tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/european-higher-education-14638/articlesEuropean higher education – The Conversation2018-02-22T08:12:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/922062018-02-22T08:12:32Z2018-02-22T08:12:32ZBrexit: German universities among those poised to benefit if researchers and funding shift<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207309/original/file-20180221-132680-1dx523a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C39%2C1968%2C1244&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Humboldt University in Berlin. German universities may emerge as 'winners' from Brexit. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/telemax/7190236226/sizes/l">Tilemahos Efthimiadis</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK is currently <a href="https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/uk-research-and-european-union/role-of-EU-in-funding-UK-research/how-much-funding-does-uk-get-in-comparison-with-other-countries/">the second-largest recipient</a> of competitive research funding from the EU: <a href="https://institutions.ukcisa.org.uk/info-for-universities-colleges--schools/policy-research--statistics/research--statistics/international-students-in-uk-he/#International-students-in-UK-HE-by-domicile,-level-and-mode,%3Cbr%3E-European-Union-(EU)-(excluding-UK)-and-non-EU,-2015-16">6% of students</a> and <a href="http://www.hefce.ac.uk/analysis/staff/national/">17% of staff</a> in UK universities are from other EU countries. Nearly half of academic papers produced by the UK are written in collaboration with at least one international partner – and among the top 20 countries UK academics cooperate the most with, <a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2017/international-collaboration-uk-post-exit.pdf">13 are in the EU</a>. </p>
<p>While collaboration is important, countries also compete with each other for funding and students. Our <a href="http://www.researchcghe.org/publications/higher-education-and-brexit-current-european-perspectives/">new research</a> has found that academics and institutions across Europe, and particularly in Germany, could make significant gains as Brexit shakes up the European higher education landscape. </p>
<p>In a pilot project involving ten research teams across Europe, my colleagues and I interviewed academic staff, university leaders and officials in Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK. We wanted to find out what they thought the impact of Brexit would be on their own higher education systems – and what strategies were emerging to respond to various Brexit scenarios.</p>
<p>For those countries where higher education institutions offered tuition in English, such as Ireland, Denmark or the Netherlands, the departure of the UK from the EU may provide an opportunity to increase student numbers from both within and outside the EU.</p>
<p>In most countries, interviewees hoped that the share of EU funding going to the UK would be redistributed after Brexit in a way that advantages them. Some said Brexit provided an opportunity to recruit high-profile academics currently based in the UK and were relatively candid about their hopes to “poach” UK-based academics. </p>
<p>In particular, Germany – already the main recipient of EU research funding, and the most frequently chosen partner in large research bids – emerges as a significant potential “winner” from Brexit. Academics at universities in both northern and eastern Europe were planning to reinforce their existing partnerships with German institutions ahead of Brexit. Plans were also made to reinforce non-EU collaborations.</p>
<p>Despite their smaller populations, Scandinavian countries are also well placed in the competition for funding, students and influence at EU level. However, countries in central, eastern and southern Europe such as Poland, Portugal and Hungary did not see themselves as strong players or influencers. The people our colleagues interviewed in these countries felt that their countries were unlikely to benefit from Brexit as much as the bigger players such as Germany, France, Italy and Spain.</p>
<p>In spite of these hopes and emerging strategies, the potential departure of the UK was largely perceived as a net loss for research and education across Europe, and the people we interviewed were keen to express their solidarity to their UK colleagues.</p>
<h2>Impact on British universities</h2>
<p>The research we did in the UK revealed very varied perspectives on the future. Some interviewees were optimistic that the UK would have no difficulty in maintaining existing partnerships or attracting new collaborations due to its status after Brexit. But others were extremely anxious that jobs, departments and institutions would disappear. Anxiety was particularly noticeable in the humanities. </p>
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<p>Early career researchers felt particularly vulnerable as their employment largely depends on the availability of research grants. The prospect of a hard Brexit complicated their perceptions of their future in the UK and in the higher education sector in particular. But this climate of fear did not only affect researchers based in the UK – the fear of a net loss of early career positions across the EU as a result of Brexit was also echoed by early career researchers interviewed elsewhere.</p>
<p>Interviewees across the countries we studied expressed a willingness to
continue collaborating with UK partners but were also concerned about the excessive administrative burdens that such cooperation would entail. Due to the continued uncertainty about the future position of the UK, participants were reluctant to involve British partners in future bids for EU research funding.</p>
<h2>European research under threat</h2>
<p>Concerns for the quality and reputation of European research were also widespread. The UK has played a significant role in enhancing European research – whcih has brought benefits to all members. The UK is an important partner for research teams across Europe – several key <a href="https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/uk-research-and-european-union/role-of-EU-in-funding-UK-research/how-does-eu-fund-research-facilities-major-equipment/">pan-European research facilities </a> such as the <a href="http://www.hiper-laser.org/">High Power Laser Energy Research Facility</a> or the <a href="http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/">European Social Survey</a> are based in the UK, and it is a popular destination for students and staff from many EU countries. The UK is also perceived as a “portal” to the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/index_en.htm">European Research Area</a> for non-EU students and researchers. </p>
<p>There was a fear that Brexit, together with other euroscepticism across the EU, gave a negative image of Europe and posed a threat to the European project at large. In particular in countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands where anti-EU movements had gained some ground, interviewees wondered whether a “good deal” for the UK would be beneficial. Or whether it would actually encourage other countries to leave, with the risk of dismantling the EU. </p>
<p>Brexit is likely to affect all universities across the EU in some way. In some countries, it’s felt that smaller institutions and specific disciplines such as modern languages are likely to suffer more than others. </p>
