By Sean Coughlan. By the end of this decade, four out of every 10 of the world's young graduates are going to come from just two countries - China and India.
The projection from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows a far-reaching shift in the balance of graduate numbers, with the rising Asian economies accelerating ahead of the United States and western Europe. The forecasts for the shape of the "global talent pool" in 2020 show China as rapidly expanding its graduate numbers - set to account for 29% of the world's graduates aged between 25 and 34. The biggest faller is going to be the United States - down to 11% - and for the first time pushed into third place, behind India. The US and the countries of the European Union combined are expected to account for little more than a quarter of young graduates. Russia is also set to decline - its share of the world's graduates almost falling by half since the beginning of the century. Indonesia, according to the OECD's projections, will rise into fifth place.
Degrees of change
Is this an end-of-empire moment? Higher education has become the mirror and magnifier of economic performance - and in the post-World-War-II era, universities in the US, western Europe, Japan and Russia have dominated. The US in particular has been the university superpower - in wealth, influence and until recently in raw numbers. Up until 2000, the US still had a share of young graduates similar to China. And Japan had as big a proportion of young graduates as India. Now China and India are the biggest players. Their rise in graduate numbers reflects their changing ambitions - wanting to compete against advanced economies for high-skill, high-income employment. Instead of offering low-cost manufacture, they are targeting the hi-tech professional jobs that have become the preserve of the Westernised middle classes.
Fivefold growth
As the OECD figures show, this is not simply a case of countries such as China expanding while others stand still. Across the industrialised world, graduate numbers are increasing - just not as quickly as China, where they have risen fivefold in a decade. The OECD notes that by 2020, China's young graduate population will be about the same as the total US population between the ages of 25 and 64. This changing world map will see Brazil having a bigger share of graduates than Germany, Turkey more than Spain, Indonesia three times more than France.  The UK is bucking the trend, projected to increase its share from 3% in 2010 to 4% in 2020. This push for more graduates has a clear economic purpose, says the OECD's analysis.
Enough jobs?
Shifting from "mass production to knowledge economy occupations" means improved employment rates and earnings - so there are "strong incentives" for countries to expand higher education. But will there be enough graduate jobs to go round? The OECD has tried to analyse this by looking at one aspect of the jobs market - science and technology-related occupations. These jobs have grown rapidly - and the report suggests it is an example of how expanding higher education can generate new types of employment. These science and technology jobs - for professionals and technicians - account for about four in every 10 jobs in some Scandinavian and northern European countries, the OECD suggests. In contrast - and showing more of the old order - these technology jobs are only a small fraction of the workforce in China and India. The OECD concludes that there are substantial economic benefits from investing in higher education - creating new jobs for the better-educated as unskilled manufacturing jobs disappear.
Quantity or quality?
The OECD forecast reveals the pace of growth in graduate numbers. But it does not show the quality or how this expansion will translate into economic impact. There are other ways of mapping the changing distribution of knowledge. A team at the University of Oxford's Internet Institute has produced a set of maps showing the "geography of the world's knowledge". This measures how populations are consuming and producing information in the online world - mapping the level of internet use, the amount of user-generated material in Google, concentrations of academic activity and the geographical focus of Wikipedia articles. And in contrast to the rise of the Asian economies, this tells a story of continuing Western cultural dominance.
"In raw numbers of undergraduates and PhDs, the Asian economies are racing ahead," says Prof Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, from the Oxford Internet Institute.
"But what's interesting is how the West persists in its positions of strength - because the West controls the institutions.
Mapping a new world
"There are more students in China than ever before - but they still use Western mechanisms to publish results, they accept the filters," says Prof Mayer-Schonberger.
"The big question will be whether the Chinese researchers can be as insightful as their Western counterparts - we don't know yet."
The maps also reveal how much Africa and South America are losing out in this new scramble for digital power. Prof Mayer-Schonberger said he was "completely shocked" at the extent of the imbalance. Another feature of the Oxford study is to show how research bases and their spin-out economic activity are clustered into relatively small areas. In the US, says Prof Mayer-Schonberger, there is hugely disproportionate investment around Silicon Valley and the Boston area, with large tracts of "wasteland" between.
"Each era has its own distinct geography. In the information age, it's not dependent on roads or waterways, but on bases of knowledge.
"This is a new kind of industrial map. Instead of coal and steel it will be about universities and innovation."

