The Transnationally Partnered University

Insights from Research and Sustainable Development Collaborations in Africa

P. Koehn, M. Obamba

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137481757
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Comparative Education

Analyzing the growing importance of the transnational higher education landscape and the role of African universities, Koehn and Obamba show how transnational partnerships among universities can inform policy, strengthen synergies between knowledge producers and knowledge users, and advance sustainable-development practice.

Chapter 1

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Higher Education and Development: Knowledge as Igniter

As Trani and Holsworth (2010, p. 2) have observed, “Universities have become indispensable actors in the social and economic development of modern society, at almost every level and in almost every venue.” In this chapter, we explore the education/development connection, focusing on the tertiary level and the African context. We begin by considering the role of knowledge as igniter of development. This discussion leads into needs analysis, specifically regarding ways in which development-relevant knowledge is generated (research needs) and transmitted (national- and community-development needs).

Knowledge: Igniter of Development

Many analysts view scientific knowledge and innovation as the principal assets that enable competitiveness in the contemporary global economy (Yarime et al. 2012, p. 108). The quest for collaborative knowledge production and insight generation is inspired by growing understanding that, by itself, no amount of research in any one country, nor any single academic discipline, can fully comprehend, let alone resolve, the multiple and increasingly complex glocal problems that face humanity. Transnational collaborations “have come to characterize much of science” in an era of geographical dispersion of expertise coupled with advances in communications and transportation that facilitate physical and virtual mobility (Anderson 2011, p. 3).

Further, proliferating transnational-higher-education arrangements dedicated to research and sustainable development are widely viewed as drivers of knowledge-intensive development (King and McGrath 2004, pp. 32, 39; Yusuf et al. 2009, p. xxx). Fruitful participation in today’s interdependent worlds of scientific research and development-project activity requires active engagement by university personnel in collaborations that cross disciplinary, institutional, knowledge-system, and nation-state boundaries.

The potential benefits of transnational, transprofessional, and transsectoral knowledge links include positioning at the cutting edge of information flows, emerging and innovative ideas and possibilities (Prewitt 2003, p. 42), impending policy changes (Jones 2007, p. 330), and technological and social breakthroughs (e.g., Oleksiyenko and Sa 2010, p. 368). Additional benefits for the institution’s research efforts include access to resource opportunities, needed expertise, and capability expansion. The World Bank (2002) treats information flow, especially through information and communication technologies, as a powerful driver of a “new global knowledge economy” that it has committed to help mobilize in the interest of accelerated economic progress (also see Ilon 2003, p. 67; Harman 2006, p. 45; Robertson 2009, pp. 113, 122–123). The Bank’s central “development” rationale for investing in education remains gross domestic product (GDP) growth (Tikly 2011a, p. 88); its unidimensional approach to knowledge building has emphasized productive power and competitiveness in responding to global market-driven changes at the expense of human and social development and values and lifestyles that promote sustainable living (Singh 2007, pp. 57, 73; Moja 2008, pp. 162, 164–165; Taylor 2008b, p. 98).

Knowledge-driven initiatives offer African countries opportunities to address economic, social, and policy challenges and, potentially, to reduce North–South gaps. For instance, investment in agricultural research has been highly productive for investors and African economies (Kellogg and Hervy 2009, p. 8). However, as Bailey (2010, p. 31) observes, “there is still a paucity of work on the relationship between knowledge production and development in general, and the research–policy nexus in particular, in developing countries.”

As in other parts of the world, the policies, processes, and practices that condition knowledge production in Africa are undergoing profound and complex transformations at national and institutional levels. Among institutions of higher learning, the organizational and epistemic character of knowledge production has been reconfigured along three interrelated trajectories: commodification of knowledge, pluralization of knowledge-production sites, and the restructuring of basic disciplinary architecture (Zeleza 2005).

Commodification

Commodification denotes that scientific knowledge has been reconstituted as a private monetized and tradable commodity rather than presented as a public good (Portnoi et al. 2010, p. 1; also Samoff and Carrol 2006, p. 150). This development is consistent with Neave’s (2012, p. 3) contention that the new referential model for higher education is the large business corporation. The value of knowledge primarily is determined by global markets (Crossley et al. 2005, p. 35) that are driven by economic growth rather than concern for equity and environmental protection or “ensuring the widest possible use of inventions” (Yarime et al. 2012, p. 109). In addition, knowledge-production technologies have been intensively commercialized and competitively distributed (Gibbons et al. 1994; Gibbons, 2003). Thus, “commodification displaces the creation and passing on of knowledge from the social sphere to the sphere of production” (Neave 2002, p. 3). Universities increasingly resemble and act like business firms, giving priority to fields and ventures that promise the highest growth in revenue (Stromquist 2007, p. 101).

A prime example is Coursera, a newly founded education company that attracted US$22 million in venture capital in less than one year (Lewin 2013, p. A1). Coursera quickly enrolled 1.35 million students from 196 countries in 200 initially free “massive open online courses” offered by 33 partner universities, including Stanford, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Wesleyan, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and other prestigious institutions of higher learning. Most participants do not expect massive open online courses and certificates to remain free for long (Lewin 2012c, 2012b). Likely charges include textbook sales, licensing fees from user educational organizations, and fees for certificates of completion (Lewin 2013, p. A10; Meisenhelder 2013/2014, pp. 8–9).