<p>A number of participants across the countries we studied were eager to continue collaborating with their UK-based colleagues, no matter the outcome of the Brexit negotiations. As one German interviewee said: “If politicians decide to limit internationalisation in academia, academics resist and do the opposite”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92206/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aline Courtois is a research associate at the ESRC-HEFCE Centre for Global Higher Education at UCL Institute of Education. The UK research was funded by the Institute of Education. The European partners conducted their case studies on a self-funded basis. </span></em></p>New cross-European study shows how Brexit will affect higher education beyond the UK.Aline Courtois, Research Associate, UCL Institute of Education, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/616922016-07-15T11:28:29Z2016-07-15T11:28:29ZBritain after Brexit: steadily becoming more Swiss<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129869/original/image-20160708-24060-c3fm8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">esfera/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/can-uk-have-deal-eu-switzerland-or-norway">comparisons</a> were made between the UK and Switzerland in the lead up to Britain’s EU referendum. Switzerland has long been employed as an example of a supposedly self-assured, stable democracy that stands on its own within Europe – a position many Vote Leave campaigners admired. </p>
<p>In her poem “Our lives are Swiss”, written in the 1800s, <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/113/1123.html">Emily Dickinson</a> spoke to an insulated status quo, and an exceptional moment in which “the Alps neglect their curtains, And we look farther on” out towards Italy. I am not suggesting that Switzerland is actually insular, or that the Brexit referendum result necessarily means that Europe will recede from regular view – I sincerely hope not. </p>
<p>But now that the UK has voted for Brexit, the similarities between the UK and Switzerland have become all the more striking. </p>
<p>In the 21st century, the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) has mobilised voters and turned national referendums into a vehicle for anti-EU, anti-immigration politics, much like the UK Independence Party has done in Britain. </p>
<p>When I took up my post at the University of Bern in 2014, a Swiss referendum on immigration <a href="https://theconversation.com/swiss-vote-for-cap-on-migrants-has-government-tied-in-knots-23164">had resulted in 50.3% voting</a> in favour of quotas for all immigrants, setting Switzerland on a collision course with the EU over its treaty on freedom of movement. This percentage was the same as the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/12/07/world/swiss-reject-tie-to-wider-europe.html">Swiss 50.3% vote against the country</a> joining the European Economic Area in 1992. Both times there were splits between the city and the countryside, and between linguistic areas. These were not dissimilar to what happened in the voting lines in the UK’s referendum: the French-speaking cantons were like Switzerland’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/scottish-independence-back-in-play-after-brexit-shock-with-a-note-of-caution-61457">Scotland</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/northern-ireland-prepares-to-enter-a-post-brexit-quagmire-61590">Northern Ireland</a>, so to speak, and Zurich the UK’s London. </p>
<h2>Universities on edge</h2>
<p>Following Switzerland’s 2014 referendum, the EU swiftly put a stop to Erasmus+ student and academic exchange agreements, and university colleagues feared for the future of research funding and pan-European collaboration. Less than a year after starting work in Sheffield, my UK university colleagues are currently voicing <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-uk-leaves-the-eu-36719923">similar concerns</a> about the future of EU research. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of the 2014 referendum, Switzerland is <a href="http://www.sbfi.admin.ch/aktuell/medien/00483/00586/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=60389">only partially associated</a> with the EU’s Horizon 2020 initiative of the European Research Area. The Swiss government stumped up the cash to replace Erasmus+ with the <a href="https://www.ethz.ch/en/studies/non-degree-courses/exchange-and-visiting-studies/programmes/exchange-programmes/swiss-european-mobility-programme.html">Swiss-European Mobility Programme</a> for university students. It is more or less the same scheme as before, under a new name: except that Switzerland funds the students visiting from abroad as well as those leaving Switzerland for an international partner university.</p>
<p>As post-Brexit negotiations begin, universities will strongly be making the case to maintain the status quo.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129865/original/image-20160708-24084-1uorowk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129865/original/image-20160708-24084-1uorowk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129865/original/image-20160708-24084-1uorowk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129865/original/image-20160708-24084-1uorowk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129865/original/image-20160708-24084-1uorowk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129865/original/image-20160708-24084-1uorowk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/129865/original/image-20160708-24084-1uorowk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Our lives are Swiss.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pranavian/5024333080/sizes/l">Pranavian/flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Negotiated position</h2>
<p>After the vote for Brexit, the UK’s negotiations with Europe will take a while. Switzerland is still struggling to reconcile the 2014 referendum outcome with the EU’s stance. The deadline for the Swiss referendum’s implementation is February 2017, but the Swiss government sees Brexit as a hindrance to those efforts, worrying that its own negotiations will become a <a href="http://www.swissinfo.ch/directdemocracy/swiss-weigh-up-consequences-of-brexit-vote/42248946">lower priority</a> for Brussels. </p>
<p>If the Brexit referendum stokes <a href="https://theconversation.com/britain-is-leaving-the-eu-will-other-countries-follow-61460">calls for referendums</a> throughout Europe, Britain’s dealings could also drag on further. The UK and Switzerland could enter into negotiations with the EU <a href="https://next.ft.com/content/b2d07188-441f-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d">together</a> – though this might be perceived as going against the spirit of the rhetoric of the winning referendum camps in both countries, which argued for each nation to take charge of its own negotiation.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, some in the Remain camp are <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36777494">shouting in Britain for a re-run</a> of the vote, taking their cue from Ireland’s “Lisbon II” referendum on a new EU treaty in 2009 after it was rejected at the ballot box on a previous attempt the year before. As the complexities and consequences of Brexit become clearer, more referendums may be no bad thing, in the style of Switzerland’s direct democracy. Turnout on June 23 was 72.2%, higher than in any general election over the past 20 years. Issues fire up the British electorate, while enthusiasm for party politics is fading.</p>
<h2>Identity crises</h2>
<p>Switzerland has a long tradition of debating “Swissness”, of which Britain should take note. Admittedly, the Austrian writer Robert Musil complained in 1941 that the Swiss liked to talk about nothing else. Swissness today can still seem obsessive, to be sure: the national library not only collects material published in Switzerland (as the British library <a href="http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/quickinfo/facts/">collects</a> material published in Britian), but also all works by Swiss authors, from all over the world and across all media. And there is the danger that Swissness can mean nationalistic kitsch. </p>
