). In response, universities have been compelled to become more evidence-based in assessing their own performance. Among universities themselves, globalization has brought increased competition for students and faculty, with publicity taking on new significance for institutions keen to elevate their presence and reputation with global audiences. The Times Higher Education (THE) and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) rankings have become prominent channels in recent years. From 2004 to 2009, the two organizations worked together to publish the Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings. They went their separate ways in 2009, providing individual sets of tables in subsequent years. The rankings organizations were assisted in their rapid rise and influence by technological development, in particular the internet, making it easier to collect and disseminate information across diverse geographical locations. Leveraging this development effectively, rankings tables quickly gained a global following among students, parents, media, governments, and institutions (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, & Zhang, 2014). The wave of growing interest in rankings also spurred new business opportunities. Strategic advisory services and rankings conferences emerged. The media industry was a particular beneficiary, as advertisements in printed and online media appeared, announcing rankings success, and new publications, such as the QS Top Universities Guide and QS Top GradSchool Guide, were launched. HISTORY OF RANKINGS

Institutional rankings have only been a feature of the education landscape since the 1980s, beginning with domestic rankings such as the US News & World Report Rankings (USNWR) in 1983, and the Times Good University Guide in the UK in 1993. In 2003, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by Shanghai Jiao Tong University heralded a new ‘international’ phase of development with the launch of global university rankings. With the support and investment of the Chinese government, the Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled the ARWU to assess the position of Chinese universities in relation to other institutions globally, with the intention of building world-class universities in China (Hazelkorn, 2014a). Other international surveys swiftly followed: • The Spanish National Research Council published Webometrics in 2004. • The Times Higher Education-Quacquarelli Sydmonds (THE-QS) World University Rankings was launched in 2004, dividing into two separate systems in 2010. • The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities, evaluating research universities’ achievements in scientific research, was released by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT) in 226

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2007. The rankings were taken over by National Taiwan University in 2012 and renamed the NTU Ranking. • The CWTS Leiden Ranking was developed by the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, in 2008. This table mainly emphasizes research metrics. • In Saudi Arabia, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) began publishing annual rankings in 2012. • The feasibility study for U-Multirank, a European Union (EU)-funded initiative, was completed in 2011. This ranking allowed users to compare institutions with similar activity profiles and avoid over-simplified comparisons (Rauhvargers, 2013). It was launched to rank universities based on a multi-dimensional, userdriven approach in 2014. Today, there are a number of major global rankings (Hazelkorn, 2014a), of which ARWU, THE, and QS are viewed as the most influential, according to a study by the European University Association (EUA) (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, & Zhang, 2014). It is anticipated that more university rankings will be developed in the future. POPULARITY OF RANKINGS

Despite frequent criticism, resistance, and several boycotts by universities and other higher education institutions (Kehm & Erkkilä, 2014), rankings have become an increasingly powerful tool to compare performance and productivity. A number of characteristics have assisted rankings in gaining popularity: Simplicity. Rankings reduce the complexities of higher education assessment into tools that provide easy comparison, straightforward presentation, and standardized assessment. Many rankings agencies are backed by media or commercial entities, making rankings results appear objective, independent and authoritative. As such, rankings have been regarded by many stakeholders as a useful reference tool (Hazelkorn, 2014a). Benchmarking. Rankings offer a multi-dimensional and convenient means to compare institutional performance across a range of indicators. As universities become more evidence-based in their planning and decision-making, rankings help institutions gain new perspectives on their relative performance, and to identify strengths and weaknesses by benchmarking their performance against peer institutions locally, regionally, and internationally. According to a survey conducted by EUA, 84% and 75% of HEI respondents, including universities and other higher education institutions, reported that they monitored rankings for benchmarking purposes at the national and international level respectively (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, & Zhang, 2014). Informational value. Students are seen to be the most important stakeholder group influenced by rankings (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, & Zhang, 2014). A US News & World Report study investigating the correlation between rankings and law school 227

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student admissions showed that universities that improve their ranking status are likely to see a rise in top students admitted to their law schools in the following admission cycle (Sauder & Lancaster, 2006). This indicates the use of rankings to help students and parents make ‘informed’ choices on where to study. Rankings may also help faculty make career decisions, and provide university management with useful information for formulating directions and strategic plans. Publicity value. Rankings can be used as a marketing tool for universities to publicize their achievements, and institutions quote rankings positions on websites and in publicity materials as a testament of performance. UNIVERSITY RESPONSES

Unsurprisingly, rankings have changed universities. Highly ranked universities want to maintain their standing while other universities strive to improve their position or attempt to be included in league tables. Some institutions use rankings as a guide for identifying, establishing, and maintaining international partnerships (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, & Zhang, 2014). Several well-known universities have even set specific targets to improve their positions in popular rankings, such as ARWU and THE, in their strategic plans. Various ‘rankings strategies’ have now emerged. These include affiliating with highly cited researchers by some universities in the Middle East to boost their academic prestige and position (Bhattacharjee, 2011; Bornmann & Bauer, 2014), and aggressive recruitment of highly productive faculty, notably in Singapore (Matthews, 2013) and South Korea (McNeill, 2013). Japan is also planning to increase international faculty and students in the next decade (ICEF Monitor, 2014) as internationalization is an indicator for some rankings bodies. These examples suggest that rankings performance can be improved, and even manipulated by universities seeking to do better in rankings tables. To encourage academics to increase the number of publications in highly cited international journals, some universities have taken to linking research performance with faculty remuneration. For example, Chan (2012) observes that universities in Japan and Taiwan have begun introducing flexible pay scales for university teachers according to their performance in teaching and research. In Hong Kong and Singapore, faculty merit bonuses and tenure awards are weighted heavily on research performance. To spur greater research output, some universities adopt policies allowing a research-productive faculty to reduce their teaching loads, with instructors being hired to take up teaching duties. Another trend resulting from the pursuit of rankings and internationalization is the offering of more English-taught courses in non-English speaking countries to attract international students and faculty. For example, in 2014, the Japanese government announced a plan to expand support for a number of leading universities to offer complete degree programmes in English; other universities, such as Okayama University, were given support to significantly expand courses offered in English 228

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(ICEF Monitor, 2014). In South Korea, most universities taught 20% to 40% of all courses in English in 2011, according to University World News (Sharma, 2011). Some rapidly rising universities have begun to offer degree courses fully in English to attract more top students. For example, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) started to provide courses exclusively in English, except for general education, from 2010 (Rhee, 2011). GOVERNMENT RESPONSES

Specific National Targets and Policies University rankings are globally eye-catching as they not only appear to show how ‘successful’ an institution is, but are also used as a symbol of national achievement (Kehm, 2014; Hazelkorn, 2014a). Support for institutions to become world-class universities has thus moved on to the agenda at the national level, with some countries setting specific targets for the number of universities to be ranked at top world levels within a specific timeframe. Australia aims to have 10 universities ranked in the world’s top 100 by 2025 (Australian Government, 2012). In Russia, the government launched a scheme known as the ‘5/100 initiative’ in 2013 to boost the global competitiveness of Russian universities. The plan calls for at least five Russian universities to be ranked among the top 100 HEIs in the world by 2020, with funding support of around €1 billion (about US$1.1 billion) up to 2016 (Povalko, n.d.). To form a smaller number of better-funded universities that could compete in the global education arena, the Russian government had earlier announced a plan for up to 20% of its 600 universities to cease operation by the end of 2014 (ICEF Monitor, 2012). In France, the government drastically reformed its higher education system by calling for universities to merge, form a community, or associate with each other, by July 2014 to ensure that French research remained competitive internationally (Cotterill & Selvanathan, 2014). 20 French colleges and research institutes merged to create the Université Paris-Saclay at a cost of €6.5 billion (US$8.8 billion) in 2014, with the aim of entering ARWU’s top 10 (Cotterill & Selvanathan, 2014). In Asia, the Japanese government announced a 10-year ‘Top Global University Project’ in September 2014, which set a target of 10 Japanese universities in the world’s best 100 universities by 2020 (Kakuchi, 2014). Under this initiative, 37 selected universities receive annual subsidies of JP¥590 million (about US$5 million) from the government to improve internationalization endeavours. Some funding can be used to increase the number of classes conducted in English by hiring international scholars (Kakuchi, 2014; ICEF Monitor, 2014). In Taiwan, the government launched a 10-year ‘Top University Project’ in 2006, with annual support funding of 10 billion Taiwan new dollars (around US$299 million) (Ministry of Education Republic of China [Taiwan], n.d.). The goal was to see at least one university in the world’s best 100 or best 50 HEIs within 10 years. 229

