EFMD Annual Conference 2013, Brussels, Belgium (9-11 June 2013)
The Management Development Network (EFMD) is holding its Annual Conference in Brussels from 9 to 11 June under the theme “Does management education create impact?”.
The conference aims at all those interested in management education and development. It is intended to bring together EFMD members, companies, educational institutions and other associations, to offer various perspectives and discussions on the conference theme.
To view the programme or to register for a reduced fee by 28 February, please visit the event website.

EUA has today published a new report which examines the development of ‘full costing’ in European universities. Entitled “Financially Sustainable Universities. Full Costing: Progress and Practice”, the publication aims to assist university practitioners in implementing full costing, with examples of good practice, whilst at the same time providing important information for policy makers and funders, in particular for the current debate on Horizon 2020.
Full costing – the ability to identify and calculate all the direct and indirect costs of an activity – has been identified as a crucial element for universities’ financial sustainability. It has become increasingly important as a result of the financial challenges that many universities currently face: reduced public funding (in many European countries); changes to the way funding is allocated (e.g. performance-based elements); increasing use of ‘co-funding’ requirements; and the management of diverse income sources. The publication provides an update on the status of the implementation of full costing in 14 European higher education systems and examines its impact on the relationship between universities and different funders. It shows that funding rules are an important driver for full costing development. In 10 out of the 14 systems analysed the possibility to recover costs based on a full costing methodology under FP7 have been an important driver for development.
Full costing methodologies help universities to identify the full costs of their activities and provide information for evidence-based decision-making at the strategic level of the university. It also enables them to show in a transparent way how they spend money and what the real costs of their activities are. It supports, therefore, accountability in relation to funders and provides information to enhance understanding of the adequate level of funding needed in a system. The report, which brings together evidence collected during a major EUA project supported by FP7 (European Universities Implementing their Modernisation Agenda – EUIMA) and from other EUA work on funding concludes that, overall, considerable progress has been made in recent years in the implementation of full costing. EUA’s work has shown that nevertheless a number of obstacles to implementing full costing still exist.
Full costing has been one of the important pillars of EUA’s work on financial sustainability, and EUA will continue to take this work forward through two new projects launched at the end of 2012, DEFINE and ATHENA. The full report can be downloaded here.

Presentation of the ARDE project results and report (26 February 2013, 8.00-10.30 a.m.)
On 26 February EUA will present a new report: “Quality Assurance in Doctoral Education – results of the ARDE project” at a breakfast event to be hosted by the Permanent Representation of Ireland to the European Union in Brussels. The importance of training researchers has been recognised as central to the development of knowledge societies over the last decade and the number of doctorate holders in Europe has risen sharply. Improving accountability and enhancing quality in doctoral education have thus become a priority.
The report will present the outcomes of the Accountable Research Environments for Doctoral Education (ARDE) project which has aimed to demonstrate how quality assurance for doctoral education has been implemented in European universities through a combination of quantitative methods – a European-wide survey – and qualitative methods – focus group meetings with university representatives and a workshop including non-university stakeholders. A wide body of evidence has been gathered regarding processes, challenges and good practices in quality assurance in doctoral education and the report will describe the developments in the field and outline recommendations. To find out more about the event and how to register, please click here.
The ARDE project was coordinated by EUA in partnership with University College Cork (UCC), Universities Austria (UNIKO) and the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland (CRASP). It was supported by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission.

Heads of state and government of the European Union countries and CELAC countries (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) convened in Santiago de Chile from 26 to 27 January under the theme ‘Alliance for Sustainable Development: Promoting Investments of Social and Environmental Quality’.
One of the points highlighted by the Summit Declaration was the need to reinforce the Strategic Partnership between the two regions in research and higher education. Higher education was declared an official action point to be followed up under the EU-CELAC Action Plan 2013-2015. In conjunction with partners of the ALFA PUENTES project, EUA and 23 university associations in Europe and Latin America submitted a statement to heads of state and government in the run-up to the summit. Based to a large extent on the outcomes of the recent bi-regional EU-LA University Association Conference held in São Paulo, Brazil (11-14 November, 2012), organised under the ALFA PUENTES project, the statement stresses the importance of higher education and research investment in meeting the priorities for sustainable development outlined under the EU-CELAC Action Plan. In particular, it highlights the following lessons learnt from ALFA PUENTES:

• Competitive research and innovation requires talent and well-trained individuals; governments should place a strong focus on the careers of young researchers (postdoc, doctoral candidates), and also Masters’ students through joint degrees or collaborative delivery of programmes, joint labs, and partnerships with industry and other social actors. In particular, collaborative provision of doctoral degrees should be supported and promoted.
• Higher education and research cooperation should exploit good practice from existing EU programmes: for example, cooperation and mobility grants through consortia comprised of universities from different countries of both regions have been extremely successful and should be scaled up.
• University associations are at the forefront of higher education and research policy development at national and regional levels. They should be consulted systematically in both regions on the points of the EU-CELAC agenda that relate to research and higher education.
• ALFA PUENTES, which is supported by the EU, has made great strides not just in facilitating cooperation between European and LA universities, but also among Latin American universities. LA governments should also look to invest in similar regional collaboration initiatives in the LA context.

