What does it take to get there? Three specialists give their take

:: português ::

 

Ben Wildavsky is a researcher at the KauffmanFoundation, in the United States, and author of the book TheGreatBrainRace: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World. He is also a contributor to the WorldWise blog for The Chronicle of Higher Education, an American publication.

 

Francisco Marmolejo is the CEO of the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (Conahec), Assistant Vice President for Western Hemisphere Programs for the University of Arizon, in the United States, and a contributor to the WorldWise blog, published by TheChronicleofHigherEducation, in the US.

 

John Douglass is a researcher at the CenterforStudiesinHigherEducation(CSHE)at the University of California(Berkeley, USA). He is the founder and coordinator of the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU), an assessment system used by the 17 top public universities in the US. Douglass was a visiting researcher at Campinas in the Higher Education Studies Group (GEES) at the Center for Advanced Studies (CEAv) at Unicamp.

 

Opening the university to the world means bringing people closer to science. But what is the best way to get there? And how can the obstacles inherent to this process be overcome?

 

In the following interview, Ben Wildavsky, a researcher at the Kauffman Foundation (USA); Mexico’s Francisco Marmolejo, CEO of the Consortium for Collaboration in Higher Learning of North America (Conahec); and John Douglass, of the University of California (Berkeley, USA), talk about the internationalization of universities around the world. They also look at what Brazil needs to become a regional leader in higher education and show how Latin American universities can gain a higher profile on the international scene.

 

Jornal da Unicamp – Why are Latin American universities barely among the 200 best in the world? Is this because of the methodology used to create international rankings or are they really far behind universities in developed countries?

 

Ben Wildavsky – That is a good question. I haven’t studied the exact position of Brazil’s universities and those in other Latin American countries in the rankings, which is why it is hard to answer very specifically. Obviously, the each ranking is different from the other. The Shanghai ranking was created as part of an effort by China to have universities of excellence. The Chinese thought: If we want to have good universities, we need to know where we are and where we should go. It is a ranking that is highly focused on research and on areas like science and engineering.

 

Generally, a university will classify well on it if its critical mass of researchers is very productive, publishes papers in peer reviewed journals, and has their work referenced by other researchers. Some universities do much better in the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking than in the Shanghai survey. The methodology for the THE ranking changed significantly when the magazine switched partners [up to 2009, THE’s partner was the QS company; in 2010, it became Thomson Reuters]. They survey the reputation of universities as well as considering elements such as publications and expenditures on research. The focus is a little broader.

 

Perhaps Brazilian universities would be more competitive if the rankings assessed departments individually and not just the institutions as a whole. It is also clear that it would be good if they placed more emphasis on teaching. Yet if an institution wants to be a large research university, it has to do quality research in all of its areas. It isn’t enough to have one or two very good people. There needs to be a critical mass of very talented professors and researchers. I think that this is a struggle for many developing countries.

 

Francisco Marmolejo – The rankings are, in a certain sense, an arbitrary aggregate of variables elaborated by someone to compare one institution with another. That is how the Times Higher Education, the Shanghai, and other rankings are done. The fact that there is an arbitratry grouping of variables obviously places certain institutions at an advantage and others at a disadvantage, and this is one of the reasons why Latin America’s universities do not classify as well.

 

The other reason has to do with the prevalent model of development at Latin American universities over practically one hundred years since the contemporary system has formally existed. Of course generalizations can not be made, but in many countries priority is placed on a relatively limited access to higher learning, as is the case in Brazil. The Latin American system also usually has lower levels of financing than systems in developed countries, and the models of governance are very meeting-oriented, which makes decision making difficult at institutions. Furthermore, demographic pressures are so strong in Latin America that the challenge of building more universities ends up being greater than the challenge of improving the quality of those that already exist.

 

There are two other elements that I think are complicated. One is the fact that the curriculum at Latin American universities is highly career-oriented, very rigid, and inefficient. In other words, we probably teach things that are not perhaps as relevant and we don’t allow students to build their own portfolio of competencies. Finally, the processes for internationalizing Latin American universities are very limited and are also at the margin of the educational process of institutions.

 

John Douglass – Global rankings have a great tendency to analyze references, which lean towards the sciences and engineering, as well as looking at reputation. The way I see it, surveys say something about the quality of many universities, but they are much more of an incomplete and biased image. For example, they don’t measure the importance of the institutions to national economies and cultures, or their quality of teaching, or the morals of their professors or students, or the ability to effectively manage the university, the level of academic freedom and their openness to discussing societal problems. 