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Meanwhile, in 2012, India announced rules allowing only the top 500 global universities as ranked by THE or ARWU to partner with leading Indian universities in international academic collaborations (Mishra, 2012). Broad-Based Investment in the Higher Education Sector In addition, certain countries have greatly increased investment to improve their higher education competitiveness at the national level. In China, several reform plans have been initiated in the past two decades. Project 211, implemented in 1995, sought to strengthen about 100 HEIs and key disciplinary areas. Project 985, initiated in 1998, aimed to found world-class universities equipped for the 21st century (Gan, 2014). The first batch of universities selected under Project 985 was known as the C9 Alliance. The huge overall investment saw rapid upgrading of campus infrastructure as well as corresponding increases in research spending. In 2012 alone, the Chinese government spent more than CN¥700 billion (around US$106 billion) on its higher education sector (China Education Center Ltd, n.d.). In South Korea, the government has invested more than US$4.6 billion in its higher education sector since 1998 through three national projects, namely ‘Brain Korea 21’, ‘The World-Class University’ and ‘Brain Korea 21 PLUS,’ to improve the quality of education and research capabilities of its universities (Suh, 2013). The Singaporean government is well-known for generous investment in its universities. Since 1991, more than S$40 billion (around US$28.7 billion) has been invested in five five-year plans. Investment has increased sharply since 2006, mainly to establish five centres of research excellence at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) (Matthews, 2013). With the support of the Singaporean government, NTU also set up a new medical school within four years (Matthews, 2013). Both NUS and NTU have occupied impressive positions in league tables in recent years. These are just some examples that demonstrate how governments have been increasing investment in higher education in order to improve their competitiveness in the globalized environment. IMPACT OF RANKINGS ON UNIVERSITIES

Rankings reward universities with an international reputation, global visibility and media attention. In turn, they can then attract better academics and students, and more income and funds from donors and industry (Kehm, 2014). They may draw more international partners. In many countries, high-ranking universities also receive increased budget allocations from the government (Kehm & Erkkilä, 2014). While global rankings and international comparison encourage healthy competition among universities, they may also lead to indiscriminate pursuit of rankings. Researchers have already noted a tendency for universities to develop policies to fit into this competitive global norm (Kehm & Erkkilä, 2014). 230

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Several dangers exist in relation to ‘rankings strategies’. Such policies and mindsets may cause universities to lose sight of their primary role, mission and vision. They could lead to research outweighing teaching, and disciplines such as the natural sciences and medicine being privileged in relation to other fields (Rauhvargers, 2013). This may result in an imbalance in resources as ‘big science’ projects more easily attract extra funds (Chan, 2012), produce measurable research outputs and generate greater citations. Yet the contribution of fields such as the humanities and social sciences to the overall betterment of people and society should not be undervalued. Another possible undesirable consequence is a tendency to value quantity over quality of publications, as the number of publications and citations are crucial indicators in most major rankings, even though the number of citations does not necessarily equal the real impact and leadership of research. It may also lead to skewed organizational values, as rankings reward highly productive researchers rather than good teachers. In addition, rankings may impact on the morale of both students and staff. Interviews conducted by the EUA found that a good ranking increased the sense of pride in their institution (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, & Zhang, 2014). In contrast, staff surveys have shown that staff members experience a drop in morale after a poor rating (THE, 2008). One response to rankings by universities in non-English speaking countries has been to offer more English-based courses. From the perspective of internationalization, this is a constructive move, attracting international faculty and students, promoting cultural exchange, and increasing global visibility. However, it may not be aligned with the universities’ mission or local context. For example, teaching courses in a foreign language could result in teaching and learning inefficiency for local students and teachers. This has become a controversial issue in South Korea, provoking discussion on effective learning (Sharma, 2011). SECTORAL AND NATIONAL IMPACT OF RANKINGS

Given the increasing importance of rankings and universities’ enthusiasm to improve their standing, how much emphasis should be put on rankings? And does a highly ranked university equal a good university? Over the past decade, as rankings have increased in popularity, many academics and even rankings providers have pointed out the shortcomings of methodologies and indicators (Rauhvargers, 2013). These discussions have led to other core questions, such as how to measure the quality, performance and contribution of a university, and the role and value of a university. At the same time, rankings have become a symbol of economic status and national achievement related to economic growth, human capital, innovative capacity and strength (Kehm, 2014; Kehm & Erkkilä, 2014). The more universities included in the league table, the more innovative and competitive a country is perceived to be. Hence, rankings have become an important indicator of national competitiveness 231

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(Hazelkorn, 2014a). In addition, rankings seem to set performance metrics for national higher education systems. They may be used to provide evidence of the performance of universities and as tools for decision-makers to evaluate and chart the development of their higher education systems. If a country wishes to pursue a better position in rankings and global competitiveness, financial support may be a prerequisite. As funds are generally limited, a few elite universities are usually selected to participate or mergers encouraged between universities, and universities and research institutes, as mentioned earlier in the case of France. The concentration of resources maylead to a hierarchical and stratified higher education system (Hazelkorn, 2014b; Rauhvargers, 2013). The uniqueness of small universities may also be reduced. Another risk of rankings-driven policies is viewing highly ranked universities as ‘role models’, copying their policies and direction, and gradually compromising uniqueness. Imitating so-called ‘best practice’ without considering the local or national context (Kehm, 2014) may lead to a more unitary system and thus pose a threat to the diversity and complexity of higher education, as well as undermine local and national languages, culture and goals. RANKINGS AND THEIR LIMITATIONS

With a number of major global rankings, national and discipline-specific rankings, and a variety of methodologies that change over time and impact on rankings positioning, understanding what rankings really represent can be difficult for both the public and stakeholders. Rankings use a massive volume of figures from different sources, apply quantitative methodologies, and compare data to generate a final position for a university. While it appears scientific, objectivity is missing as each choice of indicators and weightings for a particular ranking reflects value judgments (Kehm, 2014). Criticism includes disproportionate weighting of indicators, flawed methodologies, and biased indicators and proxies. The following discussion is based mainly on QS, THE, and ARWU global rankings. Disproportionate Weighting The majority of rankings place more weight on research activities than teaching and service to society. Research indicators account for 70% of ARWU results and over 40% for THE (Table 1). Only a small percentage is focused on teaching-related indictors and none are related to social service, due to the difficulty in measuring and comparing, and a lack of objective and commonly agreed measurement methods. Reputation indicators can also constitute a large percentage of weighting (Rauhvargers, 2013), raising questions related to objectivity and subjectivity. For example, QS allocates a high percentage to reputation (Table 1), but does not reveal how it conducts its surveys. By adopting reputation as a ranking criterion, elite 232

THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES, THE RISE OF RANKINGS, AND INTERNATIONALIZATION

Table 1. Weighting of indicators among different global university rankings

Reputation

QS World

THE World

ARWU

US News & World Report

NTU Ranking

50%

33%

–

25%

–

Awards

–

–

30%

–

–

Teaching

20%

15%

–

10%

–

Research

20%

44.5%

70%

55%

100%

Internationalization

10%

7.5%

–

10%

–

universities that are large, old, research-intensive and prestigious have an advantage. In addition, due to the methodologies employed, it can even result in universities being ranked in areas where they do not have programmes. Flawed Methodologies Evaluation by rankings agencies implies an advantage for the English-speaking world. The CWTS Leiden Ranking team has demonstrated that the citation impact of non-English-language publications is lower than English publications by the same universities. Using data from 69 German and French universities, the research team found that the all-publications citation impact (i.e. including non-English-language journal publications) was systematically lower than the English-only citation impact (van Raan, van Leeuwen, & Visser, 2010). For example, German publications were read by fewer researchers than those in English from the same universities, resulting in a lower citation impact. The effect directly influences the position of German universities in global rankings (ibid). The CWTS research team found a similar situation for French language publications and French universities (ibid). If rankings providers do not address this language bias, they may underrate local research and local languages. Another weakness is that rankings only measure what is easy to measure (Hazelkorn, Loukkola, & Zhang, 2014). Indicators are often chosen because of the information available and their quantification potential. While data may be available on the size of a university, this is unlikely to reveal the quality of a university as a whole. Likewise, numerical data on research articles cannot articulate impact or benefits. Biased Indicators and Proxies Teaching quality.  QS and THE use the student-faculty ratio as a proxy for teaching quality. However, the validity and reliability of this indicator raises several questions. First, student-faculty ratio is an input measure rather than a direct 233