<p>Yet discussions about Swissness have also supported a broad range of perspectives – to the extent that much of contemporary Swiss literature, in the German language anyway, engages with questions of Swiss identity, Europe and wider immigration issues. Authors such as Martin Dean, Dorothee Elmiger, Micieli Francesco, Ilma Rakusa and others contribute to a multifaceted debate.</p>
<p>The Brexit referendum has given a voice to divergent views about what it means to be British in the context of Europe. It is imperative that whatever happens in the near future, in negotiations or in the financial markets, the many voices of Britain continue to be heard, and are engaged with critically. That entails engagement through politics, and of course education. Cultural engagement, through literature and the arts, can be productive too. </p>
<p>The British people may have decided on June 23, but they must keep on deciding on what the future holds for the UK-EU relationship.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Seán Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Euroscepticism, referenda and debates about national identity: the similarities betwen Switzerland and the UK are striking.Seán Williams, Vice-Chancellor's Fellow, School of Languages and Cultures, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/616982016-06-28T10:48:17Z2016-06-28T10:48:17ZBrexit: the aftermath for universities and students<p>The UK’s vote to leave the European Union has been met with shock and apprehension by universities, academics and students across the country. University leaders became increasingly worried about the possibility of a Brexit as the poll neared, with three vice-chancellors giving their reasons to remain <a href="http://theconversation.com/insularity-is-not-the-way-forward-three-university-vice-chancellors-on-brexit-60660">here on The Conversation</a>. But now, with the result in and Britain destined to leave, what kind of future beckons for Britain’s universities?</p>
<h2>Research funding</h2>
<p>As a full member of the union, for the moment Britain still enjoys membership of the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/era/index_en.htm">European Research Area</a>, the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/">Horizon 2020</a> research funding programme and a range of other research partnerships and initiatives. With the vote for Brexit, these relationships will – at some point in the future – cease. Some may be reconstituted, but it is hard to believe this will happen on the same preferential terms <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/25/europe-prepares-fast-and-painful-deal-for-britain/">given widespread reluctance</a> among EU leaders (fearful of further secessions) to be seen to be giving Britain a good deal.</p>
<p>It is true that Horizon 2020 is open to non-EU members – for example it <a href="http://www.iserd.org.il/?CategoryID=179">includes Israel</a>, which has a <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/research/iscp/index.cfm?lg=en&pg=israel">long history</a> of collaboration with EU research. But access to these programmes is often highly political and in my opinion, it is difficult to envisage the UK – a much bigger higher education system than Israel’s, for example – being able to access the programme on the same terms currently offered to non-EU members. This is particularly the case, given the Leave lobby’s opposition to free movement to the UK, an issue which has restricted Switzerland’s associate membership of Horizon but which is not relevant to other members such as Israel or Armenia.</p>
<p>Current associate members of Horizon such as Serbia, Montenegro and Albania are working towards EU membership, while Norway is a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), which allows free movement of people. While some Vote Leave leaders <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/tory-brexiter-daniel-hannan-leave-campaign-never-promised-radical-decline">have been quick to say that free movement wouldn’t be restricted post-Brexit</a>, it is highly questionable whether Britain will be allowed access to the EEA, or whether the British public could be convinced of this option – given that this would be unlikely to reduce immigration.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128311/original/image-20160627-28388-1hd3fvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128311/original/image-20160627-28388-1hd3fvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128311/original/image-20160627-28388-1hd3fvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128311/original/image-20160627-28388-1hd3fvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128311/original/image-20160627-28388-1hd3fvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128311/original/image-20160627-28388-1hd3fvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128311/original/image-20160627-28388-1hd3fvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Testing times for research.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Suwit Ngaokaew/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>None of the Horizon associate members remotely compare in scale to the UK’s research power. The former EU Commission president Juan Manuel Barroso <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/brexit-the-perks-and-pitfalls-for-higher-education">remarked in 2015</a> that the UK is receiving more than what its economic or demographic dimension would entitle it to receive in terms of EU research funding. In 2014-15, <a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/policy-and-analysis/reports/Documents/2016/economic-impact-of-eu-research-funding-in-uk-universities.pdf">according to Universities UK</a>, universities attracted more than £836m in research grants and contracts from the EU. It would appear unlikely that the UK could continue to punch above its weight in these terms once it is outside the union.</p>
<p>There is no guarantee, as <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/eu-referendum-result-uk-universities-brexit-remain-leave-student-higher-education-sector-a7101846.html">some have argued</a>, that the government will make up any future shortfall in research funding. Higher education does not exist in a vacuum and the long-term economic prospects of the UK are now in serious question. </p>
<h2>Student experience and teaching</h2>
<p>The future of the ERASMUS student exchange scheme, <a href="http://theconversation.com/insularity-is-not-the-way-forward-three-university-vice-chancellors-on-brexit-60660">from which 200,000 UK students have benefited</a>, is uncertain as far as British students are concerned. It is also perhaps inevitable that the UK – having rejected the European Union in a bitter campaign marked by significant anti-immigrant rhetoric – should become a less appealing destination for EU students, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/22/whats-stake-higher-ed-brexit-vote">who currently make up 5% of students at UK universities</a>. </p>
<p>More than this, the funding settlement whereby EU undergraduates pay fees at the home rate of £9,000 a year (and are able to access the same preferential loans as UK students, albeit with a new residency requirement for maintenance loans from this August) will end at some point. This may possibly be as early as 2017-2018, although the <a href="http://www.slc.co.uk/media/latest-news/eu-nationals-and-student-finance-in-england.aspx">Student Loans Company moved</a> quickly to note that the financial settlement will remain unchanged for existing students and current applicants. </p>
<p>This follows moves by individual institutions, such as UCL, to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/eu-referendum-result-brexit-leave-remain-higher-education-sector-students-a7100106.html">guarantee</a> current EU students’ fee rates. There is no certainty that a parallel settlement comparable to the original one will be put in place.</p>
