Out of the crisis into sustainable recovery? Maintaining quality in a time of constrained resources

DEAN 2010 Annual Conference. Barcelona, Monday 15 - Tuesday 16 November 2010. Opening reception on Sunday 15 November at 18.00 at UAB - Casa Convalescencia followed by EU-DRIVERS conference on Regional Innovation, 17 November 2010.
Higher education institutions are affected heavily by the economic recession and at the same time have to deal with an increasingly diverse student population with different needs, and with more demands to deliver excellence in research and education.
• How can higher education institutions take the lead to contribute to the challenges of the Knowledge Society ?   
• How can they produce the graduates which society needs in terms of responsible and flexible citizens capable of handling the complex problems of an ever evolving society?
• How can higher education institutions develop a strong research and innovation culture which makes a strong societal impact on urgent issues?
The 2010 annual DEAN conference will explore how deans and academic leaders can address some of these issues.  It will also showcase examples of responses from higher education institutions and their capacity to adapt, create and innovate both for short term gains and to address long term problems.   New forms of internal governance must follow to support strong strategic developments, backed up with internal structural changes and reorganizations to optimize the use of financial, human and physical resources. 
The conference will also look at new financial strategies necessary to support the financial sustainability of universities in the context of the difficulties and opportunities which the current crisis presents.  This includes implementing full cost policies, diversifying the funding basis by generating private funding from external contracts, commercialization of research results or by introducing tuition fees.  Building alliances with other universities and developing strategic partnerships with external regional stakeholders to work in strategic research and education priority areas will also be investigated. Download the full version of the DEAN conference announcement.
EU-DRIVERS Conference: "Universities leading regional innovation: New partnerships at a time of economic crisis". Barcelona, Wednesday 17 November 2010.
As a highly focused and interactive event, the conference will be based on a report with case studies and examples of good practices on regional innovation drawn from the EU-DRIVERS pilot partnership projects and building on partners' expertise.
The EU-DRIVERS Pilot Partnership Projects are a major component of the EU-DRIVERS Project as 'showcase' projects, involving the 'triple helix' stakeholders from a university, public authority (local/regional government) and business/community. The projects provide a core base for practical knowledge sharing about routes to improving regional cooperation between universities, public authorities and business to encourage regional innovation. During the conference, specific case studies addressing opportunities for regional developments in times of crisis will be addressed.
The conference will start with a networking dinner on 16 November. On 17 November the conference will be split into morning plenary sessions with key senior level speakers and afternoon thematic parallel sessions.
The underlying aim is to provide participants with the latest information on developments with regional innovation policy and practice. To do so, the conference will relate to EU and national policy and showcase examples of successful regional cooperation from within and beyond the EU-DRIVERS partnership. Preliminary programme.