New paper: What does global higher education mean for university leaders?

The paper, which is part of the LFHE’s Leading in Uncertain Times series, identifies three significant and overlapping mega-trends that have been impacting on and transforming higher education, setting down challenges for policymakers and educational leaders. These are massification, globalisation, and internationalisation.

Professor Hazelkorn argues that at a time when we are more interconnected and interdependent than ever, a rift appears to be opening between higher education and society. Universities and colleges which have prided themselves on working across borders of country and culture now find themselves dealing with governments and publics who are questioning the values of multiculturalism, international collaboration, free flow of people and ideas, and broadly liberal social values.

The paper addresses a number of questions, rethinking the ways in which higher education engages with society:

• As universities and colleges collaborate with peers internationally and pursue international reputation and status, are they leaving their communities behind?
• To what extent is the academy itself complicit as it disengages locally to pursue global and reputational advantage?
• Are recent developments challenging us to rethink the public good role of universities, and the role of internationalisation?
• What are the implications for universities, and university leadership?

Leading in Uncertain Times is a special series of short papers commissioned in response to political change and disruption that is having a profound effect on higher education. Written by well-known figures and published as ‘Leadership Insights’, they offer a new narrative for leadership. See the LFHE website for further information about the series