3 juillet 2013

Higher education institutions adopt codex for German higher education projects abroad
The 14th general meeting of the German Rectors Conference (Hochschulrektorenkonferenz, HRK) in Nuremberg has adopted a codex for German higher education projects abroad. The codex includes qualitative academic and ethical “minimum standards” that apply to German higher education projects. German institutions as well as foreign partners are invited to comply with it. The document was developed by an international group of experts on invitation of the HRK and the DAAD.
Codex for German higher education projects abroad (in German)
More (in German). Read more...

You have more geeks, I have more trees; you are richer, but I am younger. Very soon, all the universities around the world may find a place for themselves with the current proliferation of university rankings.
On 3 June, the Guardian announced that Cambridge and Oxford continue to lead in the University league table of the Guardian’s University guide 2014. One week later, Manchester Metropolitan University caught the spotlight as the greenest university leading the People & Planet Green League 2013, according to a report published exclusively by the same paper, the Guardian, on 10 June. On 19 June, Times Higher Education announced that South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech) beats École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and retains its No. 1 position on the list of the world’s top 100 universities under 50 years old for the second consecutive year.
Before the birth of U-Multirank, which aims to serve as an all-embracing ranking for all, media-driven rankings have been quick in addressing their ‘shortcomings’ with the re(production) of more customised sub-rankings. By the time U-Multirank comes into existence, we will see that the world of rankings will be more diversified and not only driven by research-oriented assessments.
Besides, U-Multirank appears to have an offspring before it itself is born. Spain’s Fundación Conocimiento y Desarrollo (CyD) has kicked off a new regional ranking initiative to compare institutions in Castilla y León with institutions in the rest of Spain and the world. The ranking will use the criteria of U-Multirank but adapted to the “reality” of Spain. Results of this ranking will be available next spring, which is also the time when U-Multirank expects to have its first results. 
The Guardian - The Green League
The Guardian - University Guide 2014
Times Higher Education
Fundación Conocimiento y Desarrollo.

ACA’s 20th Anniversary Conference: Internationalisation and international mobility. Where do we stand, where are we heading?
The long-awaited ACA 20th Anniversary Conference was held in The Hague on 09-11 June. As usual one step ahead of current developments in international education, ACA invited the most outstanding pundits and practitioners of international mobility and internationalisation in Europe to deliberate on the future of student mobility, policies and higher education. The secret of ACA’s continuing success in shaping higher education policy debates in Europe lies in its ability to ask the right questions and in staying loyal to its constructive esprit critique. Will our graduates become the next intellectuals? Is there any internationalisation without values? What are the drivers of mobility? Who benefits from transnational education and how can we make intercultural education work? How stratified is the world of partnerships and networks?  How should academic cooperation be approached in times of crisis in Europe?
These questions and many more dominate the discussions not only in Europe, but around the world. Over 200 people of countries as diverse as Japan and South Africa, New Zealand and Russia, the USA and Kazakhstan, China and Saudi Arabia, attended ACA’s conference and seemed to be equally preoccupied with these issues. The 20th anniversary conference was certainly a joyful cause for celebration for ACA, its member organisations and friends. It was also a lot of hard work, especially with the new analytical frameworks being set for mobility windows and the new technology-driven educational trends being grasped.  Analyses of these topical issues will be continued in the coming months at ACA’s popular European Policy Seminars. Stay tuned.

