Excellence Initiatives and Internationalization:Is it Working?

Jamil Salmi

IREG 8 – Lisbon, 6 May 2016

Venezuela

Saudi Arabia

% change in per student funding

(FY08 – FY13)

-50,4

16,5

-60

-50

-40

-30

-20

-10

0

10

20

Arizona

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Ohio

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Okla

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Rh

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Texas

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India

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Caro

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Wyo

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Dakota

Budget Evolution (2008 – 2014)

Adjusted for inflation

Countries

20% or more increase Germany, Norway, Sweden

10 to 20% increase Austria, Belgium (Fr)

5 to 10% increase Poland

5% increase to 5% decrease Belgium (Fl), Iceland, Netherlands,

Portugal

5 to 10% decrease Croatia, Slovenia

10 to 20% decrease Czech Rep., Serbia, Slovakia, Spain

20 to 40% decrease Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, United Kingdom

More than 40% decrease Greece, Hungary

higher education at the center of economic competitiveness

Asian dragons

Nordic countries

EU Lisbon agenda

Nothing will matter more to Europe’s future than the

ability of countries, governments, workers and

companies to innovate

outline of the presentation

the road to academic excellence

excellence initiatives

impact on internationalization

the path to glory

creating a new institution

mergers

upgrading existing institutions

creating a new institution

HKUST, KAUST, Masdar Institute of Technologly, Nazarbayev University, Skolkovo Institute of Science & Technology, U of Luxembourg

high investment costs

getting the right culture from the beginning

creating a deep tradition of research

academic freedom

mergers approach

China, Russia, France, Denmark, Finland

potential synergies

1+1=3

clash of cultures

mergers in Denmark

voluntary

special fund to encourage mergers

U. of Aarhus

disciplinary complementarity

mergers in Russia

imposed by government (Federal Universities

Program)

geographical proximity but not always academic

complementarity

tension between old regional focus and new global

orientation

increased competition for academics

upgrading approach

less costly

challenge of creating a culture of excellence

focus on governance

successful cases

UCLA, ASU & University of Maryland

University of Leeds

Aarhus University

Polytechnique of Lausanne (EPFL)

which approach works best?

upgrading and merging complicated

establishing a new university from scratch potentially

easier

outline of the presentation

the road to academic excellence

excellence initiatives

Excellence Initiatives

large injection of additional funding

aimed at upgrading existing universities

in an accelerated manner

Germany

The Excellence Initiative aims to promote top-level

research and to improve the quality of German

universities and research institutions in general, thus

making Germany a more attractive research location,

making it more internationally competitive and focusing

attention on the outstanding achievements of German

universities and the German scientific community.

excellence initiatives

excellence initiatives (II)

repetition of EI

characteristics of EIs

• focus on entire institutions or individual departments / centers

• focus on young researchers (postdocs and tenure track)

• allocation method: competitive or picking winners

• new in Western/Southern Europe

• involvement of international experts in selection of winners

• scholarship programs (Brazil, Chile, Kazakhstan, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia)

characteristics of EI

government-funded

sometimes co-funding national/local gvt (Germany,

China)

grants, endowment (France), loan (Spain)

public vs. private universities

research vs. teaching

challenge of evaluating

Excellence Initiatives

time dimension

robustness of data

attribution

correlation vs. causality

self-selection

other factors or combination of factors

OECD evaluation (2014)

one of their major benefits has been to provide funding

for high-impact / high-risk basic research

also funding for interdisciplinary and cooperative

research endeavors

who is rising in the rankings?

Country 2004 2015 Change

China 16 44 + 28

Australia 14 20 + 6

Saudi Arabia 0 4 + 4

South Korea 8 12 +4

Spain 9 13 +4

Taiwan 5 9 + 4

China’s successive programs

211 program: 100 top quality universities for the 21st

Century

985 program: developing 9 world-class universities

(C9 League), to compete with the premier group of

universities world-wide

extended to 39 universities

World-Class 2.0

results: 16 universities in 2004, 44 in 2014

who is falling in the rankings?

Country 2004 2015 Change

Canada 23 20 -3

Italy 23 20 -3

Germany 43 39 - 4

United Kingdom 42 38 - 4

Japan 36 18 - 16

United States 170 146 - 24

Japan

restrictions on collaboration with foreign partners

research output gap between Japan and the United

States / United Kingdom

only 25% of scientific papers written by Japanese

academics have international co-authors, compared to

52% for British scientists.