 

Administrators shouldn’t concentrate on the growing variety of rankings and on wanting univesities to be emblematic institutions. The Brazilian university is quickly gaining quality and efficacy, in every area. This is in part due to continual support from the federal and state governments, but it is also due to the growing realization that Brazil needs a quality network at research universities for economic development. There are already signs that productivity in research is on the rise and of a growing culture that is focused on self-improvement and corrections to improve, including experimentations with general education.

 

JU – Would more significant processes of internationalization help Latin American universities gain more recogniztion and respect internationally?

 

Ben Wildavsky – For sure. Many countries and policy makers understand that the competition for universities isn’t just local, national, or regional – it’s global. In a certain way, the same kind of globalization that reached the worlds of business and culture has also come to the world of higher education. There has been a gigantic leap in international scientific cooperation. The number of papers co-written by professors from different countries has more than doubled in the last 20 years.

 

In the Middle Ages, when the first western universities were created in cities such as Paris, Bologna, and Oxford, there were already students travelling from one place to another. But now, globalization is taking place on a scale that has never been seen. There are 3 million students studying outside of their home countries, which is a 57% increase in just one decade. In 2025, there will be around 8 million. The best universities in the world are looking for the best talent wherever they can find it. Countries on every continent have already realized that human capital is essential to economic growth.

 

Many of them are trying to increase access to higher education – which, from what I know, is a concern in Brazil. Others, such as China, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia, are investing in creating universities of excellence – perhaps because they don’t want to send their students abroad to study. In Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah invested US$ 10 million to create the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust), which is the sixth largest donation made in the world.

 

Francisco Marmolejo – Without a doubt. What internationalization does is open the university to the world and brings the world closer to the university – two huge needs in the case of Latin America. Internationalize the university means revising the curriculum to see what content is relevant, which is no longer done in a local context, but in an international context. This means bringing in outside teachers, sending faculty abroad, and providing students with greater mobility to be able to better understand the complicated world in which they will work. It moreover means that the university starts to compare itself more with its international peers. After all, it is about a process of aligning the university with the new needs that the globalized world is presenting us.

 

John Douglass – What’s important is a culture of self-improvement and capable management, along with ample financial resources. Yet there are many other factors to creating better quality institutions, including academic freedom and, I would say, societies that are democratic and open in nature. I’m optimistic regarding Brazil’s universities, and the growing strength of institutions such as Unicamp and USP.

 

Academic freedom and a sense of needing quality in covering most of the fields of knowledge are strong here. Political stability and the investment of resources, as is the case in the state of São Paulo with its universities, are fundamental. I think that these are the right conditions for Brazilian universities to gain international recognition and, most importantly, for economic development and the respective promotion of socio-economic mobility.

 

JU – According to the Global Survey Report on Internationalization of Higher Education, which was recently released by the International Association of Universities (IAU), Latin America and the Caribbean are not considered to be top destinations for institions from any part of the world to send students and professors – not even by Latin American and Caribbean institutions. How do you see this fact?

 

Francisco Marmolejo – It is a wake up call for both Latin American universities as well as education authorities. The study was conducted among universities. In other words: it was the universities in Latin America that said that their first priority for internationalization from a geographical point of view was Europe, then North America, and only then Latin America itself.

 

On the one hand, we seen to not care very much about internationalization within the region; on the other, it is also worrisome that Latin America is not a priority for the other regions in the world. As a region, we should make a more serious effort to promote Latin American universities and align them with the rest of the world.

 

John Douglass – Brazil is close to being in a better position globally, and the international character of its universities will be an important component for this to happen. Yet it is necessary for lawmakers to change countless legal and cultural hurdles that make internationalization extremely difficult.

 

This means having greater freedom to give classes in English, less restrictive visa policies, and more evident efforts at attracting talent from around the world – with options for them to stay and help build up these institutions and contribute to Brazilian society.

 

A range of services is also needed, including student and visitor housing and centers to help attract and support international students. This is just beginning to happen at Brazilian universities and I hope that it becomes something really important.

 

JU – What should Brazil do to become a regional leader, like China in the Asia-Pacific region, regarding attracting professors and students?

 

Ben Wildavsky – I don’t want to seem presumptious because I don’t know a lot about Brazil. But, generally speaking, a country can’t just say that from now on it is a regional leader. It needs to know what its strengths are and offer something that people want to reach this position.

 

If there are a lot of people interested in studying biomedical engineering, a country that has a certain ability in this area could improve its graduate level programs, modernize its labs, hire more teachers and researchers, and then begin to recruit foreign students. That is one example. In other cases, it could be that there is just a lack of visibility of the country abroad.

