International University Consortium: What Can Global South Universities Gain from It?
by: Qiang Zha
posted on: 4/9/2010
After WWII, international networks of nation-states, such as the United Nations, other Bretton Woods organizations, and later the OECD, the EC, the ASEAN and others exploded onto the world stage. Given these precedents, formal networks of universities should have followed. With a few exceptions, however, their rapid rise did not occur until the 1990’s, after the end of the Cold War. Indeed, “networking” has been one of the key words in higher education for the 1990s. The recently reported establishment of the International Forum of Public Universities (Forum international des universités publiques) which arose out of the 125th anniversary celebrations at the University of Montreal (Université de Montréal) in 2004, is a reminder of the growth of international university alliances/associations/consortia in recent years. Under globalization, as the world becomes increasingly interconnected, universities in different parts of the world need to be closely linked, as the rhetoric suggests, in order to benefit both education and research.
Therefore, the list of international university networking appears to be ever growing since the 1990s, though some appear to be successful and sustainable while some others failed and diminished. An list far from exhaustion would include Academic Consortium 21, ASEAN-European University Network, Association of African Universities, Association of Commonwealth Universities, Association of Pacific Rim Universities, Association of East Asian Research Universities, Circumpolar Universities Association, Coimbra Group, Committee on Institutional Cooperation, Compostela Group of Universities, Europaeum, European University Association, Institutional Network of the Universities from the Capitals of Europe, International Alliance of Research Universities, International Network of Universities, International Association of Universities, League of European Research Universities, Santander Group, Universitas 21, and Worldwide Universities Network. If such alliances of specialist institutions (e.g., business schools or institutions of science and technology) are also taken into account, this list should go longer to include Community of European Management Schools, Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, Consortium Linking Universities of Science and Technology for Education and Research, European Association of Distance Teaching Universities, European Consortium of Innovative Universities, IDEA League, and TIME Network.
If the North American and Western European universities used to dominate the membership of international university consortia, a notable phenomenon in recent years is the increasing participation by the Global South universities, in particular those in East Asian and South American. Why have they tried to join in, or even set up, international institutional network? What are their gains from this type of membership?
With few exceptions, these international networking alliances and consortia claim to give their member universities a powerful competitive advantage—not least in their core activities of teaching, research and service. For instance, the Universitas 21 aims to facilitate a global-focused research perspective among the member universities and “to create opportunities for them on a scale that none of them would be able to achieve operating independently or through traditional bilateral alliances.” With the same stance, the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) visions to work together “across disciplines tackling the world’s global problems.” Then, to what extent are these networks fulfilling their claims, and in particular for the Global South members? In almost every new alliance, establishing research partnerships and collaboration among member universities is said to be a priority. Are alliances really an effective way to develop research collaboration? Put explicitly, can universities in the South hope to become equal players with their North counterparts in terms of producing and disseminating new knowledge on this platform?
Among the more widely discussed frameworks for international academic/educational relations and worldwide educational inequalities have been theories such as world system theory, neo-colonialism, and dependency. If neo-colonialism is no longer relevant with the end of the Cold War, world system and dependency theories seem still to have explanatory power. The world systems approach sees the globe as integrated with two major zones. The centre zone is constituted by larger wealthier regions and countries, which dominate nations in the periphery zone. In the sphere of higher education, the powerful academic systems of the “centres” have always dominated the production and distribution of knowledge. Academic institutions in the periphery zone of developing and newly industrializing nations depend on the “centres” for research, the communication of knowledge, and advanced training.
Experience of the last three decades and more recent events have raised serious questions about the adequacy of some of the center-periphery paradigm. The impressive economic development in some Asian countries shows that socioeconomic development is not impossible in the periphery. These benefits have in turn led to increased levels of investment in schooling and training, e.g., the program of creating centers of excellence in higher education—world-class universities—in China, Japan and Korea. In contrast, there is now ample evidence of educational problems in core countries such as the US and the UK and efforts by the states to try to reform these systems.
At the extreme point, the centre-periphery approach is viewed problematic, or even exhausted as the analytical categories. At most other occasions, it is argued that, while the centre-periphery framework is still viable, fundamental changes, notably economic, that are already occurring in the context within which universities operate will pose challenges to this framework. These changes in the international environment render the centre-periphery framework less useful than in the past. The centre-periphery approach needs to be better able to account for the complex ways in which relationships are being altered under conditions of globalisation. These claims, however, all suffer a lack of empirical evidence.
Universities from the Global South are increasingly instrumental in the creation and function of international university consortia, both as a draw for western institutional interest in emerging economies as well as a way for these universities to meet the pressures of local and national actors to play a larger role in regional economic growth. However, there is very little research that attempt to prove, qualitatively or quantitatively, what Global South universities gain from membership in international consortia. Nor is there any critical analysis of global discourse that influences the decisions of these universities to join them in the first place. In this sense, the international university consortium seems to provide a research topic that could promise some evidence with respect to whether or not a global shift in the centre-periphery equation is on the way.