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measure of teaching performance. In addition, a more favourable ratio does not necessarily mean better student experience or learning outcomes. Measures such as student satisfaction results, graduation rates and employability may provide more meaningful information to assess teaching quality (University of Toronto, n.d.). Research output. Some indicators measure research output by the number of Nobel laureates, highly cited researchers, journal articles, and citation impact, among others, favouring disciplines such as medicine and natural science. Conversely, contributions by the arts, the humanities and social sciences may be devalued and marginalized, given that their published research output is concentrated in books or other formats (Rauhvargers, 2013). A comparison of different disciplines is also unfair. A recent study by QS on the average distribution of citations across faculty areas in Scopus, a major abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, showed that a typical (average) institution received 49% of citations in life sciences and medicine, 27% in the natural sciences; 17% in engineering and technology; 6% in social sciences and just 1% in arts and humanities (Sowter, 2015). In past years, QS calculated citations per paper by simply dividing the number of citations by the number of papers, favouring institutions strong in life sciences and medicine. Under this system, arts and liberal arts universities are not likely to do well in rankings. In addition, citations may not necessarily mean leadership or breakthroughs. Reasons to cite previous work include acknowledgement of pioneers, credit for originality, and to provide evidence for arguments. However, a paper could also be frequently cited because of the statistics it uses or to correct or criticize it for flawed methodologies or arguments. Judging the quality of papers by numerical citation analysis presumes that papers are cited positively and disregards the existence of negative citations. University achievements. Rankings organizations also use major prize winners, such as Nobel laureates, to represent overall university achievement. ‘Measuring the peak’ fallaciously assumes that if one person reaches the top, the rest of the organization is also excellent. Nor should rare events be used as a proxy for institutional excellence. According to the list of institutions with the most Nobel Prize winners this century (Table 2), only a few institutions have more than one laureate (Bothwell, 2015), with the institution ranked 10th having slightly more than one laureate only. Using the number of major prize winners as a rankings criterion favours old and comprehensive universities. As a result of the limitations of rankings, university boycotts or denouncements have sometimes occurred. As early as the 1990s, movements developed among faculty, students and administrators of universities and colleges in the US and Canada, including Stanford University, to boycott US News & World Report because of its subjective reputational survey (Stanford Today, 1997). Resistance and criticism of rankings have become more frequent and visible recently (Kehm & Erkkilä, 2014). 234

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Table 2. Affiliation of nobel prize winners (2000~2014) Rank

Institution

Country

Score

1

Stanford University

US

3.16

2

Columbia University

US

2.50

3

University of California, Berkeley

US

2.25

4

Princeton University

US

2.00

4

University of Chicago

US

2.00

6

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

US

1.77

7

University of California, Santa Barbara

US

1.74

8

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

US

1.66

8

Technion Israel Institute of Technology

Israel

1.66

10

Max Planck Society

Germany

1.29

Note: Scores weight based on number of winners and sites affiliated with a prize. Literature and peace prizes excluded (Bothwell, 2015)

• In 2008, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) criticized the methodologies of THE and QS and demanded transparency and accuracy of their assessments (LSE, 2008). • In 2011, the University Association in Japan (RU-11) requested a revision of THE methodology to address issues related to the citation index (The RU11 University Association, 2011). • In 2012, James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, an influential institution in marine and climate sciences, refused to take part in the World University Rankings because of perceived bias against small specialist universities (Harding, 2012). As the number of rankings continues to increase, competition has arisen between rankings. Rankings agencies need to regularly revisit and enhance their methodologies to become or maintain their position as internationally recognized reference points. The current development of rankings and responses by the global higher education sector raise the following questions: are universities becoming more rankings-driven or rankings-informed? While rankings are a fact of life, universities should not use rankings as a target. Instead, institutions should use rankings as a valuable tool to enhance performance, rather than to be led by rankings. University leaders must keep a clear mind and stay focussed on their mission despite the ubiquity of rankings. When striving to maintain or improve a university’s competitiveness, the fundamental questions that guide the development of universities must always remain at the forefront. Why do universities exist? What are the roles of a university? And what are its 235

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responsibilities to society? Rankings change frequently, but the core roles of a university always remain: teaching, research, and service to society (Altbach, 2008; Chan, 2012). THE HKUST EXPERIENCE

As a focused, elite research university, operating and competing globally, HKUST has to maintain its competitiveness and closely monitor trends and major developments in the higher education sector. As university rankings have become an important part of the higher education agenda, they need to be managed effectively to maximize the positive impact while remaining alert to the potential risks. The University has put in place an internal tracking mechanism to monitor changes in methodologies of the various rankings tables. Where appropriate, it verifies the data and scores to ensure that the performance is accurately presented in a balanced manner. If necessary, the University will approach the rankings agencies for enquiries and raise suggestions to improve their methodologies. We publicize our rankings performance in our publications to showcase the university’s position in the league tables. What’s more important, however, is how these ranking results can be used in terms of evaluation and benchmarking tools to help us understand university performance trends worldwide. We also take it as an opportunity to reflect on our relative performance so that we can honestly identify our strengths and weaknesses, as well as to focus on those areas that may need improvement. Rankings can also be used as an indicator when selecting collaboration partners; however, given the limitations of rankings, it should never be the only reference point for making key decisions. HKUST does not set rankings as goals, as we uphold academic freedom and we believe that our faculty should be free from interference in their primary purpose of teaching and academic research. sHKUST strives to maintain a fine balance between increasing global influence while serving local needs, as stated in our long-term strategic vision: to be a leading university with significant international impact and strong local commitment. We are committed to promoting and assisting Hong Kong’s economic and social development through our teaching, research and social services to the community. In research, with our solid research foundation, we aim to explore new and unconventional domains, with a view to leading to new knowledge of high academic value and creating practical solutions that are transferrable to the world. While we build upon our strengths to extend our impact regionally and globally, we are also encouraging faculty to focus on impactful fundamental and translational research, particularly in solving societal problems, and contributing to the advancement of the Hong Kong government’s priority areas. In addition, we also support start-up of social enterprises and encourage faculty and students to actively participate in community service programmes. HKUST has developed a strongly internationalized campus with a high proportion of international faculty and non-local students. The University is dedicated to creating 236

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a world-class international and multicultural campus environment for faculty and students. HKUST faculty members come from 32 countries and the student body comprises more than 60 nationalities. The University consistently scores very highly in international faculty and international student in rankings tables. Yet it is the cross-cultural integration on campus that is viewed as the truly significant objective at HKUST. Unlike strategies in South Korea and Japan, which have seen separate campuses for international faculty and students set up (THE, 2015b), HKUST views internationalization as part of its ‘1-HKUST’ approach, in which the entire HKUST ‘family’ of faculty, students, alumni, staff, Court and Council and supporters work as a collective whole to achieve a greater impact as a single entity, rather than as individual parts. The University creates an environment with suitable activities, platforms and incentives to further facilitate interaction and integration, and to encourage cultural exchange and knowledge-sharing between people from different backgrounds to help all members of the University, in particular students, develop into global citizens. While teaching is lightly weighted in most rankings, HKUST persists in ensuring a high-quality teaching and learning experience for undergraduates and postgraduates. A ‘tri-modal’ undergraduate educational framework includes a variety of approaches to enable students to realize their full potential, depending on individual interests, readiness and motivation. Leveraging enhanced education technologies, we are creating increasing classroom engagement through blended learning and improving the value and flexibility of the curriculum. The primary goal is to utilize datarich platforms to help guide pedagogical improvement on campus and to broaden students’ international outlook. In 2014, the University received two awards at the Wharton-QS Stars Awards: Reimagine Education, also known as the ‘Oscars’ of innovation in higher education, in recognition of faculty members’ innovative e-learning programmes. As one of the pioneers of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), HKUST was the first in Asia to launch MOOCs, with both of the major platforms, Coursera and edX, offering courses to home and worldwide learners. The University also carries out leading research in the area to give faculty at HKUST more insight into students’ learning needs, and continuously makes such courses more responsive. Further innovative provision includes the World Bachelor in Business (WBB), run together with the University of Southern California and the Universitá Bocconi, offering students the opportunity to study on three continents at three universities. The WBB is the first undergraduate programme of its kind in which students will receive a business degree from all three universities. HKUST spares no efforts in helping our students to enhance their employability. Recently we launched a HeadStart Fellow Programme to give first- and secondyear undergraduate students a training programme comprising a summer internship, career mentorship, and hard- and soft-skill training, to help them get a head start in this increasingly global, competitive, and dynamic society. These activities allow students to enhance their understanding of the market, gain exposure to workplace 237

