The World-Class University Across Higher Education Systems: Similarities, Differences, and Challenges
This chapter discusses similarities and differences of WCU initiatives across nine case studies. These countries selected a small number of universities to build world-class universities, reformed governance structures to allow better flexibility of their
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The World-Class University Across Higher Education Systems: Similarities, Differences, and Challenges Jung Cheol Shin and Barbara M. Kehm
16.1 Introduction In his chapter, Shin set out to define the term “world-class university” from a broader perspective (world-class, national-class, and local-class) in order to better understand the concept of world-class university in higher education systems. According to the conceptual approach, there is only a small number of “world-class” universities. Most of them are located in higher education systems of economically advanced countries. The emerging top-ranking universities in other countries are not in the world-class category, although their universities are very competitive in research productivity. This suggests that world-class universities are not established in a short time, which is disappointing to policymakers and university leaders in the developing higher education systems. Some research-productive universities in developing or recently developed countries may be top-ranked in global rankings, but the ranking status does not always mean that the university is considered a worldclass university. This points to the fact that the status of a world-class university is not only related to hard indicators but also to the softer indicator of reputation which takes time to build up. As Hazelkorn (2011: 21) put it: “Rankings are a symptom but also an acceleration of the ‘reputation race.’” This book has paid attention to the development of higher education systems as well as other contextual factors in discussing a world-class university. On the one hand, the different contexts in each country explain how the initiatives to establish a world-class university differ even though the goal is similar across countries. On J.C. Shin () Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of (South Korea) e-mail: [email protected] B.M. Kehm International Centre for Higher Education Research, Kassel University, Kassel, Germany e-mail: [email protected] J.C. Shin and B.M. Kehm (eds.), Institutionalization of World-Class University in Global Competition, The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective 6, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4975-7 16, © Springer ScienceCBusiness Media Dordrecht 2013
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J.C. Shin and B.M. Kehm
the other hand, there are similarities between countries in such initiatives despite differing contexts. The similarities are found in the design and implementation of the world-class initiatives. Through such similarities across universities and countries, contemporary higher education is becoming homogenized, especially in the countries where the drive for establishing a world-class university is strong as institutionalists argue (e.g., Meyer and Rowan 1977). Through these homogenization processes, contemporary higher education loses its diversity and focuses exclusively on research productivity which is unhealthy both for society as well as higher education. It is timely therefore to d
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