<p>Taken together, this will pose challenges to universities with high EU student intakes, as well as <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/unlimited-student-recruitment-transforms-english-universities">those that had been hoping to</a> increase EU student intake now that controls on student numbers have been lifted. </p>
<p>Students’ teaching may also be affected. It is highly likely that a proportion of EU academics <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brain-drain-brexit-universities-science-academics-referendum-eu-a7100266.html">will choose to leave</a> UK higher education and return to their countries of origin, or move to other EU states. Of academics working in British universities, <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/06/22/whats-stake-higher-ed-brexit-vote">15% originate</a> from other EU member states. </p>
<p>A number have issued <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/series/academics-anonymous">prominent statements</a> that they are now considering leaving the UK given pervasive anti-immigrant rhetoric. European universities will also make job offers <a href="https://twitter.com/MikeSav47032563/status/746263548775534592">to “star”</a> British names potentially uncomfortable with the outcome of the referendum. </p>
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<h2>Higher education reform</h2>
<p>There may be some cause for optimism, however, for those opposed to the government’s ongoing <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-competitive-landscape-for-higher-education-confirmed-in-white-paper-59494">higher education reforms</a>. It is likely that they will, at least temporarily, be derailed. Though the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/higher-education-and-research-bill">Higher Education Bill</a> is already before the House of Commons, the executive was woefully unprepared for a leave vote in the referendum. </p>
<p>Civil servants in the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills and beyond will have bigger fish to fry over the next two years than developing the new <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/teaching-excellence-framework">Teaching Excellence Framework</a> (TEF), implementing the new governance arrangements or completing the transition to a marketised system. The University of Warwick’s vice-chancellor Stuart Croft has <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/vco/blog/">called for the higher education reforms to be postponed</a>. Governmental overload, or its very collapse, may ensure that’s exactly what happens. </p>
<p>Britain is in the middle of an unprecedented constitutional crisis. Universities matter to government and are a real factor, in government-speak, of achieving “success in a knowledge economy”. But they are not more important than trade or inward investment, securing export markets, or preventing the collapse of the territorial integrity of the union. In short, higher education will have to wait in (a very long) line.</p>
<p>The task before Britain’s university system is to secure its position in the global higher education sector even as the status and economic firepower of the host nation state diminishes, or – in the event of an <a href="https://theconversation.com/scottish-independence-back-in-play-after-brexit-shock-with-a-note-of-caution-61457">independent Scotland </a>– simply falls apart.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Finn is a member of the Labour Party, the Co-Operative Party and Universities and Colleges Union.</span></em></p>What leaving the EU means for research, student experience and higher education reforms.Mike Finn, Principal Teaching Fellow, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/477972015-09-21T09:54:01Z2015-09-21T09:54:01ZWe should be grateful that Universities UK has taken a stand against Brexit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95366/original/image-20150918-17671-c8v5so.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Britain and EU via strelov/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Universities UK has <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/comment/the-poppletonian/vice-chancellors-speak-out/2014031.article">long been accused</a> of not fighting strongly enough for the interests of universities. Beset by internal differences and having to please all factions, it has rather let the so-called university mission groups – not least the Russell Group – lobby loudly instead. Yet when it does put its head above the parapet, as it has with <a href="http://www.universitiesforeurope.com/Pages/Home.aspx#.VcSh4hNVhBe">a forceful campaign</a> for Britain to remain in the European Union ahead of an upcoming referendum on membership, it gets its head shot off. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://theconversation.com/universities-uk-is-wrong-to-take-sides-on-question-of-eu-membership-47385">article for The Conversation</a>, Anand Menon from King’s College London has written that the EU referendum is too politically contentious and finely balanced to warrant such a bold and assertive campaign by UUK on the benefits to universities of staying in. He argues that such a stance by the universities’ lead membership body is likely to stifle genuine debate in the institutions by those who are not vice-chancellors. He even hints that academic freedom is being compromised.</p>
<p>Menon makes a strong case where he indicates that the arguments for and against Brexit are finely balanced – more so than the UUK position implies. There is every chance that funding for research can be negotiated back in by post-Brexit negotiations. </p>
<p>If eurozone countries become more fiscally and politically integrated as a means of overcoming their recent travails, effective power, including over EU budgets, may shift to this core group of countries. Britain could stay in the EU but find its interests compromised, including over research funding decisions, because political power has moved firmly to the eurozone countries – and the UK will never join this currency union.</p>
<h2>Entitled to make its voice heard</h2>
<p>But UUK is entitled to stand up for what it perceives as the interests of universities, if that is what its member institutions feel. If this means backing a Yes vote to stay in, then that is what it should argue for. Its primary purpose is as a lobby group – its stances are particular and maybe even partisan – and it has no real remit to argue for a national interest. </p>
<p>The national interest presumably arises from the interplay of many competing groups of advocates. If UUK elides the sector’s interests with the national interest, as Menon argues, it is no different from virtually every other such group with a stake in the referendum’s outcome.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"643492052349620225"}"></div></p>
<p>Yet there are questions to be raised by both the UUK stance and Menon’s critique. </p>
<p>Who does the UUK feel it is responsible to? When I was a vice-chancellor, the representative body was called the <a href="http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/aboutus/OurOrganisation/Pages/History.aspx">Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals</a>. Of course, we all thought we really represented our institutions as an entity, despite the activities and preferences of individual councils, university boards of governors, trade unions, students and so on. But the title of the organisation provided at least some distance from such grandiosity. </p>