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reality, interact with top industry leaders directly, and develop career potential; and internship partners come from all corners of the business world. It is worth noting that HKUST was ranked 14th globally and first in Greater China in 2015 in the Emerging-Trendence Global Employability Ranking. Since its inception, it has always been part of the University’s vision and mission to nurture innovation and knowledge transfer for the economic and technological development of Hong Kong, the Mainland and the wider region. Over the years, we have developed a substantial capacity and expertise on knowledge transfer. HKUST was the first university in Hong Kong to establish an Entrepreneurship Center (EC) in 1999. In the same year, we established the HKUST Entrepreneurship Programme (EP) to encourage faculty and students to pursue the commercialization of technology via forming startups. Over the years, 48 companies have graduated from the EP and 27 of them remain active today. We organize an annual HK$1 million Entrepreneurship Competition to encourage staff and students to realize their business ideas focused on innovation and technology. Winners of the competition can use the cash prize as seed money to form their own company, or to further commercialize their inventions. HKUST is committed to take lead in creating a more vibrant knowledge transfer ecosystem, and will plan more initiatives in the future. SUGGESTIONS FOR RANKINGS BODIES

Given the growing impact of rankings on the higher education sector and stakeholders, rankings bodies should be aware that ‘with great power, comes great responsibility.’ Drawn from the preceding analysis of the impact and limitations of rankings, together with HKUST’s experience, the following are some considerations for rankings organizations: Allow Methodologies to be Reproduced Some rankings have been in existence for more than a decade. In past years, QS and THE have fine-tuned their methodologies by introducing new indicators and normalizing publication and citation numbers to address variations between different disciplines. However, the ARWU has not changed its methodology since inception in 2003. Rankings bodies need to be critical of their methodologies. They must evolve and refine methodologies to rank and measure universities in a fair way. To make rankings more scientific, rankings organizations should allow their methodology to be reproduced, that is, enable results to be validated by others. This would be beneficial to both universities and stakeholders. Provide Greater Transparency Rankings bodies should enhance the transparency of their methodologies to increase rankings’ credibility. QS appears to be trying to improve transparency by organizing 238

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webinars with detailed explanations on changes in methodology. By disclosing more about methodologies and how rankings data are used, the computation of scores could be scrutinized by the academic community, fuelling discussion and providing a channel for rankings bodies to collect feedback, explain the rationale behind the methodological design, and at the same time fine-tune their methodologies. In addition, rankings organizations could increase transparency by disclosing rankings data. By doing so, data supplied by institutions would be subject to public scrutiny and validation. Universities could also make use of the data to benchmark their performance against peers and drive improvements. Currently, the intense competition in the higher education sector means data supplied by universities have become akin to trade secrets. QS and THE place a high weighting on the perception/reputation surveys they conduct (50% for QS, 33% for THE). They are both insufficiently transparent about these surveys, raising questions about reliability. In 2015–16, QS based its academic reputation score on 76,800 responses from academics worldwide (TOPUNIVERSITIES, 2015). In 2015, THE’s reputation scores were based on 9,794 responses (THE, 2015a). Although QS had a much larger number of responses, it allows academics to sign up for the survey, which is self-declared. There is also no verification of identity. THE’s survey is conducted by invitation, but does not reveal how the sample is chosen. There is therefore room for both rankings bodies to improve the way they conduct surveys, source respondents, determine sample size, and design surveys to increase reliability and ensure academics are well represented, and their opinions adequately reflected. Normalize Indicators Rankings attempt to compare universities that differ in terms of mission, history, size, discipline and operating environment. While there are no absolute ways of measuring the performance of different universities against one another, it is suggested that rankings organizations normalize indicators wherever possible in order to make comparisons more meaningful. Numbers of articles and citations are not good indicators as they often favour large universities and English-language publications. However, performance per capita gives a relatively fair view as it takes into account the size of universities. While universities heavily focused on life sciences and medicine are often at an advantage, given rankings weightings, introducing field-based normalization, would help improve equity of comparison. In addition, rankings bodies could consider introducing normalization to address the age difference between universities. Rankings such as ARWU use the number of staff and alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals as a measure, favouring research-intensive universities with a long history of notable faculty and alumni. Normalizing the age of universities may make this ranking more relevant to younger universities. 239

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Discourage Institutional Short Cuts Given the current methodologies adopted by rankings bodies, it is not easy for universities to climb up league tables quickly. It takes time to build up an academic reputation and improve research performance. Some universities may adopt short cuts to achieve their rankings goals, such as “buying” highly cited researchers and reporting inaccurate rankings data. Rankings bodies should introduce mechanisms to detect, discourage, and punish this kind of gaming behaviour, such as disqualifying institutions that fail to follow the correct procedures, to safeguard the credibility and integrity of rankings. CONCLUSION

In the highly competitive, globalized 21st century, where nations and institutions battle fiercely for talent, ideas, and top positions, rankings tables have undoubtedly had a transformative effect on universities. However, the academic community should bear in mind that rankings are not an end in themselves. Improving the quality of a university’s performance should be based on fundamental purposes, goals, visions and missions; and the partiality of rankings and serious flaws in methodologies should always be borne in mind. Rankings may be used as an evaluation and benchmarking reference tool. However, universities should be cautioned in using rankings to make decisions, or even using rankings to set targets or objectives of a university. We should also be mindful of the shortcomings and limitations of university rankings, as well as the negative impact, in particular the distorted view of university’s core vision and mission that rankings might bring as a result. There is still a long way to go before rankings can adequately reflect the real quality and nature of university performance and contributions to society. Therefore, rankings, internationalization and competition should be viewed as tools to reinforce, not counter, the purpose of education, and improve the work of universities. REFERENCES Altbach, P. G. (2008). The complex roles of universities in the period of globalization. In Global University Network for Innovation (GUNI) (Eds.), Higher education in the world 3 – Higher education: New challenges and emerging roles for human and social development. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Australian Government. (2012). Australia in the Asian century white paper. Retrieved October, 2012, from http://www.murdoch.edu.au/ALTC-Fellowship/_document/Resources/australia-in-the-asiancentury-white-paper.pdf Bhattacharjee, Y. (2011). Saudi universities offer cash in exchange for academic prestige. Science, 334(6061), 1344–1345. Bornmann, L., & Bauer, J. (2014, July). Which of the world’s institutions employ the most highly cited researchers? An analysis of the data from highlycited.com. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(10), 2146–2148. Bothwell, E. (2015). Stanford top university for producing Nobel laureates. Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Retrieved August 6, 2015, from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/ news/stanford-top-university-for-producing-nobel-laureates

