Competition, Collaboration and the Rise of Global Higher Education
By David W. Leebron, President, Rice University
My days, like those of most university presidents, tend to get filled by the everyday tasks of operating the university, engaging with the various parts of our university community and keeping the implementation of our strategic plan, the Vision for the Second Century, on track. Little time seems available to reflect on some of the broader trends that will affect universities in the coming decades.
One way to overcome the tendency of the quotidian demands to push out the needed time for reflection is to accept occasional invitations to join other university presidents for meetings aimed at discussing more far-reaching trends affecting our future. For that reason, I was very pleased to be invited to two such gatherings: one in Seoul, South Korea, hosted by Seoul National University on the occasion of the 61st anniversary of its founding, and the other in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, hosted by the Indian Institute of Technology.
"Due to our outstanding reputation, we at Rice have opportunities to build international strategic relationships that belie our size. We must continue the process of leveraging our strengths and seeking out diverse sources to fund the research endeavor."-David W. Leebron
For the conference in Seoul, the topic was the global vision and strategy of the research university in the 21st century. The next decades will see increasing pressure on research universities as they come to be viewed as essential drivers of the “innovation” or “idea” economy. Nations and industrial enterprises alike will seek to derive from universities a competitive advantage in the international economy. And although this recognition of the central importance of the research university will, in some ways, be to its benefit, other societal and global forces will cause the research university to experience increasing stress in fulfilling its traditional missions.
This stress will derive primarily from two sources: escalating competition in virtually all aspects of the education and research enterprise and greater difficulty in securing funding to support the rising costs of research. The competition will be for faculty, for students, for funding, for intellectual property rights and for recognition and visibility, and each aspect of this competition will be global. In part because of the democratization of higher education (in the sense of being open to all regardless of their economic means), there will continue to be intense pressure against rising tuitions, even as resources are stretched. In addition, many (but not all) governments will be reluctant to use tax revenues to support increasingly expensive research, especially research that yields uncertain returns when measured in local and national economic benefit. In the United States, for example, federal support of university-based research is expected to decline in real dollars next year. This occurs at the same time that other countries are pouring funds, essentially, into trying to replicate the American research university at its height.
These forces, as well as others, will continue to drive most research universities to be three things that they traditionally have not been: competitive, collaborative and global. The escalating competition is likely to force universities to rationalize their operations. The threat from for-profit educational enterprises and other parts of the educational establishment that do not join the research endeavor with the educational endeavor will cause the reduction of cross subsidies that may exist between the research and educational parts of their operations. This effort to compete simultaneously as efficient providers of higher-educational services and as contributors to the production of knowledge through research will strain financial resources. Collaboration with industry in research is likely to increase, but this may lead to increased conflict over intellectual property rights and a blurring of research missions between university and industry that could be detrimental to basic research.
The increase in competition in virtually every market in which universities operate (for students, for faculty, for research funding) will force universities to become more effective international actors as they seek to create the best opportunities for both students and faculty. In other kinds of enterprises, the result has been a rationalization and consolidation of the industry (accounting, legal services and retailing come to mind). With universities, however, the barriers to consolidation (mergers and acquisitions) and, in most cases, to foreign direct investment (the establishment of foreign branches) will remain high. (A notable exception is the establishment by some governments of “education cities” such as that in Qatar.) Instead, the forces of competition and globalization will encourage the majority of research universities to build strategic alliances and international collaborations rather than establish overseas branches.
“The increase in competition in virtually every market in which universities operate (for students, for faculty, for research funding) will force universities to become more effective international actors as they seek to create the best opportunities for both students and faculty.”
-David W. Leebron
As we consider the models likely to emerge, the most probable are the consortium model (now evident primarily with business schools), the global strategic alliance (along the lines of airline partnerships) and the occasional joint venture. However, because of the decentralized, qualitatively variable and intellectually diverse nature of the research university, we can anticipate that the cooperation between parts — individuals, departments and schools — will continue to dominate collaborative enterprises between universities for some time to come. Ultimately, however, and certainly within this century, we can expect to see universities develop much more deeply embedded relationships that will cause us to look on today’s typical, vague “Memorandum of Understanding” between universities as a quaint antecedent. Indeed, I think it could be said that we are now seeing a global scramble by universities to establish the foundations of such relationships.
Where does all this leave a comparatively small research university located in Houston? Because of our small size (reflected in the correspondingly small size of our individual departments), international collaboration in teaching and research is even more important to our success and to our ability to remain among the world’s great universities. Due to our outstanding reputation, we at Rice have opportunities to build international strategic relationships that belie our size. We must continue the process of leveraging our strengths and seeking out diverse sources to fund the research endeavor. Of critical importance will be the development of collaborative relationships with industry, and these are likely to involve both the research and teaching missions and to take place in the global context of both our and our partners’ endeavors. But even as we pursue advancement of Rice’s scientific and technological disciplines, we must keep in mind our distinctive commitment both to a liberal undergraduate education that includes the humanistic as well as the scientific and practical and to research that is driven by curiosity and a faith that all contributions to knowledge and understanding have the potential to improve the human condition.