The Summit Declaration stresses the “importance of triangular, south-south and other modalities and mechanisms of cooperation” and also recognises “the important contribution of higher education programmes for academic cooperation and international student, research and academic staff mobility between (the) regions”. This is a positive sign that both research and higher education are considered on the EU-CELAC agenda, and seemingly have gained more attention, compared to previous summits. EUA, in the context of ALFA PUENTES, will continue to follow this agenda in cooperation with university associations in Latin America.
The project, ALFA PUENTES: Building Capacity of University Associations in Fostering Latin American Regional Integration, unites 23 national and regional university associations of Latin America and Europe. The project places a strong focus on higher education internationalisation and integration of Latin American higher education systems, and explores the specific role of university associations in this regard. It is co-funded by the European Union Alfa Programme. Over the past two years, the project has been developing mechanisms and frameworks for regional quality assurance collaboration, modernising degree structuring, and enhancing academic mobility.

Since 2006, the European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF), co-organised by EUA, ENQA, EURASHE and ESU, has become the premier event for quality assurance (QA) in European higher education with some 400 participants from across Europe and beyond. The Forum provides a unique platform for the higher education and QA communities to monitor, shape and anticipate developments in the area. The main purpose of the Forum is to foster a dialogue on QA that bridges national boundaries and leads to a truly European discussion on QA in higher education, and to create a common European understanding of QA through discussions and networking among different stakeholder groups. The Forum organisers are looking for a university to host the ninth EQAF that will take place in November 2014. Applications from universities located in regions where the Forum has not previously been held are particularly encouraged. To find out more, download the call here.
See also on the blog The 7th European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF), Report from 7th European Quality Assurance Forum: ‘How does quality assurance make a difference?’, 7th European Quality Assurance Forum, Tallinn, Estonia (22-24 November 2012), 6th European Quality Assurance Forum, 5th European Quality Assurance Forum (EQAF).

By John Markoff. One of the dirty secrets about MOOCs — massive open online courses — is that they are not very effective, at least if you measure effectiveness in terms of completion rates.
If as few as 20 percent of students finishing an online course is considered a wild success and 10 percent and lower is standard, then it would appear that MOOCs are still more of a hobby than a viable alternative to traditional classroom education. Backers reason that the law of large numbers argues in favor of the online courses that have rapidly come to be seen as the vehicle for the Internet’s next big disruption — colleges. If 100,000 students take a free online course and only 5,000 complete it, that is still a significant number. However, MOOCs are a moving target. Because they are computerized and networked they offer an ideal medium for quantifying what works and what doesn’t. Earlier this week, when San Jose State University in California announced that it was contracting with MOOC-developer Udacity to create three pilot classes, they noted that the National Science Foundation had agreed to fund research to study the impact of the classes. Read more...

Par Laurence Estival. Développement de programmes courts, création de stages sur mesure pour les entreprises, mise en avant des activités de recherche… Ecoles et universités investissent le champ de la formation continue, même si aujourd’hui seule une poignée d’entre elles a réussi à s’imposer sur ce segment lucratif. Le point avant la conférence EducPros du 14 février sur le sujet. Pour la première fois en 2010, le nombre de diplômes nationaux obtenus en formation continue a dépassé les 10% des parchemins délivrés par les universités, selon une note d'information du ministère de l'enseignement supérieur. De quoi donner des ailes à des établissements qui lorgnent sur les 31 milliards d'euros dépensés chaque année en moyenne par les entreprises, l'Etat, les collectivités locales et les particuliers. Les marges de progression sont en effet conséquentes: la formation continue universitaire ne "pèse" que 387 millions d'euros, soit seulement le double du chiffre d'affaires de la Cegos. Un chiffre d'affaires qui est cependant en progression de 8% par rapport à 2009. Suite de l'article...