<p>Now, as UUK, does the group feel that it is speaking on behalf of all universities or just their chief executives? If the former, how do we know, and how can they prove this? If so, fine – keep asserting against Brexit. If not, perhaps the <a href="http://www.universitychairs.ac.uk/">Council of University Chairs</a> – whose members are the chairs of university governing bodies – and the National Union of Students will stand up with their own arguments for or against. </p>
<p>If UUK’s membership wants it to represent university vice-chancellors on this issue, then it should do so. However, the force of its claims become a little more diluted if it cannot support its stance with evidence of wider support throughout universities.</p>
<h2>Academics won’t be silenced on EU issue</h2>
<p>Can it really be true that academics and others sheltering in our universities are going to feel constrained by what UUK argues? It has never happened before and will not this time, either. Everybody with an opinion on Brexit will have the opportunity to have a say, and when it is said, most will not be thinking of UUK.</p>
<p>So we can welcome UUK’s “Universities for Europe” campaign as a contribution to a debate that is contestable and inevitably partial. Perhaps we should be grateful that it is raising its voice with more vehemence on what it believes to be in the interests of universities than it has before – including over public expenditure cuts to university teaching budgets.</p>
<p>If others do not agree with its stance – not its actions – then they are free to say so. Rest assured, nobody in the institutions will feel in the least intimidated by the UUK campaign – as the upcoming cacophony over the referendum will undoubtedly reveal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger King is affiliated with the Higher Education Commission and was co-chair of its inquiry 'Regulating the new landscape of higher education. He is also chair of the board of governors at UK College of Business and Computing (UKCBC), an alternative provider. </span></em></p>UUK’s ‘Universities for Europe’ campaign is a welcome contribution to a debate that is inevitably partial.Roger King, Visiting Professor, School of Management, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/433622015-06-29T09:33:27Z2015-06-29T09:33:27ZExplainer: how Europe does academic tenure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/86389/original/image-20150625-12994-1oj3597.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Germany's universities have two academics classes: professors and everyone else. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/meironke/4611049669/sizes/l">meironke/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The word “tenure” is usually associated in universities with job security and professional autonomy. It is a term familiar in North America, where the notion of a “<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-12-28/why-i-have-a-big-problem-with-academic-tenure">job-for-life</a>” for professors who achieve “tenure” has come under pressure in recent years, most recently in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/wisconsin-controversy-with-fewer-tenured-positions-who-benefits-from-academic-freedom-43167">legal case in Wisconsin</a>. But across Europe there are a variety of different employment tracks through which academics can reach professor level. </p>
<p>I have had the pleasure of working as an academic in three European countries – Germany, The Netherlands, and the UK – each of which highlights some of the alternative options to the tenure-track model in the US. </p>
<h2>Germany – a two-class system</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, I began my academic career in Germany – a country well-known for its strong welfare state tradition and labour protection. In universities things were and still are different. Academics are basically divided into two classes. On the one hand, professors are employed as civil servants of the state and hold tenure as a highly safeguarded employment for life. On the other, there is a much bigger group of “junior staff” on fixed-term contracts, research grants, fellowships, and part-time jobs. <a href="http://www.buwin.de/site/assets/files/1002/buwin2013keyresults.pdf">In 2010</a>, 9% of academic staff were professors, 66% were “junior staff” (including doctoral candidates on contracts), and 25% were other academic staff in secondary employment.</p>
<p>Permanent positions below the professorial level are rare exceptions. Becoming a professor therefore means a big step up in terms of status and job security while the road to professorial tenure is long and windy. In many subjects aspiring academics follow a patchwork career for more than a decade, busily preparing their “<a href="http://www.en.uni-muenchen.de/scholars/postdocs/habilitationen/index.html">Habilitation</a>” (a kind of broader second PhD thesis) and eventually achieving tenure – usually at another university – in their early 40s. For all universities, in-house promotion to a professorial position used to be legally forbidden. </p>
<p>For decades, the structure of academic careers formed a highly debated topic in Germany. Various programmes were developed to temporarily support “junior staff”. New positions for untenured “junior professors” have, for example, been inspired by US tenure-track models. They are expected to work more independently from the full professors; and some of them might even get promoted to tenure in-house. However, the basic logic of the two academic classes persists and things are not getting better for junior staff: fixed-term contracts, part-time contracts and research grant-based contracts <a href="http://www.buwin.de/site/assets/files/1002/buwin2013keyresults.pdf">are all on the rise</a>.</p>
<h2>The Netherlands – different tracks</h2>
<p>At the beginning of the new millennium, I continued my academic career as a tenured professor in the Netherlands. Some things were and are clearly different in the lowlands. Professors are civil servants but no longer employed “by the Crown”. In the 1980s, staff responsibility had shifted to the university as an employer and to collective bargaining. </p>
<p>The meaning of “tenure” is different as well. Since the 1980s, tenured staff in the Netherlands no longer have a guaranteed lifetime job and can be dismissed, for example, because of redundancy. These dismissals entail a lengthy, time-consuming and expensive procedure. Compared to Germany, there are considerably more permanent positions for lecturers and main lecturers below the full professorial level. </p>
<p>Tenure <a href="http://theprofessorisin.com/2013/05/13/the-dutch-academic-job-market-for-americans-and-other-english-speakers/">can be achieved</a> after a probationary period of a few years and in-house promotion from lecturer to main lecturer is quite common practice, and is based on individual assessment. It is also quite common for main lecturers to stay on in their position until retirement. It was a stunning experience for me as an academic who had been socialised in the German system; except perhaps for the shared suspicion in both countries that it was somehow “odd” or “bad practice” to promote an existing staff member to a professorship from within the same university. </p>
<p>While I was in the Netherlands, universities started to experiment with new ways of promotion inspired by the US tenure-track model. Practices differ among universities and tenure-tracks do not always provide a route to a professorship. Such tracks also eventually extend the pathways to “tenure” and promotion and raise the bar of performance expectations – especially as regards the hazardous business of grant-making. It seems that life is getting tougher for promising young academics. </p>
<h2>United Kingdom – legal tenure doesn’t exist</h2>