ACA’s 20th Anniversary Conference: Internationalisation and international mobility. Where do we stand, where are we heading?
The long-awaited ACA 20th Anniversary Conference was held in The Hague on 09-11 June. As usual one step ahead of current developments in international education, ACA invited the most outstanding pundits and practitioners of international mobility and internationalisation in Europe to deliberate on the future of student mobility, policies and higher education. The secret of ACA’s continuing success in shaping higher education policy debates in Europe lies in its ability to ask the right questions and in staying loyal to its constructive esprit critique. Will our graduates become the next intellectuals? Is there any internationalisation without values? What are the drivers of mobility? Who benefits from transnational education and how can we make intercultural education work? How stratified is the world of partnerships and networks?  How should academic cooperation be approached in times of crisis in Europe?
These questions and many more dominate the discussions not only in Europe, but around the world. Over 200 people of countries as diverse as Japan and South Africa, New Zealand and Russia, the USA and Kazakhstan, China and Saudi Arabia, attended ACA’s conference and seemed to be equally preoccupied with these issues. The 20th anniversary conference was certainly a joyful cause for celebration for ACA, its member organisations and friends. It was also a lot of hard work, especially with the new analytical frameworks being set for mobility windows and the new technology-driven educational trends being grasped.  Analyses of these topical issues will be continued in the coming months at ACA’s popular European Policy Seminars. Stay tuned.

At the beginning of June, ACA’s Dutch member organisation – the Nuffic (the Netherlands organisation for international cooperation in higher education) – announced that it will be forced to close down part of its world-known Neso offices (Netherlands Education Support Offices) in the near future. The measure will become “inevitable”, as a result of a 30% government-imposed cut into the budget for Neso activities. ACA shares Nuffic’s disappointment with the Dutch government’s plans, which however still need parliamentary approval.
It remains to be announced which of the ten offices will be closed down, but it is nevertheless very clear that the Nuffic remains committed to its overseas activities. Along these lines, Nuffic’s Director-General, Freddy Weima, recently declared “We will do everything in our power to make sure our Neso activities remain as effective as possible despite the cutbacks. To this end, we will be entering into negotiations with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the research universities and universities of applied sciences”, showing that the organisation is by no means ready to give up.
Starting from 2001, the Nuffic Nesos have been established in close cooperation with the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and the Dutch higher education institutions, in locations of strategic importance for the Dutch higher education system. Since 2008, Nesos have been active in a total of ten countries, all of them emerging economies that were deemed to offer good opportunities for Dutch research universities and the universities of applied sciences. The Nuffic Nesos are currently located in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Taipei, Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea. These offices play a key role in promotion and information provision, but also fulfil other specific tasks (e.g. involvement in Brazil’s prestigious “Science without borders” initiative). In 2012, about 10 500 students from the various Neso countries were enrolled at Dutch higher education institutions, an increase of almost 24% compared to 2007.
NUFFIC.

