National Priorities and Global Stature: At Odds or in Sync? A View from the Global South

National Priorities and Global Stature: At Odds or in Sync? A View from the Global South U21 Symposium National Systems of Higher Education: Criteria for Evaluation Shanghai, China Ihron Rensburg, Vice-Chancellor, University of Johannesburg An international university of choice, anchored in Africa, dynamically shaping the future

PRESENTATION OVERVIEW 1. Contextual Observations 2. Why are Knowledge Institutions Important? 3. Why do Rankings Matter? 4. So What Matters in the U21 Rankings? 5. Do the Ranking Criteria Favour the Global North? 6. The South Africa Case Study 7. Five Essential Conditions for Better Global Collaboration

CONTEXTUAL OBSERVATIONS Nations now seek to make leaps in their development stage (R-E-I), and a globally competitive domestic system of KIs of universities, science and research councils/foundations and industry-based research entities is considered an essential ingredient for this purpose All nations aspire to improve their KIs, in particular their HE institutions, placing considerable strain on HE institutions to rise up to the challenge University rankings are increasingly seen as differentiating not only universities but nations and regions

CONTEXTUAL OBSERVATIONS Global Grand Challenges (Energy, Water, Environment, Urbanisation, Poverty, Global Governance/Ethics, etc.) cannot be solved by any single scholar, university, national/regional university clusters/networks, neither by national/regional research/science foundations/councils So why is this so? Our world is Global, Integrated, Inter-Connected, Mutually Dependent Requiring Global Innovation and Global Solutions Placing a high premium on Pooled and Networked Resources Requires especially Global South and East to take on substantially enhanced roles given sizes and age profiles of populations, and medium to long-term outlook

CONTEXTUAL OBSERVATIONS Cf. Largest university systems forecast by 2020, and the medium-term consequences thereof for global research collaboration as these systems enrol more PG students/pdfs: China (37M); India (28M); USA (20M); Brazil (9M) (Source: British Council, 2013) 50 countries will account for 90% of university enrolment, including Brazil, Indonesia, China, India, Turkey, South Africa, with significant new players including Nigeria, Bangladesh, the Philippines On the other hand, by 2020, China, USA, India and Indonesia will account for more than 50% of 18-22 year olds; by 2040, Africa will acccount for a quarter of 18-22 year olds

CONTEXTUAL OBSERVATIONS It is evident that global research collaboration is on the up, but requires step change Global research investment has doubled within the last 15 years to U$1.4 Trillion,but spending is fragmented nationally, regionally and globally (Suresh, S., Nature 490, 337-338 (18 Oct 2012) Examples of mutual dependencies and massive pooled resources/investments Cf. SKA Cf. CERN Wither the other Global Grand Challenges? Cf. Sustainability, Poverty, Urbanisation, Water, Energy, Global Governance/Ethics

SO WHY ARE KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTIONS SO IMPORTANT? Given their respective roles in knowledge production and innovation, the training of highly skilled citizens, and in social mobility, KIs are key to delivering the knowledge requirements for development Strong association between higher education participation rates and levels of development Higher levels of knowledge/innovation are essential inputs into the design and production of new technologies and for the development of society, cf. Number of PhDs/Million as closely correlated to FDI flows

SO WHY ARE KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTIONS SO IMPORTANT? The ability of developing countries to absorb, use and modify existing technology will drive more rapid transition to higher levels of development and standards of living Knowledge institutions can enable nations to jump stages of economic development As essential is their role in solving the Grand Challenges

SO WHY DO RANKINGS MATTER? Inform choices given quality and massification of HE, and diverse range and quality of providers Informs decision-making for university leaders, students, faculty, donors and private sector (Marketisation argument) Drives excellence of HE systems Inform areas for improvement (Quality argument)

SO WHY DO RANKINGS MATTER? Governments use these to assess their national systems and make policy and investment decisions Enhances accountability of universities and national systems (Accountability argument)

SO WHAT MATTERS IN THE U21 COUNTRY RANKINGS? Resources (25%) (Denmark, Canada, Sweden) Government expenditure Total expenditure R&D expenditure in HE institutions Environment (20%)(Netherlands, New Zealand, US) Quality of the policy and regulatory environment % Women: students and faculty Data quality

SO WHAT MATTERS IN THE U21 COUNTRY RANKINGS? Connectivity (15%) (Switzerland, Australia, Singapore) Web usage International students Research collaboration Output (40%) (US, UK, Canada) Research output and impact Number of world-class universities Participation rate Qualifications of faculty Relative unemployment rates

