The 2004 Colloquium on Research and Higher Education Policy is a key global event, bringing together researchers, policy-makers and experts from all parts of the world. The aim is to connect the worlds of research and policy in higher education by critically debating research results and policy experiences at national, regional and global levels. The Colloquium will be open for papers and other forms of information dissemination on a broad basis. As the UNESCO Forum has a focus on developing countries, contributions from these regions are particularly welcome. The three-day event will include plenary sessions, parallel seminars, and rooms for posters and for sharing research material and policy documents.

Complexity of Change

Both the extent and the complexity of change in higher education today are striking. Closely linked to processes of globalization and internationalization, driven by time factors such as GATS negotiations, and dependent on decision-making in other sectors and fields, developments in higher education are increasingly difficult to understand and analyze. Multiple discourses and debates on critical issues are ongoing, but can only capture parts of an increasingly complex situation and run the risk of falling into the trap of ad hoc, issue-driven agendas, lacking a wider perspective. Short-term solutions, addressing economic and political demands of the day, often make long-term strategy and planning impossible and tend to create unintended complexities tomorrow. Technical debates necessary to interrogate systemic change overlook context specific political, social, economic and cultural aspects, loosing sight of long-term experience and dynamics. Thus, the challenges for decision- and policy-makers in the sphere of higher education are, particularly in developing countries, highly complex.

A critical issue of concern in this context of rapid change is which kind of research systems, institutional structures and policy frameworks are appropriate, necessary, affordable, and sustainable under a given set of local and regional circumstances. With the increase of new providers, privatization and massification of higher education, governments are facing a host of issues and critical choices. In developing countries, with scarce financial resources, limited capacity in human and institutional resources, and a growing demand for higher education, the policy choices made today will have a profound impact on a country’s development tomorrow. Issues such as institutional autonomy, academic freedom, stratification, long- term sustainability, market orientation, national needs, the role of the state, decision-making procedures, and power relations become central.

The Colloquium is an invitation to the multi-layered community of concerned and knowledgeable individuals, scholars and policy-makers to join in a discussion of the stakes and possible futures of different concepts of both research and policy with regard to higher education and knowledge. This discussion will be cognizant of a world that is growing increasingly aware of its inherent heterogeneity, the simultaneity of the local and the global, and the co-existence of the most advanced technological frontiers with traditional material cultures.

Strategies for Change

Knowledge, awareness, political choice, commitment and engagement all require cognitive openings and creative uncertainties in order to offer a potential for change. Knowledge and knowledge structures are spheres that can and should be open to new discoveries, new risks and new perspectives.

The objective of the Colloquium is to critically review relevant research results and to question existing policy frameworks, in order to forge links between the two and subsequently stimulate the formulation of strategies for change. The Colloquium will also identify gaps and neglected areas in both research and policy formulations. The need to go beyond the narrow boundaries of disciplinary expertise will be reflected in the organization of work in multi-disciplinary sessions. The research findings, the policy experiences presented and the critical analysis provided in plenary and parallel seminars should stimulate new themes of convergence, new development strategies, and new types of decisions and decision-making.

A key premise of this approach is that there exists no single answer to what constitutes ”ideal” higher education or research systems, structures or policies, and that it is necessary therefore to identify and examine a variety of solutions to meet the challenges arising out of different cultural, political, and economic contexts.

Knowledge, Access and Governance

The work of the Colloquium will be organized around three broad themes that represent critical areas of scholarly and policy endeavour and controversy.

The focus on knowledge recognizes both the tremendous changes that have occurred in our conception of knowledge over the last fifty years and the intensely political nature of different “knowledge cultures” in today’s world. It addresses the strengths and weaknesses of different institutional arrangements for the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge, and inquires into how the content of higher education codifies different conceptions of knowledge.

The focus on access examines the tremendous disparities in access to knowledge, research, and higher education around the world and within individual societies and assesses the need for a better understanding of both the causes of such disparities and the policy strategies suited to overcome them. It will have to pay special attention to the linkages between higher education and labor markets.

The focus on governance in higher education and research will deal with the precarious relationship between higher education and the state, on the one hand, and multiple economic and social interests, on the other. It will have to provide a critical examination of different structural and institutional arrangements for the governance of science and higher learning, and to identify patterns of dependence and intervention. A special issue within this focus will be the question of higher education and research financing.

Call for papers

The UNESCO Forum invites the submission of proposals for papers in these three broad areas: Knowledge, Access, and Governance. The following section provides an illustrative, but by no means exhaustive list of the kinds of topics that can be dealt with under each of the three themes. Special attention will be given to proposed contributions that deal with linkages and interactions among the three themes - governance, access, and knowledge. Submissions in other areas will be considered and made available, based on quality.

Knowledge
-The concept and reality of ’cultures of knowledge’ at the national and the international level

-The politics of knowledge: hierarchies and legitimating

-The institutional context of research: inside or outside universities?

-Higher education curricula: different codifications of knowledge

-Quality of education: who defines, measures and assesses the ’quality’ of knowledge?

-Beyond the disciplines: the need for new knowledge maps

Access:

-Determinants of access to higher learning: social, gender, ethnic, national, epistemological, financial

-Differential access to the production, dissemination, and utilization of research

-Privileged and underprivileged institutional forms of higher education

-Labour market needs as a factor in access to higher education

-Strategies for broadening access to higher education

Governance
-Autonomy in danger: higher education between the state and the market

-Democracy in higher education governance: structures and patterns of participation

-External influences on university governance

-The effectiveness and efficiency of internal decision-making: centralised and decentralised management in higher education

-Governance and finance in higher education: structures of interdependence

-International assistance for higher education: lessons from experience

-The privatisation of the cost of higher education (fees, philanthropy, sponsorship): advantages and disadvantages

Please submit your abstract (600 words) to the Forum Secretariat no later than 1 July 2004. The authors of proposals that are selected for presentation at the Colloquium will be notified before 7 August 2004. Final papers are due 8 November 2004.

Outcomes
The UNESCO Forum anticipates the following outcomes of the Colloquium:

The public exposure of research results and policy frameworks from all regions on a global platform
The critical review of key issues in knowledge, research and higher education with the aim of formulating strategies for change
The identification of key global areas of concern based on national and regional experiences
The stimulation of a transdisciplinary approach to research, policy analysis and problem solving
The exploration of a common language and understanding among groups with different responsibilities
The development of networking between institutions currently working independently in order to create synergies
Creating a closer link among professionals from different fields, backgrounds and geographical areas
The identification of neglected fields of inquiry, research and policy
The dissemination and publication of the results of the Colloquium through different media

For more information on the Colloquium please contact:

Secretariat

UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge

Division of Higher Education

UNESCO

7 place Fontenoy, 75007 Paris, France

Telephone:+ 33 1 45681082, 45680539

Fax:+ 33 1 45685626

E-mail: researchforum@unesco.org

www.unesco.org/education/researchforum