The latest edition of the IAU Horizons (Vol. 19 No.2) is now available online.
The Market University? by Gilles Breton, Graduate School of International and Public Affairs, University of Ottawa, Canada
In what conditions were Market Universities created? (Elizabeth Poop Berman, Creating the Market University: How Academic Science Became an Economic Engine, Princeton University Press, 2012, Princeton, 265p – ISBN: 9780691147086).
How is it that, even in the academic world, market logic has managed to stand out despite the presence of a strong institutional logic, that of science? There are two main types of responses to these questions. The first one provides general answers, which still embrace either globalization or the rise of neo-liberalism. The other type of response, more empirical in nature, considers the search for additional revenue by higher education institutions and the demands of industry for university research that better meets its needs as the two major factors that have led universities to increasingly integrate the market logic.
The work of Elizabeth Poop Berman offers – from the American perspective – an original response, more political and institutional in nature, to the involvement of universities in economic activities through market logic. The thesis defended in this book is based on the following main arguments: it is the American Government which, in the middle of the 1970s, encourages universities to consider scientific research as a product that may prove to be economically viable while, at the same time, the idea of making scientific and technological innovation the vector of economic activity becomes the new project of political, economic and academic decision-makers, thus bringing the universities to redefine their mission and especially their involvement in the economy.
This translates, within academic institutions, by the passage of “science as a resource” to “science as a driver of economic activity”. That is to say that universities have abandoned the model which dominated until the 1970s, where their involvement in the economic activity was limited to providing basic research from which industries solved their problems and advanced technologically, to adopt a new model where science and research can now be used as an engine of the economy through a scientific production that pulls the innovation from which new areas of economic activities can be created or existing sectors may be transformed.
It is by relying on solid empirical research that the author brings to light the creation of the Market University. More specifically, three case studies are conducted that focus on the development of entrepreneurship by professors in the biosciences, the new development and management of patents by universities and finally, the study of the creation of industry-university research centres. These three case studies are conducted in light of the concept of institutional logic. The author shows how tensions evolved between market institutional logic (or capitalism), which evaluates the relevance of science by the value of its production on the market on the one hand, and scientific institutional logic, for which it is in the search for truth and the production of new knowledge that lies its intrinsic value on the other hand.
In her analysis, it appears that political decisions specific to each of the three cases studied were the main factors in the transition to the Market University; that these decisions were taken in a rather short period of time, from the end of the 1970s to the beginning of the 1980s; that it was mainly university teaching staff and middle managers, not senior management, who were initially the main agents of this transformation and finally, that the concept of the Market University, if it falls within the neo-liberal project in the sense that all human activity is reduced to creating economic value, also fits into an economic rationalization project (in the Weberian sense) that aims to place universities in the dominant economic rationality of the moment, that of growth through innovation, in which the universities become one of the main drivers.
Creating the Market University is an important book that enables us to understand how the conflict at the heart of academia came about, and which compares two opposing university projects: university and science for public good versus university and science for the market. In addition, if the proposed analysis of this migration to the Market University opens research perspectives and avenues of comparison which are extremely stimulating and challenging, it also confirms that it is not enough to turn the Market University into a neo-liberal politico-ideological project in order to understand how it is implemented and becomes established in our institutions. With drawing from the Market University, or simply going beyond the sciencemarket conflict, requires a thorough understanding of the current situation if we want to develop something new in the academic world, based on solid evidence. Elizabeth Popp Berman’s book can surely help. Download IAU Horizons (Vol. 19 No.2).