ARE RANKING CRITERIA FAVOURING THE GLOBAL NORTH? With notable exceptions, favours high income nations since investment decisions are not as diverse as middle and low income nations Ignores scale of, and competing national developmental priorities in the Global South and East Favours nations/universities with high investment in HE With notable exceptions favours established and older HE institutions and systems (200+ years)

ARE RANKING CRITERIA FAVOURING THE GLOBAL NORTH? Favours small systems with high HE investments Favours massified HE systems vs. elite HE systems Favours systems with significant numbers of top performing well endowed private universities over systems with public-only universities Favours systems where university autonomy and decision-making is well established, and stable

ARE RANKING CRITERIA FAVOURING THE GLOBAL NORTH? Favours systems that have established reputations Double counting: inputs begets outputs Unable to accommodate Herculean yet unheralded efforts made in developing nations A place for regional/continental rankings that can take account of context and recent progress (cf. Top 50 Under 50 and Top 20 Africa, Top 20 Asia, Top 20 Latin America, Top 20 Europe)

SO WHAT REMEDIES CAN BE CONSIDERED? But what do universities and university systems actually do? Undertake research, facilitate innovation and technology transfer Graduate student populations and advance social mobility Respond to national challenges (e.g. social equity) and Strive to be good corporate citizens (cf. community service, accountability)

SO WHAT REMEDIES CAN BE CONSIDERED? Yet, universities are also global institutions, requiring global reputation building, research collaboration, and exchange of scholars and students, especially if we are to solve the Grand Global Challenges Cf. 15,500 universities that are not ranked Some are excellent in their context Others are simply poor, adding little value to students, communities, business, industry and nations

SO WHAT REMEDIES CAN BE CONSIDERED? So, how can all of these different roles be accommodated if rankings were to offer meaning to those not ranked or not wishing to be ranked? Review ranking criteria Classify countries to allow for more valuable and more influential peer comparisons, e.g. by income level (Top 20: High Income, Middle Income and Low Income), by region (Top 10 Africa, Top 10 Americas, Top 10 Europe, Top 10 Asia and Oceania), and by system size and research output/ citations (e.g. Top 10: Very Large, Large and Small) Enable and facilitate significantly enhanced global collaboration and mutual learning

THE SOUTH AFRICA CASE STUDY Research output doubled, international research collaboration tripled in last decade Is among the world s top 5 in Plant and Animal Sciences, and prolific in Geo-Sc., Soc. Sc., and Chemistry; also exceeds world averages in Env/Ecology, Space Sc., Immunology and Clin. Med. Most prolific Africa nation across 21 of 25 main knowledge fields, and second in the rest, followed by Egypt (27%) and Nigeria (12%) (Source: Global Research Report Africa, Thomson Reuters, 2010) From 2001-12, SA authored papers published on Science Direct were downloaded more than 20M times: USA: 16.9%, China: 9.7%, UK: 8.6%, Australia: 3.9%, Japan: 3.1%, France: 3.1% (Source: Elsevier S/D Usage Team, 2013)

THE SOUTH AFRICA CASE STUDY Yet, research output at 40% of Africa s output is only the size of Harvard University, and Africa s output only equal to the size of the Netherlands And, despite being a Top 10 in-bound university destination, the vast majority of international students (46,191 or 70%) are from countries belonging to SADC, and most of the remainder (11,130, a further 17%) were from other Sub-Saharan African countries A mere 3,653 came from Europe, 1,813 from Asia and 1,737 from North America, totaling 13%

SO WHAT MUST BE DONE TO ENHANCE GLOBAL RESEARCH COLLABORATION? Improve global flow of PG students, PDFs, Illustrious Visiting Professors Establish 3 rd Generation Cross Global North-East- South Institutes of Advanced Studies Establish more large global research collaboration programmes focussed on the Grand Challenges: cf. Urbanisation, Poverty, Environment, Sustainability Establish global protocols for peer rating of scholars and establish panel reviews of research capacity Share resources to increase scope, global impact and results sharing of scientific experimentation

FINALLY, FIVE ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS FOR BETTER INTERNATIONALISATION First, aim to reduce the brain drain: enable scholars from the Global South/East to undertake collaborative research, share knowledge and resources, and build mutual capacities with counterparts in the West Second, ensure that our efforts aim to achieve genuine global dialogue and mutual learning Third, ensure that our global partnerships are mutually beneficial and supportive

FIVE ESSENTIAL CONDITIONS FOR BETTER INTERNATIONALISATION Fourth, acknowledge that sustainable solutions to the Global Grand Challenges will only be found through a fairer global distribution of resources for research, cf. SKA Fifth, define reciprocity in partnerships at the outset, characterised by honesty, openness, and responsiveness even when one partner brings significantly less resources to the partnership, marked by a common commitment to sound academic values, scientific integrity, ethics and social responsibility

Thank you