Transcript Slide 1

Mauritius
3 September 2012
Universities’ contribution to the economy is so effective
precisely because it is not our primary objective.
-- Leszek Borysiewicz
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• Van Schalkwyk (2011):
• Study of dominant types of engagement at three HE system levels in
Mauritius (super, middle, under structures– Burton Clark) to establish
whether there is alignment
and
• the extent to which the engagement activities (projects) at UoM were
weakening or strengthening the university’s academic core (i.e. core
functions of teaching and research) (Cloete et al.)
• Engagement:function matrix
X-axis: Engagement types adapted from Muller (2010)
Y-axis: 3 claimed functions of the university: teaching, research, service
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1. Near-perfect
alignment: dominant
type at all 3 levels =
development
engagement.
2. BUT activities
(projects) are NOT
strengthening the
core functions;
bearing is erratic.
(Source: Van Schalkwyk 2011: 111)
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•
•
•
Alignment between three system-levels around a particular type
of engagement which seeks to link the university to economic
development is observable BUT academic activity is not
strengthening the academic core.
Therefore alignment is at most an enabling, and not a
determinative, condition for ensuring a type of engagement which
seeks to contribute to development.
Current academic activity at UoM, despite being in alignment with
institutional and national policy, creates a very mild dosage effect
so that the kind of research that drives economic development is
not substantively internalised, and therefore does not leave
permanent institutional traces because it fails to penetrate the
academic core to any significant degree.
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for the possible disjuncture between knowledge policies
and knowledge activities: UoM vs University of Ghana
Comparative figures for UoM and the University of Ghana
(cf. HERANA research findings)
• Premise: If policy in Mauritius/UoM is supportive of the university
making a contribution to development, and Ghana/University of
Ghana’s policies are not, then UoM should be increasing its
knowledge output (publications and doctoral graduates) and see
an increase in activities that support/promote such output (e.g.
collaboration/networking) relative to the University of Ghana.
• Indicators:
• Research output: publications over time
• Research output: doctoral graduates
• Research collaboration
•
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University not part of
development strategy
Selfgoverning
Ancillary
No/marginal role for new
knowledge in development
strategy
Central role for new
knowledge in
development strategy
Instrument
Engine
University part of
development strategy
ANCILLARY
(Source: Cloete et al 2011: 22)
SELF-GOVERNING
INSTRUMENT
ENGINE
Gov
Uni
Gov
Uni
Gov
Uni
Gov
Uni
Ghana




