European Research and Higher Education Areas in a Global Context CHEPS Summer School on Higher Education Research, Twente University, Enschede, Holland, July 2004

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European Research and Higher Education Areas in a
Global Context CHEPS Summer School on Higher
Education Research, Twente University, Enschede,
Holland, July 2004

• Prof. Marek Kwiek
• Center for Public Policy
• Poznan University, Poznan, Poland
• kwiekm_at_amu.edu.pl
• www.policy.hu/kwiek

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Introduction/Overview

• HE transformations global
• HE transformations (old) EU
• Universal knowledge and knowledge societies
• European Research and Higher Education Areas
• Two views on Bologna protectionism, expansionism
• Bologna and ERA underlying assumptions
• Transnational reform agendas vs. Bologna/ERA
• The university changing missions?
• The university dynamic processes
• Conclusions

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HE transformations global (1)

• HE more influential than ever before for the
  economic growth of nations and regions
• Passage from industrial (work-based) to
  postindustrial (knowledge-based) economies and
  societies (OECD)
• Consequently, knowledge viewed as the major
  driver of economic development
• Old and new challenges in HE. Old challenges
  include
• shifting from elite to mass (expanded) systems
  under severe resource constraints
• inequality of access and opportunities

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HE transformations global (2)

• low quality and relevance of education to the
  labor market
• rigid governance and administrative structures
• inability (or unwillingness) of governments to
  finance expanding public HE
• inability (or unwilingness) of governments to
  finance ever-expanding research in public sector
  institutions (partnerships)
• New challenges in HE
• crucial role of knowledge production,
  dissemination and application for
  knowledge-driven societies
• consequently, HE in the center of public scrutiny
  (nationally, regionally, and globally) EU, WB,
  OECD, IMF, WTO etc.
• emergence of powerful market forces in HE and RD

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HE transformations global (3)

• unprecedented growth of new for profit and
  virtual providers in HE (consortia, franchises,
  corporate universities foreign/ borderless
  institutions)
• unprecedented differentiation of HE (from huge
  community colleges to small elite institutions)
• rapidly changing demographics (new students)
• globalization of economies and cultures
• internationalization of academic disciplines and
  research communities
• rapid spread of the English language
• advent of new technologies (especially
  telecommunications)

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HE transformations global (4)

• New challenges for HE in more general terms mean
• new questions asked What is it that society
  needs from higher education? - and no longer
  What is it that higher education needs from
  society?
• radical move away from the state, and more
  reliance on the market, for both teaching,
  research and service functions
• changing social status of the academic profession
  (from Herr Professor to knowledge analyst),
  changing working conditions (pioneers Altbach
  globally, Enders for EU)
• commodification of research, marketization of
  educational offer, corporatization of academic
  governance and management structures
  (collegiality vs. CEO/corporate models
  managerialism)
• diversification - growth of the private sector
  (globally)

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HE transformations global (5)

• research - increasingly goes to the corporate
  sector (EU goal - 3 of GDP for research - but
  increase from private funds, and considerably for
  the private RD)
• students - increasingly consumers, HE
  institutons increasingly providers of
  services (major shifts in vocabulary)
• tighter links between university/corporations/mi
  litary
• (Note the transition countries today face both
  old and new challenges at the same time! Western
  European countries faced old challenges 20-30
  years ago, when they moved towards mass systems
  of HE. HE in transition economies is working
  increasingly under both types of pressures).

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HE transformations (old) EU (1)

• Majority of aspects of global transformations
  present - but in much softened versions (with
  exceptions, e.g. UK)
• Majority of aspects of global transformations
  confirmed in the Lisbon strategy (2000) to
  make Europe by 2010 the most competitive economy
  in the world
• Consequently, emergent European Research Area
  (ERA) and, increasingly, Bologna - directed to
  economic goals
• European Welfare Model in conflict with the
  global market orientation of HE
• Bologna process for EU countries - to make EHEA
  compe-

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HE transformations (old) EU (2)

• titive to American and Australasian HE, to have
  bigger share in global market of international
  students (or to protect itself agains global
  challenges see later)
• current transformations of HE supposed to mean
  highly skilled professional workforce for the new
  knowledge-economy comparability of educational
  outputs and diplomas across Europe mobility of
  graduates and workforce growing employability of
  graduates
• next moves? Possibly pan-European - accreditation
  schemes, quality assurance, framework of
  qualifications, and descriptions of educational
  outputs and competencies