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THE ROLE OF UNIVERSITIES, THE RISE OF RANKINGS, AND INTERNATIONALIZATION Chan, S. J. (2012). Enhancing global competitiveness: University ranking movement in Asia. Evaluation in Higher Education, 6(1), 15–36. China Education Center Ltd. (n.d.). Project 211 and 985. Retrieved from http://www.chinaeducenter.com/ en/cedu/ceduproject211.php Cotterill, A., & Selvanathan, A. (2014). Crunch time for French universities. University World News. Retrieved July 10, 2015, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story= 20140710170406186 Gan, X. F. (2014). Are you partnering with Chinese 2011 and 985 universities. International Education Advantage. Retrieved August 28, 2015, from http://services.intead.com/blog/are-you-partneringwith-chinese-211-and-985-universities Harding, S. (2012). Why James Cook chose to become a rank outsider. The Australian. Retrieved from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/opinion/why-james-cook-chose-to-become-arank-outsider/story-e6frgcko-1226363850473 Hazelkorn, E. (2014a). Rankings and the global reputation race. New Directions for Higher Education, 2014(168), 13–26. Hazelkorn, E. (2014b). Reflections on a decade of global rankings: What we’ve learned and outstanding issues. European Journal of Education, 49(1), 12–28. Hazelkorn, E., Loukkola, T., & Zhang, T. (2014). Rankings in institutional strategies and processes: Impact or illusion. Brussels: European Universities Association. ICEF Monitor. (2012). One in five Russian universities to close by 2014. ICEF Monitor. Retrieved September 6, 2015, from http://monitor.icef.com/2012/09/one-in-five-russian-universities-to-closeby-2014/ ICEF Monitor. (2014). Japan boosts internationalization funding in a bid to climb global rankings. ICEF Monitor. Retrieved October 6, 2015, from http://monitor.icef.com/2014/10/japan-boostsinternationalisation-funding-bid-climb-global-rankings/ Kakuchi, S. (2014). Not just international but “Super Global Universities”. University World News. Retrieved Novermber 20, 2015, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story= 20141120233337379 Kehm, B. M. (2014). Global university rankings – impacts and unintended side effects. European Journal of Education, 49(1), 102–112. Kehm, B. M., & Erkkilä, T. (2014). Editorial: The ranking game. European Journal of Education, 49(1), 3–11. LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science). (2008). Retrieved October, 2015, from http://www.lse.ac.uk/aboutLSE/leagueTables/LSEInvestigationsIntoTHE_QSLeagueTables.pdf Matthews, D. (2013). Singapore: No sleep for the Lion City’s universities. Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Retrieved November 21, 2015, from http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/ features/no-sleep-for-singapores-universities/2009064.article McNeill, D. (2013). In South Korea, foreign professors can have a hard time fitting in. Retrieved January 7, 2015, from http://chronicle.com/article/Growing-Pains-for-Foreign/136453/?key= Tz1ydQJsaHBDMSlibWtBZG1QaCZtOEtyYiZJPn1ybllWFQ%3D%3D Ministry of Education Republic of China (Taiwan). (n.d.). The top university project (in Chinese). Retrieved from http://140.113.40.88/edutop/index_3.php Mishra, A. (2012). New regulation widens scope for foreign university collaboration. University World News. Retrieved June 7, 2015, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story= 20120607122629843 OECD. (2011). Education at a glance 2011: Highlights. OECD iLibrary. Retrieved from http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/eag_highlights-2011-en/01/10/index.html?itemId=/ content/chapter/eag_highlights-2011-12-en Povalko, A. (n.d.). Push for the top. Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2015/brics-and-emergingeconomies/analysis/push-for-the-top Rauhvargers, A. (2013). Global university rankings and their impact: Report II. Brussels: European University Association.

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T. CHAN et al. Rhee, B. S. (2011). A world-class research university on the periphery: The Pohang University of science and technology, the Republic of Korea. In P. G. Altbach & J. Salmi (Eds.), The road to academic excellence: The making of world-class research universities. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Salmi, J. (2010). Beyond rankings: Towards benchmarking of tertiary education systems. Bridges. Retrieved from http://ostaustria.org/bridges-magazine/volume-26-july-14-2010/item/5034-beyondrankings-towards-benchmarking-of-tertiary-education-systems Sauder, M., & Lancaster, R. (2006). Do rankings matter? The effects of U.S. news and world report rankings on the admissions process of law schools. Law and Society Review, 40(1), 105–134. Sharma, Y. (2011). South Korea: Degrees taught in English to continue. University World News. Retrieved July 15, 2011, from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20110715171111979 Sowter, B. (2015). Potential refinements in the QS World University Rankings 2015. QS Intelligence Unit. Retrieved from http://www.iu.qs.com/2015/07/potential-refinements-in-the-qs-world-universityrankings-2015/ Stanford Today. (1997). Can a college education really be reduced to numbers? Retrieved May/June, 2015, from http://news.stanford.edu/stanfordtoday/ed/9705/9705fea1.html Suh, G. S. (2013, November 3–6). The Korean government’s policies and strategies to foster world class universities: Nurturing graduate schools. Presentation at the 5th International Conference on WorldClass Universities, Shanghai, China. THE. (2008). A measured relationship. Retrieved April 10, 2015, from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/a-measured-relationship/401389.article THE. (2015a). World university rankings 2015. Retrieved from https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/ world-university-rankings/2015/reputation-ranking/methodology#tabs THE. (2015b). South Korea plans “ghettoized” university courses for foreign students. Retrieved August 14, 2015, from https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/south-korea-plans-ghettoiseduniversity-courses-foreign-students The RU11 University Association. (2011). Request for a revision of the assessment methods used by Thomson Reuters for the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings. Retrieved July 31, 2015, from http://www.ru11.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/proposal_20110731_e.pdf TOPUNIVERSITIES. (2015, September 11). QS world university rankings: Methodology. Retrieved September 11, 2015, from http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/worlduniversity-rankings/qs-world-university-rankings-methodology University of Toronto. (n.d.). Comprehensive faculty count. Retrieved from http://www.utoronto.ca/ about-uoft/measuring-our-performance/comprehensive-faculty-count Van Raan, A. F. J., van Leeuwen, T. N., & Visser, M. S. (2010). Germany and France are wronged in citation-based rankings. Retrieved from http://www.cwts.nl/pdf/LanguageRanking22122010.pdf

Tony Chan Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Michael Fung Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Natalie Chang Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

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Laurent Buisson has been Vice President of Ways and Means since 2012 at Pierre and Marie Curie University (UPMC). Laurent Buisson is in charge of the university’s budget, human resources, real estate and facilities. In each of these fields, he leads the process of defining strategy and action plans: balancing resources and spending, hiring new faculty members, appointing university officers, investing in scientific equipment and facilities, managing procurement policy as well as overseeing campus development projects. He was the Executive Director for Research and Technology Transfer at UPMC from 2008 until taking office as Vice President. He took part in the design and implementation of the University’s policy in research and innovation: establishing support and services for laboratories, industry-sponsored research, technology transfer, and the creation of new companies. Before joining UPMC, Laurent Buisson was the head of the Innovation and Regional Policy Department with the French Research Ministry. After ten years of research in computer science applied to environmental studies with INRIA, then with IRSTEA in Grenoble, he held several positions, including senior administrator with the Ministry for Research in Strasbourg and scientific attaché with the French Foreign Service in Chicago. Laurent Buisson received a PhD in Computer Science from Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble and is an alumnus of France’s Ecole Polytechnique. Tony F. Chan assumed the presidency of HKUST on 1 September 2009. Professor Chan’s scientific background is in Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering. He received his PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. He taught at Yale University before joining UCLA as Professor of Mathematics in 1986. He was appointed Chair of the Department of Mathematics in 1997 and served as Dean of Physical Sciences from 2001 to 2006. From 2006 to 2009, Professor Chan was Assistant Director of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Professor Chan is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and an elected fellow of both the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor Chan was one of the world’s most cited mathematicians. Professor Chan is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, President’s Advisory Council of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Scientific Advisory Board of the University of Vienna, and the United States Committee of 100. Professor Chan is also a member of the Advisory Committee on Innovation and Technology of the Hong Kong Government. He was a member of the Selection Committee for the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences in 2012 and 2013.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Natalie Chang is the Planning Manager of Office of Planning and Institutional Research at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She oversees the institutional research of the University which includes internal and external reporting and tracking of institutional effectiveness assessment as well as international university rankings. She is an alumna of The Chinese University of Hong Kong and The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Ying Cheng is an Associate Professor and the Executive Director of Centre for World-Class Universities at the Graduate School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). He entered SJTU in 1996. There he obtained his bachelor’s degree in Polymer Science and Engineering (2000) and his doctoral degree in Science and Technology and Education Management (2007). From 2007 to 2008, he was a postdoctoral fellow attached to the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) but conducted his studies at the Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques (OST). His current research interests include the ranking, evaluation and classification of universities, and empirical studies of World-Class Universities. He has provided consultation reports on developing world-class universities to the Ministry of Education of China, some of them attracting a great deal of attention from various higher education stakeholders. He is an active practitioner of the university ranking exercise. He has been responsible for the annual update and new development of the Academic Ranking of World Universities since 2005. He conducted the first ranking of universities in Greater China in 2011 and the first ranking of Macedonian universities in 2012. Chris Cocklin is the Senior Deputy Vice Chancellor at James Cook University. He holds portfolio responsibility for research and innovation, as well as having executive oversight of the academic divisions and colleges of the University. His portfolio responsibility for research entails research strategy and performance, postgraduate research education, and research commercialisation. He also oversees the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and the Cairns Institute, which is based at James Cook University. Professor Cocklin maintains an active role in research, which is focussed broadly on human-environment interactions. He has previously held academic positions at Monash University and at The University of Auckland. Michael Fung is the Group Director (Policy) and Chief Data Officer at the Singapore Workforce Development Agency (WDA). He oversees the strategic and resource planning functions, and is accountable for policy setting and implementation of national initiatives such as SkillsFuture. He also oversees the data governance, management, and reporting practices at WDA. Michael is concurrently Senior Advisor to the Office of the President at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), drawing on his experience in strategic and academic planning, assessment of institutional effectiveness, and international rankings. 244