Following last week’s agreement between EU ministers for research on an overall framework for the proposed Horizon 2020 research and innovation funding programme (2014-2020), EUA participated on behalf of its members on Wednesday in an important Horizon 2020 hearing organised by the European People's Party (EPP Group) in the European Parliament.
The EPP hearing included key figures from the European Parliament, including MEPs Christian Ehler, Rapporteur for the Rules for the Participation in 'Horizon 2020', and Maria da Graça Carvalho, Rapporteur on the Specific Programme of Horizon 2020. EUA Deputy Secretary General, Dr John Smith, was invited to present on EUA’s viewpoint on the Horizon 2020 proposals in relation to simplification. In particular, it was an opportunity to underline the importance of preserving the universities’ financial sustainability over the long term, one of the key elements of EUA’s recent input on the Horizon 2020 Rules for Participation.
Dr Smith welcomed the fact that the proposed rules foresee 100% reimbursement of direct costs. However, he highlighted that the European Commission’s proposal for a single reimbursement rate (100% of direct costs and a flat rate of 20%), does not achieve the necessary balance between reducing complexity and responding to the real needs of different actors. He told the audience that the 20% flat rate was too low, as it does not sufficiently cover actual indirect project costs. This would lead to two undesirable effects: it would discourage universities that have already implemented full costing from participating in the programme, and would hinder the further development of full costing methodologies in the sector.
Dr Smith also highlighted that the declaration of the full costs incurred should be the general rule for those universities who are able to identify their costs through an appropriate costing methodology, as this would foster transparency and accountability of public spending. For those universities that are not able to identify their indirect costs, the rules should retain the possibility to apply for a flat rate high enough to cover their indirect costs. A 100% / 40% model would provide an acceptable level of reimbursement while also giving an incentive for the further development of full costing methodologies, he added. He also stressed that it was crucial to have a clear definition of ineligible costs, improved clarity in terminology, as well as an improvement in management and control processes.
The hearing took place at an important time in the Horizon 2020 negotiation process. Ministers attending the Council of EU (Competiveness Council) meeting last week reached an agreement on an overall framework for the Horizon 2020 programme but did not broach the issue of the budget for the programme, which will be debated in the framework of the ongoing negotiations on the EU multiannual financial framework. The European Parliament, meanwhile, is expected to reach a position on the Horizon 2020 legislative package in October.