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Universal knowledge and knowledge societies
(1)

• European Commission, World Bank, and Magna Charta
  Universitatum quoted and compared
• The knowledge society depends for its growth on
  the producton of new knowledge, its transmission
  through education and training, its dissemination
  through information and communication
  technologies, and on its use through new
  industrial processes or services
• (The Role of Universities in
  the Europe of
• Knowledge, 2003, p. 2)

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Universal knowledge and knowledge societies
(2)

• The ability of a society to produce, select,
  adapt, commercialize, and use knowledge is
  critical for sustained economic growth and
  improved living standards
• (Constructing Knowledge Societies
  New Challenges
• for Tertiary Education, World
  Bank, 2003, p. 7)

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Universal knowledge and knowledge societies
(3)

• Magna Charta Universitatum (Bologna, 1988)
  constant care to attain universal knowledge,
  university as a trustee of the European humanist
  tradition etc.
• No continuation in current ERA (and little in
  Bologna) documents, in global accounts of HE by
  OECD, WB, in discussions on the knowledge
  society and the Europe of knowledge
• Conclusion the working vocabulary used for
  debates about the future of the university has
  changed substantially since its German (or
  Napoleonic) origins (von Humboldt,

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Universal knowledge and knowledge societies
(4)

• Schelling, Fichte, Schleiermacher) but also
  since 1980s
• The shift in vocabulary accompanies the shift in
  seeing the roles, tasks and missions of our
  educational institutions
• Universities no more detached from society and
  attached to the state attached to the
  nation-state building national identity and
  constructing nationhoods. Increasingly seen as
  part of the public sector or the corporate
  sector, with a task to construct knowledge
  societies (rather than invent Germanneness etc)

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European Research and Higher Education Areas (1)

• Bologna nad ERA two sides of the same coin
  that of ongoing redefinition of roles, missions,
  tasks of the University in changing,
  market-driven and knowledge-based European
  societies and economies (gradual, simultaneous
  emergence)
• Convergence between intergovernmental Bologna and
  EU ERA supranational, intergovernmental and
  inter-institutional (universities) levels get
  increasingly mixed
• Universities may not be able to avoid a
  substantial transformation of their functioning,
  in both T and R

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European Research and Higher Education Areas (2)

• Inward-looking Bologna while the impact of
  global transformations on HE widely acknowledged
  no mention in all Bologna documents since its
  inception (1998)
• But outward-looking ERA the impact of
  globalization on Europe (competition with USA and
  Australasia) repeatedly acknowledged and at the
  foundations of the overall EU Lisbon Strategy
  (2000)
• Bologna seems to be closed to global developments
  in HE, regional problems and regional solutions
  limited references to global changes and to huge
  political and economic transformations underlying
  them

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European Research and Higher Education Areas (3)

• But globalization (globally) is one of the main
  driving forces behind current transformations of
  the public sector, current welfare state models
  and changes in educational policies worldwide
• It is an analytical mistake to forget about it
  within Bologna process

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Two views on Bologna (1)

• Anyway, in general, two simplified contrasting
  views on Bologna (Dirk van Damme)
• as an introduction to a much deeper integration
  of national educational systems, resulting from
  competitive pressures and global liberalization
  of operations of HEIs (expansionism)
• as a large-scale defensive mechanism to avoid the
  pitfalls of globalization and to stay together in
  Europe against the global odds (protectionism)
• 1st may imply convergence Bologna/globalization
  processes on a regional scale in the future
• 2nd may imply an attempt to make HE systems
  stronger against the forces of glob. (with their
  emphasis privatization, commercialization,
  marketization, commodification etc)

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Two views on Bologna (2)

• Which adequate? Both protectionist and
  expansionist themes present in Bologna
  documents ERA mostly expansionist views.
  Expansionism requires attracting foreign students
  and talents as opposed to protectionism which
  emphasizes public good, responsibility, and
  consequently public funding

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Bologna and ERA underlying assumptions (1)