<p>Recently, my academic career brought me to the UK – a classical example of a more regular career system that neither followed the US tenure-track system nor the German “junior staff” system. The long-established system of lecturer – reader – professor allowed for “tenure” as a young lecturer after a probationary period as well as for an in-house career to higher ranks given successful assessment. </p>
<p>This essentially still holds true until today. Over recent decades, UK higher education has experienced major changes in regulation and funding that also affect academics’ status and career. In the late 1980s, much like in the Netherlands, all academic staff became employees of their institution and the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/40/contents">government passed legislation in 1988</a> to eliminate tenure. </p>
<p>Legal tenure has therefore faded away and has been replaced by permanent or indefinite contracts that can be due to redundancy, sometimes avoided by voluntary redundancy or premature retirement. Academics who worked in the UK’s former polytechnics, which <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/sep/03/polytechnics-became-universities-1992-differentiation">all became</a> universities in 1992, never had tenure but rather fixed-term or indefinite contracts. In the pre-1992 universities, performance expectations for promotion are due to local variations but overall the bar has certainly been raised over time.</p>
<p>The tough race to do well in the UK’s national research evaluation exercise, <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-is-the-ref-and-how-is-the-quality-of-university-research-measured-35529">the REF</a>, and the various other rankings and league tables, plays out in individual performance expectations for “tenure” and promotion. Over the years, the use of fixed-term (and part-time) contracts for teaching staff and of fixed-term research posts has established a shadow market with limited opportunities to rise up the traditional academic career ladder. In this respect, the development in the UK has some resemblance to the growth of a shadow market of non-tenure track faculty in the US.</p>
<p>The Netherlands and the UK show that university systems can be highly productive while providing early “tenure” to their academic staff. Germany could certainly learn from these experiences. But tenure is no longer what it used to be in the UK or the Netherlands. The bars of performance expectations are also raised and the number of academics who are not on the main career track is increasing. As funding becomes more competitive and insecure, universities turn some of their risk over to academic staff.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43362/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jürgen Enders does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The routes for academics to become professors are different in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.Jürgen Enders, Professor of Higher Education Management, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/417862015-05-27T05:38:44Z2015-05-27T05:38:44ZWhy France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82432/original/image-20150520-11450-3hhr7v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Aerial vue of the Paris-Saclay campus under construction. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paris-Saclay</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After decades of planning, a new generation of students and researchers will start their first full academic year in September 2015 at the <a href="https://www.universite-paris-saclay.fr/fr">University of Paris-Saclay</a>, a huge, ambitious project to bring together a group of 19 higher education institutions alongside a business cluster on the outskirts of the French capital. It has been dubbed the <a href="http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/paris-saclay-a-mega-university-with-ambitions-to-match/2019520.article">French Silicon Valley</a>. </p>
<p>The rationale behind Paris-Saclay is to reach the same size and level of excellence as Harvard, MIT, Oxford and Cambridge. With its higher education institutions already <a href="https://www.polytechnique.edu/en/paris-saclay">attracting 15%</a> of the potential research budget in France, Paris-Saclay should give birth to Europe’s top multi-disciplinary university, and bring a well-needed boost to France after years of shame caused by <a href="http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20140816-french-universities-hold-their-place-global-shanghai-rankings">poor performance</a> in global university rankings. </p>
<p>Formally incorporated in 2014, the University of Paris-Saclay has federated together two universities, ten <em>grandes écoles</em> (professional schools in engineering, agronomy, telecommunications, life sciences and management), and seven national research institutions – or at least some of their laboratories. All of them were previously autonomous and most of them are prestigious in their own right. They include the university of Paris-Orsay, the École Polytechnique, the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, the HEC business school, laboratories of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and of the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique. </p>
<p>There is a great variety in the institutions which are a mix of private, public and non-profit. Some are non-selective public universities that cover a wide set of disciplines, such as the University of Paris-Orsay. While others are highly selective and elite <em>grandes écoles</em>. </p>
<p>Covering the whole scientific spectrum from education and basic research to technology and development, the university is strongly linked to a <a href="http://www.epps.fr/en/a-global-cluster/">technological cluster</a> set up in Saclay in 2004. The campus and cluster are set on 7,700 hectares of land and have already attracts giant global firms such as EADS, Siemens, EDF, Thales or Danone, as well as more than 300 small and mid-size firms. The <a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/news/517626/infographic-the-worlds-technology-hubs/">MIT Technology Review</a> already lists Paris-Saclay as one of the eight world innovation clusters. </p>
<h2>Merging 19 institutions</h2>
<p>While some of its members, such as HEC and the University of Paris Orsay, are already located on or near the Paris-Saclay campus south of Paris, others will move out of Paris within the next three years. How to merge 19 autonomous entities – some of which are historical and have unique identities – is an unusual challenge in academia, business and management. </p>
<p>The first full academic year will start in September 2015, but the campus already hosts 300 research laboratories and 15,000 faculty and doctoral students. Together, its institutions will offer 17 doctoral programmes, eight schools from law and political science to biology and medicine, and 49 masters programmes. Academic publications authored by its 19 member institutions are already referring to Paris-Saclay as the common trademark. It already has 5,700 doctoral students (40% from abroad) and 10,000 masters students. Its faculty, post-docs and doctoral students will publish 8,000 scientific publications a year – expected to increase in the coming years. </p>
<p>The ambitions to build an internationally visible flagship industry cluster and university have been supported at the highest levels, from the president and ministries in charge of higher education and research. Without taking into account indirect costs and subsidies, the state has allocated more than €6 billion for buildings, innovation projects and transportation infrastructure. The university has already collected €2.5 billion in cash from the state to construct new buildings and fund research and education projects, according to my interviews with people closely involved with the project.</p>
<h2>Opposition petered out</h2>