 

Francisco Marmolejo – My intention is not to say what Brazil should do, since my knowledge regarding the country is relatively limited, but I think that you have both a huge opportunity and a huge responsibility. The fact that Brazil has become a power house in Latin Amercia and one of the most important economies internationally is cause for the country to reflect seriously on how to increase equal access to higher education. There are many interesting things being done in Brazil, such as meeting needs to internationalize the curriculum, increasing teacher and student interchanges, and guaranteeing that students and teachers have mastered a second language at the end of their university studies.

 

Brazil has what it takes to become a regional leader. Some of your universities, such as the one in Campinas, are high-quality and put out remarkable scientific work. What is missing is the desire, the intention to do it.

 

John Douglass – This is in my previous answer, but I would like to add that pan-regional approaches, like in Europe and in emerging patterns in Asia, give Brazil and all of South America models on which to base themselves. This includes looking to align requirements, student and teacher exchange agreements, and perhaps even some development of a pan-Latin American research zone.

 

JU – Brazilian and foreign specialists usually point to the issue of language as one of the main obstacles for teachers and students coming to Brazil from abroad. Do you agree?

 

Ben Wildavsky – English has really become the language of the academic world. There is no question about it. The head of the Sciences Po University, in France, once told me that an institution has to operate in English if it wants to be global. I don’t intend to tell you how to act, but the fact is that it is hard to get a large number of people to learn Portuguese to teach or study in Brazil.

 

Although this doesn’t mean that you should abandon your native language; it is important to encourage your professors to publish in English and ensure that your students have a good knowledge of English so that they can be part of the international research community. Outside of national borders, the language used is English. Perhaps it will be Chinese 50 years from now, but I have my doubts.

 

Francisco Marmolejo – The countries that most attract students are those that offer classes in English. We might not like it, but it’s a reality. English has become the lingua franca of the contemporary world in academic terms. I think that Brazil should offer more university classes in English. I’m not saying courses on English, but courses in English.

 

At the same time, it should connect the work done by universities like Unicamp with partner institutions aborad so that international teaching programs in Portuguese become stronger. This would cause foreign students to have an increased interest in learning Portuguese and, as a result, in coming to Brazil.

 

John Douglass – Unfortunately, yes, I agreee. Government leaders and the university community need to work together and look at reforms and at the effort being made by global competitors to create a different regime of diplomacy. I know that this can be hard, since Brazil continues to have a significantly and conservative regional culture. Yet I believe that this should change. The question is how fast.

 

JU – Among the over 200 foreign researchers who sent resumes to Unicamp beteween October 2009 and October 2010, only two or three were Portuguese and none were interested in topics that are very particular to Brazil, such as Brazilian music or culture. Most of them were from the areas of biomedicine, technology, and the exact sciences and many were connected with prestigious institutions in the United States and Europe. How do you see these results?

 

Ben Wildavsky – These results show that you are capable of attracting people from other parts of the world. You received over 200 resumes. If English were the main language in which classes were taught, you might receive over 2 thousand. Attracting professors from abraod is an excellent idea.

 

Yet it is also necessary to look for good students abroad, especially graduate students. The universities in the United States have become magnets for students from around the world. In many departments, 60% to 65% of the doctoral candidates are foreigners. This is very important because it helps to spread knowledge. When they return to their home countries, these students will continue to work with the institution where they studied.

 

Actually, to be competitive in the globalized world, a research university needs to recruit students and teachers internationally, but it also needs to send students to other countries, foster participation of its own professors in foreign confrences, and encourage formation of partnerships with foreign institutions. None of these actions alone is a silver bullet.

 

Francisco Marmolejo – Brazil is the country of fashion globally and the country of hope in Latin America. My country, Mexico, used to be regarded in this way, but this is no longer true. The lack of security, the connection of the drug traffick with the economy, and an extremely high dependence regarding the US economy - which was good during economic boom times but is prejudicial in moments of crisis, among other elements, have led Mexico to face complicated challenge in today’s world that also affect institutions of higher learning.

 

Fortunately, Brazil does not have this kind of problem. The country is growing and its economy is diversifying. That is, there are a series of aspects that caused the stars to line up for Brazil. The country needs to take advantage of this historic moment before it changes. I hope that the current situation lasts, but it is impossible to foresee what will happen.

 

John Douglass – This is, in part, the result of the huge growth in science and engineering which was felt among faculty members in these areas of greater mobility and financial support. Maybe it is also a demonstration of the fact that the world is just beginning to understand the increased importance and cultural vitality of Brazil and South America in general.

 

Yet there are paths to improving attractiveness for teachers and students to come to Brazil in the social sciences and humanities field as well. This requires greater determination on the part of Brazil’s universities to create a more suitable environment and invest resources.