By Karen MacGregor. More and more countries are striving to secure a bigger share of the international student market. But while the market is attractive and growing, it is also “very competitive, highly risk-prone and not only the only growth area in higher education – far from it”, said Richard Yelland, head of the policy advice and administrative division of the OECD.
Speaking on Thursday at the second QS-MAPLE conference, held in Durban, South Africa, Yelland warned that while an international student presence “enriches the domestic offering and leads to a better experience for all students”, countries should exercise caution in growing their global share. Higher education is a growth industry in many ways, he said in a presentation titled “Higher Education: Some thoughts on its past, present and future”, and in the immediate future issues around affordability, productivity and relevance would be at the forefront as the sector swung from the supply to the demand side.
General trends
Yelland painted a picture of a rapidly transforming world, and the implications of changes for higher education. While there is population stability in OECD countries, he said, the United Nations predicts that by 2050 the global population will have trebled from three billion in 1950 to nine billion, with the growth concentrated in developing and emerging countries. The world is also moving from a bottom-heavy to a top-heavy age structure, especially developed countries.
“The stability of the population in the developed regions masks other factors. Birth rate is often below replacement rate and the reasons populations have not declined are increased immigration and longer life expectancy,” said Yelland.
“Both these developments have implications for education policy and the latter [longer life expectancy] has a strong impact on higher education, leading on the one hand to a greater emphasis on adult and continuing education, and on the other to a growing willingness – or necessity – to look elsewhere for students.”
Economic shift is another key trend, said Yelland. Goldman Sachs has predicted that China’s gross domestic product will overtake America’s in 2027. Others think this might happen by 2020 and by 2050 it could be double the size and India might have caught up. The proportion of populations that have attained a post-school qualification has been rising, though not evenly. Qualification growth started in OECD countries, which now have an average of around 35% of 25- to 34-year-olds with a tertiary qualification.
“But there has also been spectacular growth in some emerging countries, with South Korea the most outstanding example,” said Yelland. Some 68% of 25- to 34-year-old Koreans have a tertiary qualification.
“Most of the graduates in OECD countries are women,” he added. “What we are now wondering – and this is a big policy concern in many countries – is: Where are the boys?"
In the past three decades, the global talent pool had doubled and there are now some 81 million 25- to 34-year-olds with a tertiary level education. Globally, there are major differences in how higher education is provided and varying levels of investment. In some nations, higher education is paid from the public purse “and is described as free, though of course it is not”. In others, it is largely paid for by students.
“The question of who should invest in higher education and what they should expect for their money, lies at the heart of policy and of ranking and evaluation.”
Of around 32 countries surveyed by the OECD, America has the biggest share of GDP spent on higher education – more than 3% – and the biggest proportion is private spending. It is followed by Canada with more than 2.5% of GDP committed to higher education, most of it public spending, and South Korea with around 2.4%, mostly privately-funded.
“We can look at this information in a different way – the variations in the ways countries assist students to finance their studies.” Countries can be grouped into four categories.
One group is OECD countries, where higher education is almost entirely publicly financed and at quite a high level – mostly in Scandinavia. In a second group there are high student fees but also well developed grant and scholarship systems – the US, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. A third group (eg Japan) has extensive cost sharing, with student support somewhat less developed. The fourth group is the most worrying, with relatively low financial barriers to entry but also relatively low state subsidies – for instance, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Switzerland.

“Some of them in the global higher education competition are having to think about their higher education investment,” said Yelland.

“There is no obvious correlation between who pays and the quality or fairness of provision. But what is clear is that where there is insufficient investment in higher education, then neither effectiveness nor equity are well-served.”

Yelland said there had been long-term growth in the number of international students, from around 800,000 in 1975 to 3.3 million globally in 2008. “That number will double.”

“With China’s population and economic performance, in five years many more of those students will be Chinese. There are already 200,000 international students in China, and the National Plan wants 500,000 by 2020.” Singapore, Japan and others also have high ambitions for international students.

In terms of proportions of international students in tertiary enrolment, Australia is top of the OECD, with more than 20% of all students being foreign, followed by Austria, the UK, Switzerland and New Zealand.

Technology is another global trend impacting on higher education.