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

He is the Founding Chair of the Higher Education Planning in Asia Network, a Pacific Regional Council member of the Society for College and University Planning, a member of the Association for Institutional Research, and a registered international consultant with the Asia-Pacific Quality Network. He serves on the Carnegie Mellon University Admissions Council, and was a Council member of the English Schools Foundation Clear Water Bay School in Hong Kong. He is an alumnus of Carnegie Mellon University in the US and Tsinghua University in China, and a doctoral student at the University of Southern California. Bernd Huber, born 1960 in Wuppertal/Germany, is Professor for Public Finance, and since 2002 President of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) München. He holds a degree in economics from the University Gießen (1984), and received his Ph.D. (Dr. rer. pol.) in 1988 at the University of Würzburg. He completed his postdoctoral thesis in 1994. In the same year, he accepted the Chair in Public Finance at LMU München, and was acting as dean of the faculty before he got elected president. Among his numerous functions, he is also a member of several advisory and strategic councils, of the Scientific Council to the German Ministry of Finance and of the Board of Directors of Venice International University. In addition, he has been the chairman of the League of European Research Universities from 2008 until 2014, and served as referee for the Excellence Initiatives in Spain and France. Nian Cai Liu did his undergraduate studies in chemistry at Lanzhou University, China. He obtained his master’s and PhD degrees in polymer science and engineering from Queen’s University at Kingston, Canada. Professor Liu worked as an associate and full professor at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University from 1993 to 1998. He moved to the field of higher education research in 1999. He is now the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the Director of Centre for World-Class Universities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His current research interests include world-class universities, science policy, and the strategic planning of universities. He has published extensively in both Chinese and English journals. The Academic Ranking of World Universities, an online publication of his group, has attracted attentions from all over the world. He is on the advisory boards of Scientometrics and Research Evaluation. Simon Marginson is Professor of International Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education at University College London in the UK. He is Director of the ESRC/HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), and Joint Editor-inChief of Higher Education. CGHE is a research partnership of three UK and eight international universities, and has £6.1 million in funding to carry out 15 projects in relation to global, national and local aspects of higher education. Prior to commencing at the Institute of education in 2013 Simon was Professor of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne (2006–2013). He was the Clark Kerr Lecturer on Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley in 2014, and in the same year 245

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

received the Distinguished Research Award from the Association for Studies of Higher Education in the United States. He is a member of Academia Europaea, a Lifetime Fellow of the Society for Research into Higher Education in the UK, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. Simon works primarily on globalisation and higher education, international education and comparative higher education, with some emphasis on universities in the Asia-Pacific region, where he has conducted 20 individual case studies of national university responses to globalisation. He also researches the public good contributions of higher education, and problems of education and social inequality, and is currently completing a book with colleagues on the implications of the worldwide trend to high participation systems of higher education. His next book, to be published by University of California Press, is The Dream is Over: The crisis of Clark Kerr’s Californian idea of higher education. Arun S. Mujumdar earned his PhD in chemical engineering from McGill University in Canada. After a stint in industrial R&D in the USA and Canada, he served on the engineering faculties of McGill University and The National University of Singapore. He has held several visiting professorships in Hong Kong, China, Japan, Brazil, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Australia etc. Recipient of numerous prestigious international awards as well as honorary doctorates from University of Lyon1 in France and Lodz Technical University in Poland, he has lectured in over 40 countries and consulted for numerous companies internationally. He has published over 550 peer reviewed papers, authored three books and edited over 60 books. He has initiated several conference series and organized over 50 international conferences in five continents. A mentor to over 65 PhD students, Dr. Mujumdar advises doctoral students in inter-disciplinary areas at numerous universities internationally. He is Editor-in-chief of a premier journal and Editor of the widely acclaimed Handbook of Industrial Drying now in 4 th edition. His current research deals with innovation, globalization, creativity, academia-industry R&D collaboration along with his long term interests in industrial drying, transport phenomena in energy systems and advanced food technologies. He is a frequent plenary and keynote speaker at international conferences. In 2014 he received from the Government of China to major awards recognising his continuing contributions to development of science and technology in China since 1984. Gerard A. Postiglione is Professor and Head, Division of Policy, Administration and Social Sciences at the Faculty of Education, and Director of the Wah Ching Centre of Research on Education in China at the University of Hong Kong. His scholarship focuses on reform and development in China and East Asia, especially in education and society. He has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters, and 10 books. He is editor of the journal, Chinese Education and Society, and four book series. His books include: Asian Higher Education, East Asia at School, Education and Social Change in China, China’s National Minority Education, and Crossing 246

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Borders in East Asian Higher Education. He has been a researcher/consultant/trainer for projects with the Academy of Educational Development, Asian Development Bank, the Department for International Development, the Institute of International Education, the International Development Research Centre, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank, and other international development agencies. He has advised many NGOs and international foundations, including the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching on the academic profession in Hong Kong, and a senior consultant at the Ford Foundation/Beijing for one year to establish a grants framework for China on educational reform and cultural vitality. He has been invited to address China’s Ministry of Education, the American Council on Education, White House Fellows, the Office of the Secretary of Education, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, and has been brought to many countries to speak on educational reform topics, including Austria, China, the United Kingdom, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and the United States. He has appeared on CNN and CCTV, and has been quoted in publications such as the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, BusinessWeek and Newsweek, and writes for the Hong Kong English and Chinese language press, including the Hong Kong Economic Monthly. He has held sabbatical appointments at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University, Peking University Institute of Higher Education, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Stanford University School of Education, Columbia University Institute for East Asian Studies, George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Boston College Centre for International Higher Education, and the Central University of Nationalities, China. Seeram Ramakrishna is inspiration speaker at the meetings facilitated by the United Nations Academic Impact, World Bank, OECD, EU, Governments, and universities around the world. Since 2000 he has been serving the global community in various capacities which includes Founding Chair of Global Engineering Deans Council (GEDC); Vice-President of International Federation of Engineering Educator Societies (IFEES); and Board Member of Asia Society for Innovation & Policy (ASIP). He authored the book The Changing Face of Innovation. He conducts workshops on ‘global attributes of graduates’, ‘nanotechnology’, and ‘strategies for research, innovation and entrepreneurship’. He is among the World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds (Thomson Reuters). He is a Highly Cited Researcher (www.highlycited.com). He authored 6 books, and ~700 international journal papers which attracted ~50,000 citations and ~102 H-index. He received PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK and the general management training from the Harvard University, USA. He received numerous awards and recognitions which include IFEES Presidents’ Global Visionary Award; ISTE International Fellow; Changjiang Scholar and Leading Talent, China; Nehru Fellowship, India; Lee Kuan Yew, LKY Fellowship, and NUS Outstanding Researcher, Singapore. He is an elected international fellow of major professional societies and academies of Singapore, 247