The latest edition of the IAU Horizons (Vol. 19 No.2) is now available online. The In Focus section of the magazine includes 14 papers focusing on Innovative Approaches to Doctoral Education in Africa.
Editorial, by Hilligje van’t Land, IAU Director Membership and Programme Development.
Universities around the world are the “thought leaders and knowledge providers in the required structural transformation process for the economy” (Aryeetey). To live up to this assumption and expectation, higher education institutions need to constantly enhance their teaching and research in order to generate the kind of research required to trigger innovation around the world. The same obviously applies to institutions in Africa. To contribute significantly to the global debates, to ensure that the African institutions generate the kind of “experts and leaders of solutions” the African continent needs (Lungren), Higher Education leaders in the continent are rethinking African doctoral programmes and their management. The rethinking and reform processes initiated over the last two decades are bearing fruits (Ambali, Malete, Lima Fortes), yet they need to be pursued and developed further.
In order to contribute and stimulate the process, the IAU initiated the www.ideaphd. net Portal on Innovative Approaches to Doctoral Education in Africa (IDEA). Developed in partnership with Association for Catalan Public Universities (ACUP), it provides examples on how to develop and manage a PhD; shares information on very diverse national and international Projects and Initiatives; presents HEI profiles and lists various Funding opportunities. It also lists events relating to the topic and will soon become an exchange platform for leaders, programme managers and researchers administrators. This In Focus section follows the same ‘logic’ in that it presents a series of papers contributed by experts from around Africa and beyond, in which they share their views on how to foster Capacity building, institutional reform and innovation, address the key challenges institutions face, in particular with regards to supervision, and discusses funding needs.
Capacity Building
African HEIs strive to ensure quality teaching and research in order to deliver the number of quality students wishing and capable of undertaking and successfully completing a doctoral programmes in a set time that the continent needs to address the challenges it faces. Some African HEIs need to develop into ‘world class’ universities (Aryettey) to attract the right professors, researchers and students from the continent and abroad who will jointly generate the kind of research needed locally, regionally and globally. Papers published here stress the importance to further reform and restructure doctoral programmes claiming that they should be able to perform better. Papers draw attention to the research is being carried out at IAU, EUA, ACU and ACUP projects, and by Cross and Backhouse, to enable institutions to compare, revisit, reform and enhance their doctoral programmes and their management practices strategically (Lundgren, Aryeetey, Lima Fortes, Sy). Supervision
For doctoral students to become true researchers, autonomous critical thinkers, decision makers and innovators, who are able to develop original research questions – and even good communicators and true research ambassadors - , they need to be accompanied, trained and supervised adequately throughout their doctoral studies (Boughey and McKenna, Wainaina Mwaura). This is a challenge in itself since, with the massification of higher education on the one hand and the limited capacity at many institutions and far as academic and administrative staff is concerned, there are not enough supervisors available (see: Wainaina Mwaura). In addition, in order for supervision to be of quality, the authors argue that much attention needs to be devoted to training the trainers and supervisors adequately (Boughey and McKenna, Wainaina Mwaura). E-supervision is one avenue being investigated (see: Gmelch and Vilalta). The further development of solid, open and ‘equitable’ institutional and inter-institutional partnerships locally, regionally and internationally is also being investigated (see: Lima Fortes, Malete, Jorgensen, Aryeetey).
The role of funding
Substantial financial support is obviously essential. But funding should not only be sourced from international donors, as was and is often the case. Aryeetey, Ambali and Malete make the case for national university systems and individual institutions to be strengthened by governments to ensure the relevance of teaching and research locally and to ensure financial sustainability and, as a consequence, sustainability of programmes and HE systems as a whole (see: Lima Fortes, Lundgren, Ajai Ajagbe, Matondi and Tibugari).
Studies
Examples of exchange platforms offered by international organisations, like the EUA, ACU, ACUP and IAU, to promote inter-institutional dialogue and understanding and help enhance the development the development of networks, innovative partnerships and new cooperation are being highlighted. The papers give examples of research carried out in close cooperation with local institutions and experts have triggered innovative reform process (Ambali, Wainaina Mwaura, ACUP, ACU for instance). A number of new projects are also also presented (ACU, IAU, ACUP, Cross and Backhouse). To contribute to the discussions and to enhance the portal, please go to the following website or contact the IAU. Download IAU Horizons (Vol. 19 No.2).

Propos recueillis par Yaël Selbonne. Stéphane Boiteux (IDRAC): "Le terme étudiant étranger est un mot risqué". Stéphane Boiteux, directeur général du groupe IDRAC, école de commerce installée dans sept villes (Paris, Lyon, Nice, Montpellier, Nantes, Toulouse, Grenoble), s’oppose à la mauvaise utilisation du terme "étudiant étranger". Selon lui, "étudiant" ne doit pas être associé à "étranger", au risque de diffuser une mauvaise image de la France à l’international! Il livre et explique son point de vue dans une interview exclusive à Orientations.
Quelle est la situation actuelle concernant les étudiants internationaux en France?
"Nous faisons partie des cinq premiers pays à accueillir des étudiants internationaux. Mais en 2009, nous étions le troisième pays d’accueil, nous sommes passés de 15% d’étudiants internationaux en 2000 à 13% en 2013… Il ne faudrait donc pas que la situation s’aggrave."
Dans une récente tribune, vous parlez d’une mauvaise perception des étudiants internationaux en France, affirmant que le terme "étranger" est véritablement lié à une façon négative d’appréhender les étudiants internationaux. N’est-ce pas simplement une erreur sémantique?
"Oui, tout à fait! Les étudiants du supérieur sont intégrés dans un dispositif de formation qui se mondialise. Ils doivent donc être considérés comme des étudiants internationaux. Nous pouvons parler de 'nationalité étrangère', mais pas 'd’étudiants étrangers'. C’est une erreur sémantique qui crée un frein à la mobilité, alors que nous devons créer des passerelles toujours plus nombreuses entre pays. Suite de l'article...