“The potential of technology and the way it is changing the way we think, is something we’re only just beginning to grasp,” said Yellend. “And we’re only starting to get to grips with its potential to change the way higher education is delivered.”
The world for which students are being prepared is also transforming, along with demands for skills. “Research shows that the balance of skills required for the world of work is changing dramatically. It is the non-routine interactive and the non-routine analytic jobs that are growing, particularly in countries like the US, and this trend is accelerating.”
Where are we going?
Yelland said one area in higher education that would change in the coming decades was the evaluation of institutions and programmes “and the worth that is attached to things they do”. One of the effects of massification was a much more heterogeneous experience and more diverse expectations.
“There has been huge progress in quality assurance, but institutional quality remains largely unknown. Proxies for quality exist but none are perfect.”
There would also be demands in future for greater transparency in higher education. Yelland said university rankings met a strong demand for information on what students could expect to get for their investment in higher education.
“We can argue about methodology and complain about the effects of rankings. But the reason why we have to deal with incomplete rankings is because we have failed collectively as a sector to be transparent about what we do and what it is worth.
Clearly, there was bias in rankings towards research excellence and impact. For many universities this was a valid measure of their value to the world. “But for many others, if they are setting out to be in the world’s top 100 they are doomed to failure – there can only be 100 – and this can have a distorting effect on policy.”
Yelland spoke about the OECD’s work in assessing learning outcomes. “There has been a move towards defining the qualities that students can be expected to know and do as a result of higher education. But there is no international assessment of higher education outcomes – what students can actually do.”
The Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) will test what students know and can do on graduation.
“There have been decades of quantitative growth and there is consensus on the need to improve quality,” said Yelland. But there is an information gap and AHELO is intended to provide a a balanced view of quality in terms of learning outcomes.
“We are looking for a genuine test of diversity.” AHELO is in its testing implementation phase, seeing if students in various countries are prepared to answer questions and if this produces meaningful information.
Keywords for the future
A first set of keywords for the future, Yelland said, was accountability and autonomy, with the need to strike a balance in higher education between institutions and society. The tension between accountability and autonomy was nothing new. “But this needs to be a source of creative tension, not a battleground. The key is to have effective and strategic management.”
From the perspective of society, usually represented by government, a second set of keywords was quality, equity and efficiency. “The art of system steering is to achieve all three of them simultaneously. Some systems are good at this, some not.”
Keywords for the immediate future were affordability, productivity and relevance. “This is about higher education swinging from the supply to the demand side. Interest in university rankings is a sign of that.
“Higher education matters. It has become too important to be left to the providers, if you like,” Yelland argued.
Affordability was clearly an issue for governments and students, who pay for higher education. Productivity was important, though “not a word uttered at higher education conferences”. Relevance was important at a time when too many people were unable to obtain or retain work, and when economic growth needed to be relaunched.
“Higher education is a growth industry. There will be more, exciting transformations. The global dimension is important and we are going to see more and more sophisticated use of technology, more private sector, new clients and new products.
“This is a wonderful sector to be in and one on which the future of economies and societies will to a great extent depend.”

The 18th Annual Conference of the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators will take place from the 8th -11th July 2012 in Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland during the celebration of ‘Dublin, City of Science 2012′ and just prior to the 2012 European Science Open Forum. The EARMA conference will focus on the upcoming HORIZON 2020 programme, ongoing research management and professional development. We would be delighted to welcome you to one of Europe’s friendliest cities and, while we cannot guarantee the weather, we can guarantee a great conference, a great venue and plenty to see and do in the City.
EARMA 2012 is being hosted by Trinity College Dublin (TCD) on their campus in the heart of the city. Close to transport, TCD provides an oasis of calm in the middle of a bustling city, just the place to let you concentrate on the conference but from where it is easy to explore the city.
The EARMA Tracks are:
These tracks have been identified by the Conference Committee and the Board and they represent the breadth of the RM&A profession. Tracks have a track‐leader who acts as coordinator of the different sessions, workshops etc., in their track. Furthermore, they will collect all presentations, etc. and make a track report.
T1. Grants management of collaborative research (including FP7).
Track leaders Katrin Reschwamm ( EUrelations AG- CH) and Laia Lagunas (Institut de investigacio Biomedica de Bellvitge, ES)
This track is for grant management professionals ‐ from very junior to the senior‐ dealing mostly with the practical pre‐ and post‐award management of EU or international (collaborative) research projects.
T2. Legal aspects and governance, ethics and compliance issues.
Track leader Siegfried Huemer, Technical University Wien, AT
Legal professionals are becoming more and more involved in research contracts collaborations and consortia. In this track legal professionals and non‐legally qualified administrators and managers can meet and have the chance to exchange views and innovative ideas. In many research contracts references are made to ethical issues and other compliances issues. It is increasingly necessary to understand the implication of these.
T3. Recognition of the profession: Research Office Services and professional development.
Track leader Shabtay Dover (Hebrew University, IL) who will liaise with the chair of the Professional Development Working Group
More and more European universities develop organisational support‐structures to strengthen and professionalize the internal processes and to meet all kind of external requirements. In this track, professionals managing this type of university offices meet and exchange views and ideas on models, responsibilities, competencies and future developments.
T4. Research strategies and policies:
Track leader David Lauder (York University, UK) and John Donovan (Dublin Institute of Technology, IE)
Developing international and European research agendas is a political process with many actors and different time frames. European Universities and their researchers have a vested interest to anticipate future developments and create a dialogue with policy makers. In this track attention is given to Research Policy in Europe and elsewhere.