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

India, UK and USA. His university leadership includes National University of Singapore (NUS) Vice-President (Research Strategy), Director of NUS Enterprise and Industry Liaison Office, and Dean of Faculty of Engineering. Jamil Salmi is a global tertiary education expert providing policy advice and consulting services to governments, universities, professional associations, multilateral banks and bilateral cooperation agencies. Until January 2012, he was the World Bank’s tertiary education coordinator. He wrote the first World Bank policy paper on higher education reform in 1994 and was the principal author of the Bank’s 2002 Tertiary Education Strategy entitled Constructing Knowledge Societies: New Challenges for Tertiary Education. In the past twenty years, Dr. Salmi has provided advice on tertiary education development, financing reforms and strategic planning to governments and university leaders in about 90 countries all over the world. Dr. Salmi is a member of the international advisory board of several universities in Europe, Asia, Latin America, North America and the Middle East. He is also a member of the International Advisory Network of the UK Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, and the CHEA International Quality Group Advisory Council. Between 2008 and 2011, he represented the World Bank on the Governing Board of the International Institute for Educational Planning. Dr. Salmi is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at the Diego Portales University in Chile. Dr. Salmi’s 2009 book addresses the Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities. His latest book, co-edited with Professor Phil Altbach, entitled The Road to Academic Excellence: the Making of World-Class Research Universities, was published in September 2011. Yukiko Shimmi is an assistant professor and international education advisor at the Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan. Yukiko received her Ph.D. degree in Higher Education at Boston College while she worked as a research assistant at the Center for International Higher Education, Boston College. She earned her masters’ degree in Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota with a Fulbright scholarship. She also holds a Bachelors’ of Arts in Human Relations from Keio University in Japan. Yukiko’s research focuses the impact of study abroad experiences on students. She also studies international visiting scholars and their experiences. Bradley Smith is the manager of research strategy at James Cook University where he has oversight of research performance strategy, analysis and reporting; global rankings; research centres and institutes; and ECR professional development. Prior to taking up this appointment in 2010, he worked at the interface of higher education, science and research policy and politics for more than 15 years including executive director of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (now called Science Technology Australia) between 2003–2009; a higher education and R&D policy advisor in the Australian Senate; and President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA). 248

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Alex Usher is President of Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA), a consulting firm which advises governments, institutions and corporations in the higher education sector on policy and strategy. Much of Alex’s work has focused specifically on access and student loans, providing assistance to Canadian governments as well as to governments in Europe, Africa and Asia. His work (coauthored with Dominic Orr and Johannes Wespel) Do Changes in Cost-Sharing Have an Impact on the Behaviour of Students and Higher Education Institutions? Evidence from Nine Country Case-Studies which was published in June 2014 by the European Commission. He has also published three editions of Global Higher Education Rankings: Affordability and Accessibility in Comparative Perspective. In addition to his work on student assistance, Mr. Usher has also worked extensively in the field of rankings, quality measurement and performance indicators. For six years, he partnered with the Toronto Globe and Mail of its “Canadian University Report” Rankings and in 2012 published Canada’s first-ever field-normalized research rankings. He was a founding Board Member of the International Rankings Expert Group and is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Academic Rankings of World Universities. He works frequently for the World Bank and other development agencies in Asia and Africa, and regularly partners with international companies such as Interbrand and Ernst & Young on higher education projects. He also writes a popular daily commentary on Canadian higher education called One Thought to Start Your Day. He is based in Toronto, Canada. Qi Wang is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). She completed her MA and PhD studies at the Department of Education, University of Bath, UK, from September 2002 to November 2008. She joined SJTU in May 2009 and works at the Centre for WorldClass Universities. Her research interests include building world-class universities, employability management and skill training, and globalization and education development. In particular, her current research focuses on building world-class research universities from a theoretical and comparative perspective; in particular how different governments and universities in East Asia and Europe adopt policies to implement this global aspiration. In addition to her research and teaching responsibilities, she serves as an associate editor for the Journal of International Higher Education (in Chinese). This is an online journal, aiming to bridge Chinese and international higher education communities. Marijk van der Wende is Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Higher Education at Utrecht University. Her research focuses on the impact of globalization and internationalization on higher education. She has published widely on how these processes affect higher education systems, institutions, curricula, and teaching and learning arrangements. As a visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Center for WorldClass Universities, her 2015 research focused on China’s Higher Education in 249

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Global Perspective. She is a Faculty Affiliate and Research Associate at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California, Berkeley. Honorary professor at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the University of Twente. Member of the Academia Europaea (the Academy of Europe), of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for the Study of World Class Universities, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, of the Board of the Rathenau Institute for Science and Technology in Society, the Board of the Amsterdam University College Scholarship Fund (ASF), and various editorial boards and committees. She previously served as the Founding Dean of Amsterdam University College and held professorial positions at VU University Amsterdam and the University of Twente (CHEPS). She also worked with the OECD, NUFFIC (the Netherlands Organisation for International Cooperation in Higher Education), and the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) in Brussels. She holds BA degrees in teaching and pedagogy, and MA and PhD degrees in educational sciences, from the University of Amsterdam and the University of Utrecht respectively. Akiyoshi Yonezawa Professor and Director, Office of Institutional Research, Tohoku University, Japan. His research focuses on comparative higher education policy, world-class universities, internationalization, and public-private relationships. He worked at Nagoya University, National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation, Hiroshima University, OECD, and the University of Tokyo. He is board member: Japan Society of Educational Sociology, Japan Association for Higher Education Research. He is a co-editor of Book Series Higher Education in Asia: Quality, Excellence and Governance series (Springer Book Series). Maria Yudkevich is a vice-rector of National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia (HSE) and associate professor at the Economics Department of HSE. As HSE Vice-Rector she is responsible for coordinating the fundamental research and academic development at HSE. She also chairs HSE Center for Institutional Studies that focuses on both theoretical and applied economic analysis of institutions. The main areas of her interest and research work are economics and sociology of higher education with a special emphasis to faculty contracts, university governance and markets for higher education. She was a coorganizer of several large-scale international research projects that studied different higher education phenomena in comparative perspective (including faculty salaries and academic contracts – based on 28 countries, young faculty careers – 10 countries, university inbreeding – 8 countries, university rankings – 11 countries). She is the author of works on economics and sociology of higher education, published in leading Russian and international journals and co-editor of books based on the results of international comparative projects: Paying Professoriate (Routledge, 2012), The Future of Higher Education and The Academic Profession (Palgrave, 2013), Academic Inbreeding in Global Perspective (Palgrave, 2015), Young Faculty in International Perspective (SUNY Press, 2015). Maria Yudkevich is head of 250

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

the editorial board of Higher Education and Beyond, a quarterly bulletin which is intended to highlight the transformation process of higher education institutions in Russia and the counties of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The newsletter seeks to present multiple-aspect opinions about current challenges and trends of regional higher education and give examples of the best local practices. The audience of HERB is a wider international community of scholars and professionals in the field of higher education all over the world. Yang Zhang serves as the Director of Institutional Research at University of Hawaii at Manoa. She oversees the institution’s data collection, reporting, and analysis to fulfill mandatory reporting requirements and support university decision-making for institutional effectiveness. She is also responsible to provide data to various ranking organizations, to help explain the change of her institution’s ranking to university leadership, and to utilize ranking data for decision making support. She recently organized an international panel at the U.S. Association of Institutional Research’s annual conference in Denver, on the topic of “international rankings and institutional research.” Dr. Yang Zhang received her Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and MBA from Edgewood College. Jiabin Zhu obtained a Ph.D. in Engineering Education and a M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Purdue University. She received another M.S. in Optics from Chinese Academy of Sciences and a B.S. in Physics from East China Normal University. Her primary research interests relate to the development of engineering students’ professional skills, the assessment of teaching and learning in engineering, the cognitive development of graduate and undergraduate students. She has published multiple peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Journal of Engineering Education, International Journal of Engineering Education, and Advances in Engineering Education. For her work on the cognitive development of Chinese engineering doctoral students in U.S. institutions, she was endowed with the 2013 Doctoral Thesis Award from the School of Engineering Education, Purdue University. In 2012, she received the Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the Graduate Studies Division, American Society for Engineering Education. Also, She was the winner of the 2012 Bilsland Dissertation Fellowship and 2012 Bilsland Strategic Initiatives Fellowship.