• Europe and the world entering a new era of
  knowledge-based and market-driven and competing
  economies (more ERA)
• Europe has to compete with USA and Japan in HE
  (Bologna) and RD (ERA)
• The underlying goal behind current
  transformations of HE and RD policies
  (explicitely in ERA, indirectly in Bologna with
  its social dimension) to be the most
  competitive and dynamic knowledge-based
  economy by 2010. Goal - (mostly) economic!
• But higher competitiveness needs to be combined
  with social cohesion
• To reach the goal, knowledge, from universities
  or elsewhere, is a clue
• Consequently, neither in ERA nor in Bologna, the
  University is seen in a traditional way (which
  was dominant before the advent of globalizat.,

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Bologna and ERA underlying assumptions (2)

• before speeding up of the European integration,
  and the passage from the industrial and service
  societies to the postindustrial, global,
  aknowledge and information societies

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Transnational reform agendas and ERA/Bologna (1)

• As set by the WB and OECD, HE reforms seen
  within wider reforms of the state
• the minimal state provides only an enabling
  framework for functioning of the market forces
  and competition between (mostly private)
  providers
• privatization (in the long run) of major welfare
  services healthcare, pensions, (higher)
  education
• to take the burden off the states shoulders (and
  to users of services)
• to keep national budget deficits as low as
  possible, lower taxes etc
• to downsize (rightsize) the public sector
• HE seen more as a private good, not a public good
  (also a tradable good see WTO)

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Transnational reform agendas and ERA/Bologna (2)

• EU reform agendas for new EU countries similar to
  the transnational agendas in general
• traditional EUs concerns about the European
  welfare model under threat - generally
  irrelevant for new EU-countries (no Keynesian
  welfare state to dismantle more Anglo-Saxon
  attitude)

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Transnational reform agendas and ERA/Bologna (3)

• Necessity in new EU to combine transnational
  views of downsizing the public sector (no
  resources available soon, growing other social
  and economic needs low taxation) with European
  views of HE as crucial for economic growth (for
  future common European labor market)
• HE is competing strongly with other sectors for
  shrinking public funds. Private funds for HE grew
  faster than public funds in all major OECD
  economies
• Consequently, Bologna might go together with
  transnational reform agendas for HE but mostly in
  new EU ERA may converge with WB/OECD views on
  RD

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The University changing missions

• In ERA and Bologna documents, the current role
  for universities is to be
• - engines for economic growth of countries and
  regions
• contributors to economic competitiveness of
  nations and regions
• suppliers of highly-qualified and well-trained
  workers for the new knowledge-driven economy (but
  - quote Berlin Communique)
• Without much discussons about principles (Idea
  of the University of Idealists, Newman, Jaspers,
  y Gasset etc), the university in the European
  context may be entering a new era of its history

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The University dynamic processes

• Some major factors implying a transformation of
  the institution
• the globalization pressures on nation-states and
  their public services
• The questionig of the foundations of the WS and
  the public sector in general
• The end of the Golden age of the KWS (with its
  lavish support for national public research and
  for strong national HE systems 3 decades)
• The emergence of knowledge societies (and
  economies) in affluent West funding, funding,
  funding...
• Processes of transformations more generally are
• Gradual individualization (and recommodification)
  of our societies
• Denationalization (and desocialization) of our
  economies
• Universalization of HE and commodification and
  marketization of research (50-70 leased Ivory
  Tower, corporate takeover etc

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Conclusions

• Bologna and ERA complementary two sides of the
  same coin, redefining roles and tasks of HEIs
• Bologna and ERA converge - increasingly for
  economic purposes, for knowledge production on a
  regional scale
• Will be increasingly affected by global
  transformations if the idea is to globally
  competitive
• Will lead to pan-European (EU) accreditation,
  quality assurance schemes harmonisation of
  curricula in the long run
• Still changes depend largely on effective
  legislation, and on the academic profession

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Conclusions

• Bologna and ERA - as well as global
  transformations in HE and RD - undermine the
  idea of the traditional modern university
• Consumer-driven T, market-driven R huge
  competition with new providers of both T and R
• The academic profession under new pressures,
  hugely diversified, massified academics for
  almost universal studies

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Thank you very much for your attention, let us
remember that

• Changing a university is difficult. It is like
  moving a cemetary hard work and there is no
  internal support, Clark Kerr