By Jan Petter Myklebust. The European Alliance for the Social Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA) has rejected the European Commission’s view that social sciences and humanities are adequately covered in the European Union’s proposed Horizon 2020 research programme. It calls for an added dimension to be established on "understanding Europe in a global context – transitions towards innovative and inclusive societies".
Europe’s research ministers have already argued that social sciences and humanities should be given a more prominent role in Horizon 2020, the next European Union framework programme for 2014-20. Commission plans would make Horizon 2020 the world’s largest publicly financed research programme with a proposed budget of €80 billion (US$105 billion).
ALLEA, which comprises 53 national academies of sciences, social sciences and humanities in 40 European countries and aims to represent the voice of social sciences and humanities in Europe, met in Amsterdam on 27-28 March to discuss the EU Commission’s proposal to include social science and humanities in Horizon 2020 as 'horizontal' or 'transversal' elements in separate programmes. ALLEA said that this is not enough to meet the demands of the 25,000 scientists who have signed a petition for giving these disciplines a separate programme in Horizon 2020.
Rüdiger Klein, executive director of ALLEA, told University World News that Horizon 2020 had to include a clear budget commitment for the social sciences and humanities components in an extra ‘societal challenge’ – addressing specific research needs in social, economic and cultural domains – and a transparent mechanism for including social sciences and humanities expertise into the other scientific ‘challenges’.
Christina Bitterberg of the German Aerospace Centre, spokesperson for the Net4Society project team that produced the open letter and collected the signatures, said:
“The open letter, signed by the 25,000 supporters, calls for an independent social sciences and humanities-centred programme (‘Challenge’) within Horizon 2020, that focuses on important societal and economic transformations, in areas as diverse as education, gender, identity, intercultural dialogue, media, security, social innovation, to name but a few.
“In addition, the letter promotes the implementation of social sciences and humanities research in all other challenges of Horizon 2020. It is certainly not sufficient to treat social sciences and humanities research only as a horizontal or transversal element.”
Pekka Sulkunen, president of the European Sociological Association (ESA)and a professor at Helsinki University, told University World News: “The exclusion of social sciences and humanities from Horizon 2020 is not only bad for the scientists in this area. Most significantly, it indicates a basic mistake in the EU understanding of science in society in general.
“The ESA has stressed in its several communications on Horizon 2020 and the European Research Area that seeing science only as an instrument of innovation is fatal both to science and innovation policy.
“Knowledge society requires above all a sound and strong educational and research basis – innovations are only a part of this wider whole.”
In February EU research commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn responded to ministers' concerns by pledging that the social sciences and humanities would have a “vitally important role in all challenges in Horizon 2020”.
She said. “They will be embedded as an integral part of all activities, working beyond ‘the silos of distinct discipline.”
However, Sulkunen warned that the narrow idea of a linear continuum from basic to applied research to innovation to development to market results from competition between national governments for research resources, where EU funding is seen as a cost, not as an instrument in itself, created excessive expectations of the "usefulness" and added value of EU research input.
He said it was wrong to believe that the social sciences and humanities operated on a small scale that did not require EU-level funding. Key issues in European societies require efficient and sufficient resources for comparative studies that can only be met by common funding sources. The reassurance that the disciplines will be included transversally means in practice that there will be no social sciences and humanities expertise to set priorities and design research programmes in the commission. This results in an immense need for lobbying on a daily basis, which would sap the resources of scientists, especially of scientific associations such as the ESA and similar learned societies, Sulkunen added.
“Europe is passing right now one of the most historic windows of what many believe to be its last opportunity to become a truly transnational society,” Sulkunen said. “Innovation policy based on a false idea of knowledge in society is not adequate to respond to this challenge.”
At a meeting at the British Academy in London on 10 November 2011, Geoghegan-Quinn confirmed that “future funding at the European level will provide significant space for social sciences and humanities research”.
She said Horizon 2020 would be structured around three pillars: "excellence in the science base", "creating industrial leadership and competitive frameworks" and "tackling societal challenges".
Klein said the Brussels meeting of the alliance agreed it was important to overcome the fragmentation of the social sciences and humanities communities and provide a collective voice.