●
●

●
Mauritius
●
●






COUNTRY
 = Strong  = Present
● = Absent
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8
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Source: Olivier Beauchesne , 2011
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2010/11
2009/10
2008/9
2007/8
2006/7
2005/6
2004/5
2003/4
2002/3
2001/2
2000/1
25
20
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Ghana
10
Mauritius
5
0
Source: Bunting/HERANA II
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• What is needed is a development/engagement model that allows
for combining the traditional functions and strengths of the
included domains/institutions (higher education, private/public
sectors and state agencies) with problem-orientated, integrated
networks that are rooted in but at the same time separated from
these domains/institutions.
• From the perspective of this new model, it is not the university
that needs to change but it is the nature of the bridge or
connection between higher education and society that needs to
be re-interpreted. Non-disruptive, co-ordinated linkages.
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Possible arrangements for engagement between the university and external
stakeholders that are non-disruptive:
1. Structural at macro/system level e.g. the knowledge system is
differentiated by function (create/transfer/interpret/exchange/apply)
and the university contributes according to its institutionalised
comparative advantage in the knowledge system – knowledge creation
(research) and knowledge transfer (teaching).
2. Super co-ordination of higher education stakeholders that is problemfocused and in which the university contributes according to its
institutionalised comparative advantage in the knowledge system e.g.
“big projects”.
Conversely, arrangements that won’t work:
1. Structural at micro/organisational level e.g. intra-university
differentiation. Because this seeks to disrupt the institutional nature of
the university.
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• US$3.8 billion investment, US$796 billion return +
310 000 jobs (1988-2010) (Battelle Memorial Institute
2011) = ROI: 141:1
• US$67 billion [per annum] in annual economic activity
(Wall Street Journal)
• Creation of a new industry / scientific discipline
• While slow to deliver medical breakthroughs, there
have been some breakthroughs including new forms
of personalised medicine and genetics therapy,
greater productivity in agriculture, and potential
sources of renewable energy.
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Co-ordination at unprecedented levels in the South African context…
particularly between government agencies and departments.
Co-ordination and co-ordinated action ito managing crime: “In the end things
turned out not quite as expected. The country was not plunged in darkness …
Crime dropped during the event. The hooligans stayed home en masse thanks to
the efforts of international authorities. No terrorist threat materialised and
strikers – in the spirit of national unity – waited until well after the last game of
the tournament before they took to the streets. … The only labour threat that
really constituted a challenge – briefly – emerged from a private security company
assigned to guard the peace inside the stadiums… The state moved in swiftly.
It…replaced them with hundreds of South African Police recruits. In doing so, the
state re-asserted its political authority and organisational capacity to take charge
of security … The symbolic importance of this bold assertion of the role of the
state in the fractured world of modern security was not lost on observers.”
(Van der Spuy 2010)
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•
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13 countries and close to 100 organisations involved in the project
SKA telescope to be hosted in 9 African countries
Global collaborations around the scientific aspects. South African and other
African universities are participating in these collaborations.
There are exchanges of faculty and students between South African and
international institutions.
Collaboration with global research institutes for training of engineers.
The SKA will drive technology development particularly in ICT and energy
generation, distribution, storage and demand reduction.
The SKA will provide longstanding human capital development and employment
benefits. The design, construction and operation of the SKA will impact skills
development in science, engineering and in associated industries not only in the
host countries but in all countries involved.
SKA offers comprehensive bursaries to students in engineering, mathematics,
physics and astronomy at undergraduate and postgraduate level. 411 (2012)
students have benefited from SKA South Africa bursaries and scholarships,
including many students from other African countries.
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• Established in 1999 with the intention to develop and market reactors
both locally and internationally.
• PBMR is a public-private partnership comprising the South African
government, nuclear industry players and utilities. A total US$1.2bn was
invested in PBMR, SA government having contributed 80.3% of that
amount.
• Grew into one of the largest nuclear reactor design and engineering
companies in the world. Core team of some 800 people at the PBMR head
office in Pretoria, more than a 1000 people at universities, private
companies and research institutes.
• Government pulled support for the PBMR in 2010 after the company failed
to secure an investor or partner.
• Some of the universities benefitted from PBMR and were able to offer
courses related to nuclear research and training.
• Closing of the project resulted in a leakage of local skills developed.
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• Who funds?
And how many projects of the “big project” magnitude can be
sustained?
• Who sets the agenda and how is it set?
Academic, economic or political imperatives?
• Are the problems “self-presenting”? Or only “big projects” for
current “big problems”?
• At what point does a project become “too big to fail”?
Is it only about funding or is reputational risk also a factor?
• Is this really something new? The “Cambridge Phenomenon” of
the 1960s: 1400 tech companies are now located around the
university, 11 valued at over US$1.3bn (one ironically called
“Autonomy”).
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• Higher education policy-makers and university management need
to be weary of promoting research activities which weaken the
core functions of teaching and research.
• They should seek to combine the strengthening of the core
functions of the university with strategies for engaging with
external constituencies in ways that do justice to the institutional
nature of the university (i.e. are not disruptive of the academic
core).
• One possible way of doing this, it is suggested, is to focus on ‘big
problems’ with the acknowledgement that to initiate momentum
around solving big problems requires co-ordination between all
levels of the higher education system, including the academics
who will be applying themselves to the problem identified.
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FIN
Thank you
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