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GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES ON HIGHER EDUCATION Volume 1 WOMEN’S UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES An International Handbook Francesca B. Purcell, Robin Matross Helms, and Laura Rumbley (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-77874-58-5 hardback ISBN 978-90-77874-02-8 paperback Volume 2 PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION A Global Revolution Philip G. Altbach and D. C. Levy (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-77874-59-2 hardback ISBN 978-90-77874-08-0 paperback Volume 3 FINANCING HIGHER EDUCATION Cost-Sharing in International perspective D. Bruce Johnstone ISBN 978-90-8790-016-8 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-015-1 paperback Volume 4 UNIVERSITY COLLABORATION FOR INNOVATION Lessons from the Cambridge-MIT Institute David Good, Suzanne Greenwald, Roy Cox, and Megan Goldman (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-8790-040-3 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-039-7 paperback Volume 5 HIGHER EDUCATION A Worldwide Inventory of Centers and Programs Philip G. Altbach, Leslie A. Bozeman, Natia Janashia, and Laura E. Rumbley ISBN 978-90-8790-052-6 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-049-6 paperback Volume 6 FUTURE OF THE AMERICAN PUBLIC RESEARCH UNIVERSITY R. L. Geiger, C. L. Colbeck, R. L. Williams, and C. K. Anderson (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-8790-048-9 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-047-2 paperback

Volume 7 TRADITION AND TRANSITION The International Imperative in Higher Education Philip G. Altbach ISBN 978-90-8790-054-4 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-053-3 paperback Volume 8 THE PROFESSORIATE IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION Nelly P. Stromquist ISBN 978-90-8790-084-7 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-083-0 paperback Volume 9 HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS Conceptual Frameworks, Comparative Perspectives, Empirical Findings Ulrich Teichler ISBN 978-90-8790-138-7 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-137-0 paperback Volume 10 HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE NEW CENTURY: GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND INNOVATIVE IDEAS Philip G. Altbach and Patti McGill Peterson (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-8790-199-8 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-198-1 paperback Volume 11 THE DYNAMICS OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENT CIRCULATION IN A GLOBAL CONTEXT Hans de Wit, Pawan Agarwal, Mohsen Elmahdy Said, Molatlhegi T. Sehoole, and Muhammad Sirozi (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-8790-259-9 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-258-2 paperback Volume 12 UNIVERSITIES AS CENTRES OF RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE CREATION: AN ENDANGERED SPECIES? Hebe Vessuri and Ulrich Teichler (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-8790-479-1 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-478-4 paperback

Volume 13 HIGHER EDUCATION IN TURMOIL: THE CHANGING WORLD OF INTERNATIONALIZATION Jane Knight ISBN 978-90-8790-521-7 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-520-0 paperback Volume 14 UNIVERSITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN LATIN AMERICA: SUCCESSFUL EXPERIENCES OF RESEARCH CENTERS Simon Schwartzman (Ed.) ISBN 978-90-8790-524-8 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-523-1 paperback Volume 15 BUYING YOUR WAY INTO HEAVEN: EDUCATION AND CORRUPTION IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE Stephen P. Heyneman (Ed.) ISBN 978-90-8790-728-0 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-727-3 paperback Volume 16 HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE WORLD OF WORK Ulrich Teichler ISBN 978-90-8790-755-6 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-754-9 paperback Volume 17 FINANCING ACCESS AND EQUITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION Jane Knight (Ed.) ISBN 978-90-8790-767-9 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-766-2 paperback Volume 18 UNIVERSITY RANKINGS, DIVERSITY, AND THE NEW LANDSCAPE OF HIGHER EDUCATION Barbara M. Kehm and Bjørn Stensaker (Eds.) ISBN 978-90-8790-815-7 hardback ISBN 978-90-8790-814-0 paperback

Volume 19 HIGHER EDUCATION IN EAST ASIA: NEOLIBERALISM AND THE PROFESSORIATE Gregory S. Poole and Ya-chen Chen (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6091-127-9 hardback ISBN 978-94-6091-126-2 paperback Volume 20 ACCESS AND EQUITY: COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES Heather Eggins (Ed.) ISBN 978-94-6091-185-9 hardback ISBN 978-94-6091-184-2 paperback Volume 21 UNDERSTANDING INEQUALITIES IN AND BY HIGHER EDUCATION Gaële Goastellec (Ed.) ISBN 978-94-6091-307-5 hardback ISBN 978-94-6091-306-8 paperback Volume 22 TRENDS IN GLOBAL HIGHER EDUCATION: TRACKING AN ACADEMIC REVOLUTION Philip G. Altbach, Liz Reisberg, and Laura E. Rumbley ISBN 978-94-6091-338-9 hardback ISBN 978-94-6091-339-6 paperback Volume 23 PATHS TO A WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY: LESSONS FROM PRACTICES AND EXPERIENCES Nian Cai Liu, Qi Wang and Ying Cheng ISBN 978-94-6091-354-9 hardback ISBN 978-94-6091-353-2 paperback Volume 24 TERTIARY EDUCATION AT A GLANCE: CHINA Kai Yu, Andrea Lynn Stith, Li Liu, and Huizhong Chen ISBN 978-94-6091-744-8 hardback ISBN 978-94-6091-745-5 paperback

Volume 25 BUILDING WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES: DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO A SHARED GOAL Qi Wang, Ying Cheng and Nian Cai Liu ISBN 978-94-6209-033-0 hardback ISBN 978-94-6209-032-3 paperback Volume 26 INTERNATIONALISATION OF AFRICAN HIGHER EDUCATION – TOWARDS ACHIEVING THE MDGS Chika Sehoole and Jane Knight (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6209-309-6 hardback ISBN 978-94-6209-310-2 paperback Volume 27 THE INTERNATIONAL IMPERATIVE IN HIGHER EDUCATION Philip G. Altbach ISBN 978-94-6209-337-9 hardback ISBN 978-94-6209-336-2 paperback Volume 28 GLOBALIZATION AND ITS IMPACTS ON THE QUALITY OF PHD EDUCATION: FORCES AND FORMS IN DOCTORAL EDUCATION WORLDWIDE Maresi Nerad and Barbara Evans (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6209-568-7 hardback ISBN 978-94-6209-567-0 paperback Volume 29 USING DATA TO IMPROVE HIGHER EDUCATION: RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRACTICE Maria Eliophotou Menon, Dawn Geronimo Terkla, and Paul Gibbs (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6209-793-3 hardback ISBN 978-94-6209-792-6 paperback Volume 30 How World-Class Universities Affect Global Higher Education: Influences and Responses Ying Cheng, Qi Wang and Nian Cai Liu (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6209-820-6 hardback ISBN 978-94-6209-819-0 paperback

Volume 31 GLOBAL OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION LEADERS: BRIEFS ON KEY THEMES Laura E. Rumbley, Robin Matross Helms, Patti McGill Peterson, and Philip G. Altbach (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6209-862-6 hardback ISBN 978-94-6209-861-9 paperback Volume 32 CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON INTERNATIONALISING THE CURRICULUM IN DISCIPLINES: REFLECTIVE NARRATIVE ACCOUNTS FROM BUSINESS, EDUCATION AND HEALTH Wendy Green and Craig Whitsed (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6300-084-0 hardback ISBN 978-94-6300-083-3 paperback Volume 33 THE IMPACT OF INTERNATIONALIZATION ON JAPANESE HIGHER EDUCATION: IS JAPANESE EDUCATION REALLY CHANGING? John Mock, Hiroaki Kawamura, and Naeko Naganuma (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6300-168-7 hardback ISBN 978-94-6300-167-0 paperback Volume 34 GLOBAL AND LOCAL INTERNATIONALIZATION Elspeth Jones, Robert Coelen, Jos Beelen, and Hans de Wit (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6300-300-1 hardback ISBN 978-94-6300-299-8 paperback Volume 35 MATCHING VISIBILITY AND PERFORMANCE: A STANDING CHALLENGE FOR WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITIES Nian Cai Liu, Ying Chen and Qi Wang (Eds.) ISBN 978-94-6300-772-6 hardback ISBN 978-94-6300-771-9 paperback