Par Marion Senant. Plus ludique, plus interactive, plus personnalisée… la formation continue suit l'évolution de la société. La "génération Y" bouscule le rapport au travail et exige qu'il ait du sens, la formation s'adapte.
Les formations en présentiel en force!
L’apparition en force du e.learning il y a quelques années laissait penser que la formation allait devenir entièrement numérique. Que nenni! « On ne sait pas faire de formation sans présentiel. On ne sait pas créer de lien au sein d’un groupe en numérique » affirme Stéphane Diebold, vice-président du Garf (Groupement des responsables de formation).
On revient donc au présentiel. Les organismes de formation adaptent leur catalogue avec des des formats séquencés sur plusieurs semaines, qui allient présentiel (physique ou online) et permettent une interaction avec les autres participants. Suite de l'article...

By Geoff Maslen. University affordability for students in 40 countries around the world may have reached its peak, according to a report released this week. Across countries in the OECD, government support for higher education only barely kept up with inflation last year while the outlook for 2012 looks bleak “given the debt crisis in the Eurozone”, the report states.
It says that while tuition fees in Australia fell by nearly 1% in real terms between 2010 and 2011, this compares with a 5% fee rise in America and a 6% jump in South Africa. ‘Affordability’ in the report relates to changes in tuition fees adjusted for changes in student aid. In this way, America was the only one of the nearly 40 countries surveyed where financial assistance available to students was cut and fees were increased. The year-round Pell Grant system was eliminated and several other grant programmes were cut or dropped for the 2011-12 academic year.
“Students in the United States appeared to experience the greatest decrease in affordability in
2011, as they faced increases in tuition fees that exceeded inflation coupled with decreases in available financial assistance. Neither trend is expected to reverse course in the next two years,” the report says.
The 72-page report, Global Changes in Tuition Fee Policies and Student Assistance, was prepared by Alex Usher and Pam Marcucci of the Canadian consulting group Higher Education Strategy Associates. They have devised a new “global tuition fee index” that compares the costs of going to university in the 40 countries with more than 90% of the world’s post-secondary enrolments.
As well as describing tuition fees in the various countries, the authors also outline student loan and financial assistance arrangements. Drawing on data from the 40 nations, the report says cuts in higher education spending occurred across the globe in 2011 but were especially heavy in Brazil, Italy, Pakistan and the Ukraine. Universities in America, Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, South Korea, Spain, and Thailand also saw public funding fall. It says students in Britain, Italy, Israel, the Philippines, South Korea, Spain and Switzerland, also faced tuition fee rises with no increases in financial assistance.
In the Philippines, 80% of public deregulated universities and colleges raised their fees by 5% to 10% last year “and it looks likely that the government will allow tuition fee increases in 2012 in state universities as well”.
The report says students in France, Germany, Sweden and Saudi Arabia appear to be facing decreasing barriers to higher education given that there were increases in financial assistance without any changes in tuition fees. Similarly, in Colombia, small tuition fee increases were more than matched with significant boosts to financial aid.
“Even in those countries where governments have maintained or increased higher education funding levels, however, the trend towards more private investment continues unabated,” it says.
“This means that higher education systems will come under greater pressure to extract revenue from students.”
The report says that in virtually every region of the world, increasing enrolments, rising costs and the “ongoing competition for public resources from other critical public sector services”, have forced universities to generate additional income from higher tuition fees, donations, faculty consulting and hiring out their facilities. Concerns about access and equity, however, have also led to changes in financial assistance policies aimed at mitigating the negative effects of decreased government investment in higher education.
“Demographic changes and massification trends also continued to impact higher education systems around the world in 2011. Governments and institutions in countries where the cohorts are declining in size (such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) are looking to stave off contraction in the higher education sector by appealing to non-traditional local students and attracting international students.
“This means that higher education systems will come under greater pressure to extract revenue from students.” the report states.
“While public sector higher education expenditure is growing, in many cases demand is growing even faster, which means that even in countries where funding is going up, one finds upward pressure on tuition and student aid through greater payment of fees to both public and private higher education institutions.
“Countries in the developing world experiencing both significant population growth, such as Brazil, India, much of Africa, and rising participation rates are struggling to accommodate ever-increasing numbers of qualified students into higher education with limited government resources. Moreover, many of these countries are intensifying their efforts to expand participation among previously marginalised groups of students.”

The Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge has produced a series of lectures under the title "The Future University". The series includes various lectures in audio and video format, in addition to panel discusssions and so forth. The topics are focused on some of the key questions around the future of higher  education.
One of the topics highlighted is the nature and role of humanities in the future of university. This was for example the focus of a panel debate with a number of high profiled academics from UK (amongst others Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge; Mary Margaret McCabe, Philosophy, King's College London; Sir Adam Roberts President, British Academy). In addition, there are also a number of more subject-specific topics that nevertheless have a role to play in understanding the future university, such as reflections on the scope of world literature as a academic field by Debjani Ganguly from Australian National University, and understanding the practice of music by Eric Clarke from University of Oxford, and further reflections on music as a creative practice by Nicholas Cook from University of Cambridge.
Other topics include issues related to staff and students, such as graduate innovation, and research groups for graduates and staff. An interesting presentation is by Simon Schaffer (HPS, Cambridge) who discusses the role of disciplines. In addition, the topics also cover topics that focus on the policy perspective, including a presentation from Michael Kenny (Politics, University of Sheffield)  who gives a presentation on "Higher Education Policy in the UK: What can we Learn from the Longer View?".

Leading figures join us to explore the future of higher education. Welcome to our live blog coverage from The Future of Higher Education, the Guardian's 2012 higher education summit. Throughout the day, we'll update this page with highlights, choice quotes, key advice and big themes from the event, as well as some interviews, tweets and views from attendees.
We're expecting there will be rather a lot to talk about. We'll be kicking off with the importance of maintaining competitive advantage internationally. Here our panel - including the International Association of Universities' Eva Egron-Polak and Professor Michael Farthing, chairman and vice-chancellor, 1994 Group and University of Sussex - will consider the changes to immigration policy and its impact on the flow of staff and students, partnerships and the image of UK HE abroad.
In other sessions we'll explore research, and its relationship with industry - fresh from his report into university-industry collaboration, we'll be joined by Sir Tim Wilson for this one. Also on the agenda is graduate employability and skills, and of course widening participation with a panel that includes Sir Martin Harris, director of fair access, Office of Fair Access. Set to be one of the hottest debates of the day, and a discussion we've visited many times here on the network, is the closing session: In this new landscape of higher education providers what does it mean to be a university? Brace yourselves for the tweets during that.
For the break-out sessions topics include efficiencies (in already stretched financial times) and ways universities can diversify their revenue streams, plus attracting students and student experience. We're especially intrigued to hear what Jenni Allen, head of public services delivery at consumer-champions Which?, has to say about the students as consumers debate.
Unfortunately, a cabinet meeting calls, meaning universities minister, David Willetts, can no longer join us in person. But we will have his keynote address via video. To follow the event on Twitter, the hashtag is #HE2012. We'll be sharing some choice tweets here, and you can also email comments and contributions to kerry.eustice@guardian.co.uk.
If you can't follow on the day, we'll be curating best bits from this blog, tweets and coverage from our Education Guardian colleagues in our newsletter later this week. Register for that here. This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To get more articles like this direct to your inbox, sign up for free to become a member of the Higher Education Network.