Propos recueillis par Charles Centofanti. Chargé de tirer les conclu­sions légis­la­tives des Assises de l'enseignement supé­rieur, Jean-Yves Le Déaut, député PS, pro­pose notam­ment que les étudiants puissent évaluer leurs enseignants.
Dans votre rap­port remis le 14 jan­vier au Premier ministre, vous relan­cez l'idée instau­rée dans un arrêté de François Bayrou en 1997, que les étudiants doivent être asso­ciés à l'évaluation des ensei­gnants: quel est l'intérêt?
Il s'agit plus exac­te­ment de don­ner la pos­si­bi­lité aux étudiants d'évaluer non pas leurs pro­fes­seurs mais leurs ensei­gne­ments, ce qui est dif­fé­rent. Les étudiants, pre­miers concer­nés par l'université, ont leur mot à dire. On ne peut pas deman­der à ce que l'enseignement supé­rieur soit évalué sur toutes ses mis­sions (for­ma­tion, recherche, dif­fu­sion de la culture scien­ti­fique...) et se refu­ser à impli­quer les étudiants qui sont les prin­ci­paux uti­li­sa­teurs de l'université.
Mais il ne s'agit que d'un indi­ca­teur parmi d'autres. L'évaluation des pro­fes­seurs doit por­ter sur toutes les mis­sions de l'enseignement supé­rieur et pas uni­que­ment sur la recherche. Cela existe déjà dans de nom­breuses grandes écoles et dans cer­tains IUT, mais seule­ment dans quelques uni­ver­si­tés... Dans le cadre du cours que j'assure à Sciences Po Paris, mes étudiants donnent leur avis, notam­ment sur ma péda­go­gie, sur la manière dont ils aime­raient être évalués... C'est ano­nyme et cela ne me pose aucun pro­blème. Au contraire, cela me paraît natu­rel, de la même façon qu'un par­le­men­taire est évalué quand il se pré­sente à une élec­tion, ou qu'un patient appré­cie s'il est bien soi­gné ou non par son médecin... Voir l'article entier...

Ein Gastbeitrag von Sigrid Nieberle. Heißt es Frau Professor oder Frau Professorin? Und warum kichern manche beim Wort Doktormutter? Weil Professorinnen in der Öffentlichkeit kaum vorkommen, in Zeitungen nicht, auch nicht in Büchern und im Kino. Mehr Zeit und Mühe tut Not - mit oder ohne Quote. Wie jeden Morgen schlurft sie im Cordkostüm den Institutsflur hinunter. Gestern ist es spät geworden: ein Gutachten, das Personalentwicklungskonzept, der One-Night-Stand mit dem karrieregeilen Studenten. Und noch der Gin Tonic, weil sich die Traurigkeit über die kaputte Ehe nicht länger wegdrücken ließ.
Stereotypenalarm? Klischees? Erinnert an Krimis wie "Wilsberg und der tote Professor"? Ist selbst in parodistischer Form für Wissenschaftlerinnen unzutreffend? Stimmt. Aber wie ist es wirklich?
Der Herr Professor ist eine Instanz, bekannt aus Film und Fernsehen, Fachartikeln und Presseberichten. Und das weibliche Pendant? Wie heißt es überhaupt richtig: Frau Professorin oder Frau Professor oder lässt man die Frau besser weg? Manche kichern sogar noch über den Begriff "Doktormutter".
Die Professorin hat keine repräsentative Ahnenreihe von Sokrates über Dr. Faustus bis Professor Higgins. Es haperte bekanntlich am gleichberechtigten Zugang zur akademischen Lehrbefugnis. Eine möglichst moderne Figur muss also her. Nur welche? Mehr...

By Olivier Robichaud. A new trend in doctoral studies is emerging on the Canadian university landscape. A growing number of doctoral students are choosing to study under a thesis supervisor at two universities – one in Canada and one abroad. The joint thesis supervision tends to go by its French name, cotutelle, and in Canada it is most common with students studying at francophone universities in Quebec who are doing a joint degree with an institution in France.
These are among the findings of a recent survey on joint and dual PhD programs in Canada, undertaken by Fred Hall, former vice-president of graduate studies at the University of Calgary, for the Canadian Association of Graduate Studies. Dr. Hall sent the survey to 68 institutions and had 48 responses.
The cotutelle – which literally means “joint guardianship” – is a formal agreement between two universities that allows a student to do part of their academic activities at each. The student must register at both institutions and meet the requirements of their respective doctoral programs. The student has two thesis supervisors but typically only one thesis defence, before a single examining committee appointed by both institutions. Most of the time, the student gets two degrees – a model the students prefer, although often each degree notes that it was issued simultaneously with the other institution. An alternative, the “joint degree” model, offers a single degree signed by both participating institutions.
Université de Montréal is by far the largest adopter of cotutelles with 175 doctoral students pursuing them, according to the CAGS report. Université Laval and Université de Sherbrooke are also heavily involved, said Dr. Hall. Read more...