<p>Although the Paris-Saclay project did not generate loud opposition from either the right or left wing political parties, there has been some resistance to the project since the early 2000s. Local authorities criticised the state for forging ahead with the project without the formal agreement and support of the mayors of the communes of the territory in and around the Saclay plateau. Student unions feared that taxpayer money allocated to the project would only benefit the elite and would hinder the modernisation of all other universities across France. </p>
<p>Some influential alumni from the <em>grandes écoles</em>, such as the Ecole Polytechnique, privately claimed that their alma mater should remain oriented toward selecting and educating top public servants and business leaders, and not become too research-focused or “academic”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82420/original/image-20150520-11443-b2v9cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82420/original/image-20150520-11443-b2v9cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82420/original/image-20150520-11443-b2v9cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82420/original/image-20150520-11443-b2v9cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82420/original/image-20150520-11443-b2v9cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82420/original/image-20150520-11443-b2v9cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82420/original/image-20150520-11443-b2v9cd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plans by Japanese architects Sou Fujimoto for the new Learning Centre of the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris-Saclay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eager/16727201734/sizes/l">準建築人手札網站 Forgemind ArchiMedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Setting up an academic identity and defining an organic blueprint for the university were in no way easy. In my own research and conversations with academics, I’ve heard questions raised as to whether the Paris-Saclay project is just another white elephant, given the hybrid status of the partners and the complexity of the transitional governance merger procedure. The legal status of the University Paris-Saclay is unique in France: it is not formally a university but rather a “COMUE”, a community of universities and higher education research institutions. Under this new framework, it remains unclear how much autonomy the federated institutions will be willing to delegate.</p>
<p>After a slow start in 2008, the building of the new campus has accelerated since the end of 2013. Integrated programmes across the different institutions have been designed to start this autumn. Already, 80% of the masters programmes offered by the various institutions are already under the banner of the University of Paris-Saclay – which will help to make the university more visible on international rankings. </p>
<p>I have also heard evidence that state agencies such as the <a href="http://www.gouvernement.fr/investissements-d-avenir-cgi">Commissariat général à l'investissement</a>, a governmental body funding research, wanted to allocate big research grants in 2013-14 to Paris-Saclay itself, rather than to each single institution separately.</p>
<h2>Ambiguous beginnings</h2>
<p>The new university is headed by a team of academic administrators, some with good experience of running public agencies and laboratories. A board joins the heads of the various member institutions together and an academic council of 220 members, the majority elected by faculty, staff and students, has been granted an advisory role, functioning as an arena to generate academic consensus.</p>
<p>The road to the future is still paved with ambiguity. Some of the institutions favour a fully integrated model while others prefer a looser federal partnership limited to doctoral programmes and graduate education. There are still many challenges to address. There is growing pressure on the smaller <em>grandes écoles</em>, such as the Ecole Centrale de Paris and Supélec that have joined the project to develop their research capacity. It’s also possible “the bandwagon effect” that has given the project momentum could drop off if outside funding decreases. </p>
<p>Engineering, natural sciences and life sciences are at the core of the campus, and it is not strong in humanities and social sciences. As a result, it’s unclear how Paris-Saclay will handle multidisciplinary research projects such as other major clusters and campuses do. The compatibility of the two different cultural worlds – for instance between engineers of the Ecole Polytechnique and academics of the University Paris-Orsay – remains to be seen. </p>
<p>A major test for the new university will be its capacity to increase its attractiveness for international students and faculty in a highly competitive global higher education market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean-Claude Thoenig received research grants from various French public agencies funding his basic research up to the mid-1990s.</span></em></p>A huge project to bring together 19 institutions in France is to enter its first full academic year in September.Jean-Claude Thoenig, Researcher emeritus, Dauphine Recherche en Management, University Paris-Dauphine and Director of Research (emeritus), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/357912015-03-11T06:24:21Z2015-03-11T06:24:21ZWhy the US liberal arts tradition failed to take hold in Europe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/74315/original/image-20150310-13559-1q6n4yn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Harvard helped kickstart the movement of 'general education' in the 1940s. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/felix42/847685184/sizes/l">Felix42 contra la censura</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Parasites, pedants and superfluous men and women. Those are some of the accusations that have been levelled against historians and humanities scholars, <a href="http://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/january-2011/history-under-attack">according to</a> Anthony Grafton, former president of the American Historical Association. He <a href="https://theamericanscholar.org/habits-of-mind/#.VJkxQV4AU">argues</a> in favour of a general education, rooted in the humanities, that can make students independent and analytic thinkers. This is something that, he says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Matters more than ever in the current media world, in which lies about the past, like lies about the present, move faster than ever before.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Academics around the world widely share these views. Some European educators, such as <a href="http://pearsonblueskies.com/2012/higher-humanities-education-in-the-21st-century">the founder of the New College of the Humanities in London, A C Grayling</a>, claim a broader agenda of learning through the reference to the value of the humanities in “rendering people fit to deal with unpredictable … challenges”. </p>
<p>Yet while the liberal arts tradition of “general education” remains embedded into American higher education, in Europe, it has been left aside.</p>
<h2>The Harvard model</h2>
<p>The US inherited the “liberal education” pattern from Britain, originally designed for the education of privileged youngsters. It was based on a complete and well-organised introduction to human knowledge in art, literature, science, and social life, through an overview of classical studies and the knowledge of western intellectual tradition.</p>
<p>In the 20th century, facing an increase in student numbers in secondary and tertiary education as populations expanded, several US reformers argued that the extension of access to a common body of information and ideas was more important than splitting curricula up into different vocations. It would be better for the democratisation of tertiary education rolled out to the masses, they argued. </p>
