This paper intends to renew certain paradigms that tend to limit the vision and functions of universities and advance towards the University 2.0, a scheme focused on society and that brings about concrete changes. The University 2.0 works in two great aspects: economic development models and social development models,
Global Environmental Sustainability: An ‘All-Hands on Deck’ Research Imperative
The two-way interaction of societal activity with environmental processes now defines clear and present challenges to our well-being. Human activity is changing the climate system and the ecosystem services that support human life and livelihoods. The changes are occurring at an unprecedented and often bewildering pace.
Universities, hard and soft Sciences. All key Pillars of global Sustainability
Imagine you are an economic historian writing at the end of the 21st century about the second half of the 20th and first decade of the 21st. You will probably write that this period was characterized by an unprecedented increase in prosperity in the Western World, the rapid emergence of …
Global Sustainability. Timescales, Magnitudes, Paradigms and Black Swans
We live in a time of great change, an increasingly global society, driven by the exponential growth of new knowledge and knitted together by rapidly evolving information and communication technologies. It is a time of challenge and contradiction, as an ever-increasing human population and invasive activities of humankind are now …
Technological Innovation in the 21st Century
The early years of the 21st century have found the U.S., Europe and Asia increasingly committed to technology-based innovation as the road to economic prosperity. Every CEO has had a catchphrase to this effect on his or her tongue. Etsuhiko Shoyama of Hitachi says “Ceaselessly Innovate”, and Sam Palmisano of …
INTRODUCTION: Respice, Prospice Higher Education A Decennial Review
If “[a] week”, as the late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once pointedly remarked, “is a long time in politics”, so also, a decade is a long time in higher education. It represents the graduation of two or three generations of students. It reflects the subtle influence of changing scholarly …
Innovation strategies of European Universities in the Triangle of Education, Research and Innovation
In Europe, the first university started in Bologna in 1088 as “universitas magistrorum et scholarium”, a community of teachers and students. Its legitimacy was derived from a humanistic program; its activities consisted in providing general and professional education. As an example of the mission of a medieval university,
New University Paradigms for Technological Innovation
In today’s global, knowledge-driven economy, leadership in innovation is essential to a nation’s prosperity and security. In particular, technological innovation — the transformation of new knowledge into products, processes and services of value to society — is critical to economic competitiveness, national security and an improved
The Next decade, a Challenge for Technological and Societal Innovations
About 25 years ago, the world entered a period that we can call — although it is not brutal or quasi-instantaneous, but progressive — a revolution, which is rooted in political and economic, as well as scientific and technological forces. This revolution has brought increasing prosperity to the developed world …
Universities and the Innovative Spirit
As we approach the end of the first decade of the new millennium, it is useful to review the road that our global community has travelled. The dawn of the new millennium was a time not only of celebration, but also of optimism and hope. Contemplating the remarkable transformation of …
BILDUNG and Innovation — a Contradictio in Adjecto for Today’s University Education
I do think that the terms Bildung and innovation can be contradictory, at least they express the inner conflict felt by a person, who is responsible for change in an institution — the university — and therefore for innovation and, at the same time, knows how frequently and in what …
The Challenge of Establishing World-Class Research Universities in Developing Countries
Preoccupations about university rankings reflect the general recognition that economic growth and global competitiveness are increasingly driven by knowledge and that universities play a key role in that context. Indeed, rapid advances in science and technology across a wide range of areas — from information and communication technologies
The German Excellence Initiative: Changes, Challenges and Chances
For more than 200 years, the German university system has followed the ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt — the unity of research and teaching, the freedom of teaching being the most important of Humboldt’s principles. These ideas have been followed until today, even though the external conditions that universities have …
Doing Good by Doing Little: University Responsibility in a Violent Setting
Lebanon’s very name evokes images of civil strife and destruction, of a society almost hopelessly divided and open to exploitation by state and non state actors well beyond its borders. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 (out of a population of ca. 3.5 million) Lebanese lost their lives …
The Challenge to European Universities in the Emerging Global Marketplace
Although the topic for this paper implies a focus on Europe, the issues I want to address are by no means limited to that continent. Without wishing to minimize the significance of national differences and continental contexts, it is possible to discern a set of generic issues facing higher education …
Developed Universities and the Developing World: Opportunities and Obligations
Among the scores of books written during the past decade about globalization — so many, in fact, that some by different authors bear the same title 1 — none has captured as many readers as Thomas L. Freidman’s The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (2005). …
Globalization of Research Universities in Korea
An important consequence of economic globalization is expected to be that only a few leading universities will dominate the world of higher education, just as a few companies are dominating different industrial sectors worldwide. Globalization has thus become a major goal for most research universities in Korea. It is driven …
The Globalization of Higher Education
Today our world has entered a period of rapid and profound economic, social and political transformation based upon an emerging new system for creating wealth that depends upon the creation and application of new knowledge and hence upon educated people and their ideas. It has become increasingly apparent that the …
Reinvigorating Universities in an Entrepreneurial Age
The global economy stands at a moment of extraordinary potential. The last three decades have produced steep gains in worldwide economic growth, led by a surge of innovative, entrepreneurial activity rooted in advanced science and technology. Nations around the world have an opportunity to capitalize on efficiencies and optimize
The Responsibilities of Universities to Promote a Sustainable Society
We are living in a period of deep and rapid changes which are offering great hopes for peace and prosperity, but which are also the source of important challenges and even threats. The direction of change will depend on the capacity of governments, governmental and international non-governmental organizations, business and …