Japanese universities count only 4% of foreign

academics

top 100 (2015 Shanghai ranking)

Country Number of universities

USA 51

California 11

UK 9

Australia 5

Canada 4

France 4

Germany 4

Switzerland 4

Japan 4

Netherlands 4

Massachusetts 3

Sweden 3

Denmark 2

Belgium 1

Finland 1

Israel 2

Norway 1

Russian Federation 1

top 100 universities / 1 million people

0,01

0,03

0,05

0,06

0,11

0,14

0,16

0,17

0,18

0,19

0,20

0,24

0,26

0,29

0,31

0,36

0,46

0,52

0,00 0,10 0,20 0,30 0,40 0,50 0,60

Russia

Japan

Germany

France

Canada

United Kingdom

USA

Australia

Finland

Belgium

Norway

Netherlands

Israel

California

Sweden

Denmark

Massachusetts

Switzerland

countries improving most at

the top

Switzerland (no)

the Netherlands (no)

Australia (yes)

Denmark (yes)

Israel (yes)

Belgium (no)

largest jump in ranking

(universities)

+ 300: Shanghai Jiao Tong U & King Saud U

+ 200: U of Marseille, Fudan U, Technion

entrance into top 100: EPFL (Lausanne), Aarhus U, U

of Geneva, Ghent U, Free U of Amsterdam

significant jump within top 100: U. of Manchester, U. of

Melbourne

outline of the presentation

the road to academic excellence

excellence initiatives

impact on internationalization

vintage bias?

accelerating factors

being a niche institution and / or offering niche

programs

curriculum, pedagogical and managerial innovations

strategic planning and benchmarking

internationalization

internationalization in

Excellence Initiatives

recruitment of foreign researchers (mid-career, fast-

rising, and postdocs)

return of Diaspora

foreign masters & doctoral students

English language

internationalization in

Excellence Initiatives (II)

students and academics mobility

joint degree programs

international research (collaborations and co-

publications, joint research, ERC, US)

0,3

0,5

1,4

2,0

2,3

2,6

0,00

0,50

1,00

1,50

2,00

2,50

3,00

Greece Ireland Finland Portugal Switzerland Cyprus

ERC grants by country of host institutions per 1 million inhabitants

co-publications

citation impact

US 2001 US 2011 UK 2001 UK 2011

is it working?

indicators show positive impact of EIs

virtual circles:

reducing in-breeding

enlarging the scientific perimeter (more disciplines, more

multi-disciplinary programs)

building critical mass

is it working? (II)

leading edge science attracting top researchers, and

vice-versa…

top researchers?

well-integrated? access to research funds, promotions,

salaries and taxation...

effective capacity building?

alignment?

Autonomy

Academic Freedom

Students

Teaching Staff

Researchers

Leading-Edge

Research

Dynamic

Knowledge &

Technology

Transfer

Concentration

of Talent

Abundant

ResourcesFavorable

Governance

Leadership Team

Strategic Vision

Culture of Excellence

Public Budget Resources

Endowment Revenues

Tuition Fees

Research Grants

WPU Supportive

Regulatory

Framework

Top

Graduates

Characteristics of a Well-Performing University

Alignment of Key Factors

Source: Elaborated by Jamil Salmi

two challenges

governance

financing

governance of EIs

• HR policies (entry level, no tenure system)

• Salaries (France, Japan, Taiwan)

• organizational structure of universities

• dual structure within universities

• French EI: inability to deal with duality of system (“grandes

écoles” and universities)

• selection of university heads

• elections and the long-term view

Spain

Universities should be given the freedom to succeed

and to fail. Being held on a short leash by

Government will not lead to excellence… An

appropriate balance between regulation, steering and

institutional autonomy needs to be found.

Rolf Tarrach

financing of EIs

• financial stability over the years

• crisis (Japan and Spain)

• phased programs

• endowment (France)

• 750 million of Euros endowment

• 25 million annual interests

• permanent feature (Germany)

impact of Excellence

Initiatives

thinking about, boosting and measuring university performance

money is not enough, governance is fundamental?

fueling internationalization

internationalization strategy?

feeding the rankings?

part of the University’s overall strategic development?

Blue Ocean strategy

how to create uncontested market space and make

competition irrelevant?

Red Ocean: similar universities competing for the

same market – global dimension

Blue Ocean: non existent, untapped markets

making the competition irrelevant

Blue Ocean strategy

has your mission changed? who and where are your

customers (students and stakeholders)?

are you imitating others or creating your own value

proposition?

what is your university’s operating model? do you have

a sustainable funding strategy?

what missing capacities do you need to build?

the alternative is not business

as usual – it’s obsolescence.

Marguerite Dennis

dare to be different

• niche area for research excellence (Finland)

• teaching excellence (France, Germany and UK)

• inclusion (ASU)

• regional development

• Newcastle

• grand challenges (KAUST)