<p>Their most influential document was the report <a href="http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic996234.files/generaleducation032440mbp.pdf">General Education in a Free Society</a>, prepared between 1943-45 by a group of Harvard faculty members and inspired by their president James Bryant Conant, an <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00309230903528611#.VMnmUmiG98E">advocate for equal opportunity and meritocracy in intellectual careers</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68177/original/image-20150105-13860-1x31q6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68177/original/image-20150105-13860-1x31q6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68177/original/image-20150105-13860-1x31q6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68177/original/image-20150105-13860-1x31q6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68177/original/image-20150105-13860-1x31q6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68177/original/image-20150105-13860-1x31q6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68177/original/image-20150105-13860-1x31q6v.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Bryant Conant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
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<p>The committee’s objective was a reform of Harvard’s curricula, but its conclusions involved the American education system as a whole and have had a lasting impact. In the struggle of American civilisation against the totalitarian threat of World War II, they said that a general introduction to western cultural heritage would help foster the necessary qualities for free and responsible citizenship.</p>
<p>They argued that reflection and dialogue on great ideas of the past were the bases for critical thinking and for the identification with common values. A “well-rounded” general preparation was important to acquire the flexibility of mind, self-knowledge, and understanding of the world needed to choose a profession. And college programmes based on common subjects rather than on elective choices would facilitate the academic integration of gifted students, regardless of their background.</p>
<p>The committee’s proposals centred on the connection between comprehensive high schools, designed for universal attendance, and post-secondary curricula. They wanted to integrate vocational programmes within a set of courses devoted to a dynamic presentation of the realisations of human knowledge.</p>
<h2>The ‘Sputnik shock’</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68178/original/image-20150105-13836-1jqm980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/68178/original/image-20150105-13836-1jqm980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68178/original/image-20150105-13836-1jqm980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68178/original/image-20150105-13836-1jqm980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68178/original/image-20150105-13836-1jqm980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68178/original/image-20150105-13836-1jqm980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/68178/original/image-20150105-13836-1jqm980.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">President Harry S Truman (centre) with Conant in 1948.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikipedia</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The idea that general education was a tool for a truly democratic school system influenced post-war federal policy. A report called <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=12802">Higher Education in American Democracy</a>, prepared in 1947 by a commission appointed by President Harry Truman, suggested all levels of education were aimed at “a fuller realisation of democracy”, “international understanding” and “the application of … trained intelligence to the solution of … problems”. </p>
<p>This was to be achieved through the administration of a broad and well-organised set of non-vocational subjects. After the 1957 “<a href="http://www.nas.edu/sputnik/index.htm">Sputnik shock</a>” – major curricula reform sparked by the Russians being first to launch a satellite – funding programmes for the improvement of the US education system followed some of these guidelines.</p>
<h2>Reformers across the Atlantic</h2>
<p>In the same period, American public diplomats tried to influence education reforms in Western Europe, in view of the integration of North-Atlantic school systems and their cooperation in cold-war competition. Not by chance, in the 1950s Conant and his collaborators <a href="http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/conant-james-b-1893-1978.pdf">visited West Germany, Italy, Britain, and Switzerland as policy advisers</a>. </p>
<p>They argued that European reformers needed to delay the choice between academic and vocational training – made when pupils were about 11. They also thought Europe’s education systems should reduce the strong distinction among traditionally academic and purely vocational secondary school curricula, still characterised by the presence of privileged subjects for admission to university and by the reference to the study of Latin and literature as an element of selection rather than inclusion. </p>
<p>Their advice to Europe was also to lessen the specialisation of university faculties, which were still designed for the advanced preparation of an elite group of professional intellectuals. Instead, higher education should be transformed into a moment to complete the cultural and personal development for a growing number of students.</p>
<p>Despite the extension of compulsory schooling, European education maintained a higher fragmentation of curricula. Reformers could not obtain the integration of all school cycles within a well-defined project of learning proposed by the US example. In fact, an agreement on further changes among political leaders proved to be hard to achieve. Reformers also faced the opposition of several conservative education professionals.</p>
<h2>Today, two continents divided</h2>
<p>These deep-rooted differences are still clear today. Even <a href="http://highereducationquestionmark.com/?page_id=52">vocal critics of American universities</a> say “liberal arts” programs “are still the best that higher education offers” and represent a wise investment, compared with “majors in fields like furniture design”. </p>
<p>As for Europe, some scholars now believe that the <a href="http://www.ehea.info/">Bologna Process</a> – an ongoing project to make higher education comparable across Europe – is inspired by a <a href="http://berghahn.publisher.ingentaconnect.com/content/berghahn/latiss/2008/00000001/00000001/art00006">misconceived “American model”</a>. They argue that it has been built around concepts of “employability” and the “student-as-customer”, and promotes further specialisation of training. </p>
<p>To counteract this, the education historian, <a href="http://www.sc.ehu.es/sfwseec/reec/reec12/reec1211.pdf">Jesper Eckhardt Larsen</a>, has argued that the American liberal arts tradition “facilitates a breadth of cultivation … [which] is relevant for life rather than just for work”. It may be a good starting point to re-orient European higher education policies.</p>
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<p><em>This article is part of our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/universities-at-the-crossroads">Universities at the crossroads</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Mariuzzo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How Europe has shunned the idea of a ‘general education’.Andrea Mariuzzo, Research Fellow in History, Scuola Normale Superiore di PisaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.