Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Related files
The following files will open in their associated programs.
-
US/UK Study Group report in full
(
File, Size 410.8k
)
Anglo-American universities must lead the way to a ‘global civil society’, says report
29 July 2009
Transatlantic institutions to combat ‘centripetal forces’ of globalisation. Hannah Fearn reports
The UK and US must build on their “primacy” in world higher education to lead the development of a “global civil society”, binding countries together through common values and principles.
That is the message of a new report, Higher Education and Collaboration in a Global Context, commissioned by Gordon Brown and drawn up following conversations between leading academics from both sides of the Atlantic.
The report, published today, states that the “special relationship” must continue but must no longer focus solely upon Anglo-American interests.
“The biggest challenge ahead is to focus on ways of extending the UK/US model to third locations,” the report says. “This will enrich immensely the universities of both countries, foster the growth of an open, competitive and accessible higher education sector in other nations, and constitutes a vitally important form of soft diplomacy and power.
“Most critically, it will foster the development of a ‘global civil society’, which will bind universities and countries together through common values and principles, and counter the centripetal forces of the globalised era.”
The “study group” that drew up the report included senior names such as Eric Thomas, vice-chancellor of the University of Bristol, and Katherine Fleming, vice-chancellor of New York University.
As part of an improved relationship with other countries, universities in the UK and the US should set up overseas campuses, the report says. Other recommendations include the creation of an “Atlantic Trust” to award scholarships to talented overseas students to study in the UK or the US, while helping Western students to move between the two countries.
The aim of universities on both sides of the Atlantic should be to help “build and support tomorrow’s idea capitals and knowledge centres”, it says. The report concludes that “a combination of UK and US universities in this joint effort would be a formidable one”.
Rick Trainor, president of Universities UK and principal of King’s College London, said: “Now, more than ever, collaboration across borders among our leading universities is absolutely necessary. The strength of the UK/US partnership, the longstanding pre-eminence of the two countries in the higher education sector and more recently the crisis in the global economy validate the case for deepened and internationalised collaboration.”
John Sexton, president of New York University, said: “In the future, the UK/US higher education agenda must go beyond seeking simply greater mobility and partnership between the two. Instead, universities must focus on ways to expand the strengths of the UK/US model in multilateral ways to create a worldwide network of co-operation and excellence.”
hannah.fearn@tsleducation.com
Readers' comments
Given league tables - no matter how sceptical we might be about them - I'm not entirely convinced of the "primacy" of UK higher education, and only a little more so about any ongoing "primacy" of US higher education. But I am convinced Rick Trainor is correct: worldwide collaboration is absolutely the key, along with exchange, interaction, and a genuine desire to extend human knowledge. Creative thinking, an inclination toward adventurous exploration of understanding, and "global" thinking, all can play a part. They're all very good "common values", but excellence will only come if they are also commonly undertaken actions where national political motivations don't overwhelm transnational potential.
Must consult the original source, but from this report it looks less like 'collaboration' and more like rampant exploitation, sucking talented students from abroad, competing with other countries' institutions in their own backyard and disseminating 'values' such as 'competition'. What a remarkable spin to turn what sounds like a shared drooling over the potential spoils into "combatting the centripetal forces of globalisation." Who's writing this stuff - Armando Iannuci?
So, American and British elite institutions will tell us and the rest of the world what the 'common values and principles' are according to which we will live our lives in this unified 'global civil society'? Mmmm...
Not quite sure how this relates to the recent Bologna agenda for pan-Euorpean standardisation. Oh, hang on, though - maybe the rest of Europe isn't charging students high enough fees to be worth the pickings.
It will be impossible to sell this idea even to the EEC, let alone to the rest of the world. US education is not so good, look at the percentage of graduate students in US universities; most of them are graduates of foreign universities and they are doing the research. Look the faculty of UK universities, a lot of them are not educated in either UK or USA. Does the author thinks that universities in Europe, Russia, Japan, India, Israel are all rubbish; they have to accept Anglo-American agenda and methodology??
"Look the faculty of UK universities, a lot of them are not educated in either UK or USA. ".. What stuff and nonsense! May be in your little imagination. Are you capable of doing some background work. best to ignore your pratlle.