Les membres de la CPU ont adopté les grands principes suivants lors de leur réunion du 20 juin 2013. Ces éléments élaborés à partir des débats qui ont eu lieu à Rennes, et des propositions formulées auparavant par la CPU, en particulier dans le cadre des assises de l'enseignement supérieur et de la recherche, constituent une base de travail évolutive, qui a vocation à être discutée et enrichie, en lien avec les différents partenaires de la CPU, tout au long de l'année universitaire 2013-2014. Le bureau de la CPU a reçu mandat de ses membres pour commencer avec la DGRH des négociations sur la base de ces grands principes.
Proposition 21: Disciplines rares
La CPU propose dans un premier temps d’établir une cartographie des disciplines rares ou à faibles effectifs de manière à pouvoir avoir une vision globale de la situation des disciplines et de leur évolution en relation avec celle des effectifs étudiants et des chercheurs des organismes de recherche, et permettre ensuite d’élaborer un dispositif de soutien à ces disciplines au niveau national.
Les autres propositions
Les universités employeurs
Proposition 1 : Mettre en place dans les universités une politique de ressources humaines globale, cohérente et ambitieuse.
Proposition 2 : Placer la formation de tous les personnels au coeur de la stratégie RH.
Proposition 3 : Assurer un accompagnement et un suivi individuel et collectif de l’ensemble des personnels, tourné vers le développement des compétences, dans le cadre d’un dialogue social renforcé.
Proposition 4 : Encourager la mobilité de tous les personnels et corrélativement limiter l’endorecrutement.
Proposition 5 : Développer l’égalité femme‐homme et la parité dans les établissements.
Proposition 6 : Handicap : faire de l’université un modèle d’intégration citoyenne.
Proposition 7 : Elaborer une politique d’action sociale, élargie à la qualité de vie au travail, politiquement portée et soutenue par une structure identifiée.
Proposition 8 : Reconnaître l’ensemble des missions permettant aux personnels de bénéficier d’une progression de carrière.
Proposition 9 : Valoriser la formation doctorale.
Proposition 10 : Faire évoluer les statuts des PRAG‐PRCE (mobilité, activités, évaluation et carrière).
Proposition 11 : Intégrer systématiquement l’offre de formation numérique à la politique des établissements et définir des outils RH communs permettant à tous les établissements de mettre en place une offre de formation à distance de qualité.
Des modes d’organisation à repenser : vers une politique globale de ressources humaines par site
Proposition 12 : Concilier une vision stratégique centralisée avec un management professionnel de proximité.
Proposition 13 : Avoir une charte de bonne conduite RH pour les personnels contractuels harmonisée avec celle des organismes de recherche (transparence, entretiens, droit à formation, bilan social).
Proposition 14 : Concevoir la communication interne comme l’outil privilégié du développement du sentiment d’appartenance et de la culture commune.
L’articulation nécessaire entre le rôle de l’Etat et le rôle des établissements
Proposition 15 : Simplifier, harmoniser et rendre plus lisible la politique indemnitaire des établissements.
Proposition 16 : Aligner les règles de déroulement de carrière des PU‐PH et MCU‐PH sur les PR et MCF.
Proposition 17 : Mettre en place une voie spécifique de promotion des MCF en PR.
Proposition 18 : Modifier la procédure d’accès au corps des professeurs des universités pour les sections 1 à 6 du CNU.
Proposition 19 : Obtenir, pour les enseignants du second degré et les BIATSS, un contingent de promotions locales, qui, comme pour l'avancement des PR et des MCF, s'ajouterait au contingent de promotions nationales.
Proposition 20 : Simplifier corps et catégories des BIATSS. Télécharger les grands principes adoptés par la CPU.