In addition, many universities, particularly in the North, are adopting business practices and “new public management” principles. Popular moves in this direction include expanded administrative operations, strengthened management control, benchmarking coupled with intrusive and pervasive monitoring and evaluation procedures, international branding, and strategic planning. Most entrepreneurial initiatives are led by enlarged, resource-seizing offices of the provost or academic vice president and are focused on efficiency and excellence (Stromquist 2013, pp. 170–173, 176, 178).

In the race to commodify, moreover, knowledge-production systems around the world increasingly emphasize ventures that link universities with private corporations. University/industry links “provide universities with substantial research support, consulting opportunities, support for postgraduate students, opportunities for graduate employment, and opportunities for academics to gain insights into new developments within industry; while industry benefits through access to university expertise and facilities, access to university intellectual property, and supply of well-trained graduates” (Harman 2006, pp. 55–56). Commodification-driven academic systems accept that “interests such as corporations have claims that come before those of the public” (Naidoo 2010, p. 79).

Higher education’s commodification interfaces occur within a deterritorialized context shaped by increasingly fluid boundaries and exposure to the contagious effects of competitive marketization, privatization, cost effectiveness, revenue generation, and commercial values. In commodification-driven systems, knowledge with commercial application becomes “the crucial production factor . . . for further social and economic development” (Dill and van Vught 2010a, p. 528, emphasis in original; also Mok 2001, p. 302). Consistent with narrow interpretations of economic growth measured by GDP as the key indicator of development, influential international financial institutions elevate building human capital for commercial-production purposes as “the central rationale for investing in education . . . ” (Tikly 2011b, p. 5). Missing from the commodification perspective is concern for equity, benefit sharing, structural transformation, and the university’s role in promoting sustainable development (Stromquist 2013, p. 179).

As Peters (2011, p. 77) points out, however, “knowledge economy” and “knowledge society” are complex, contested, and dynamically differentiating terms with emerging analytical force that spreads beyond neoliberal notions. Moreover, “the inherent public-good character of knowledge ensures that appropriation and commodification can never be fully realized” (Naidoo 2011, p. 52). An alternative, not-for-profit conceptualization holds that “higher education has multiple purposes and ends, not all reducible to narrow corporate understandings of the knowledge society” (Singh 2007, p. 54). In the absence of the profit motive, “more consequential and significant forms of partnering are possible” (Rosenau 2000, p. 233). Other motivations for transnational research and development collaborations include contributing to “harmonious international relations,” a “sense of global citizenship, humanitarian concern, and a desire to see other countries reap the benefits of development and science-driven progress” (Handley 2011, pp. 21–22).

More consequential and significant forms of university partnering constitute the subject of this volume. Whereas internationalization that focuses on income generation tends to concentrate on European and East Asian partnerships and is enrollment-driven, our interest lies with the relatively neglected sub-Saharan Africa region and with partnerships devoted to research and sustainable development that address societal and global challenges of health, poverty, environmental preservation, and conflict resolution (also Stromquist 2013, p. 171).

Pluralization

A second, and interrelated, development is the pluralization of knowledge-production arenas. Pluralization captures the understanding that knowledge currently is generated in diverse and increasingly complex ways by multiple stakeholders located in spaces that extend beyond traditional university boundaries (Scott 2003; Bleiklie 2004; Teichler 2004; Marginson 2009, p. 105).¹ In the emergent knowledge societies, entities such as governments, independent institutes or centers,² for-profit higher-education institutions (e.g., Daniel 2010),³ nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), development agencies, business corporations, and civil-society bodies are actively competing and collaborating with state-supported universities in the definition of research questions and in the production and utilization of knowledge (Gibbons et al. 1994). External-donor support primarily is responsible for the growth of non-university-based knowledge centers in Africa (Okolie 2003, p. 253; Damtew 2009b, p. 157; Hosono 2013, p. 241). Some donors have preferred supporting non-university-based institutions that they expected would be “easily mobilized, less disruptive, and less controversial” (Damtew, 2009b, p. 157).

The national-innovation-systems (NIS) perspective that emphasizes the role of linkages among the various participants in the innovation process (Dill and van Vught 2010b, pp. 8–10) can be extended to embrace wider conceptualizations of contributing actors at local, national, and transnational levels (Singh 2007, p. 64). From our NIS perspective, however, universities remain at the center of plural and transnational knowledge-generating arenas, with internal and reverse-innovation research activities radiating out from their core position (also see Harman 2006, p. 44; Hosono 2013, p. 240).

Restructuring

The internal disciplinary architecture of knowledge is experiencing major restructuring. Academic disciplines are merging, splitting, or otherwise being structurally repackaged and engineered to respond to the rapidly changing global-knowledge landscape. The proliferation of composite fields such as “international-development studies,” “global-health studies,” “sustainability studies,” and “environmental studies” within universities both in the North and in the South bears witness to this phenomenon. Many of today’s most exciting knowledge breakthroughs are emerging from transdisciplinary research along the edges of intersecting boundaries (Harman 2006, p. 49; Enders and de Weert 2009, p. 261). Such transformations in the organizational and epistemic structure of knowledge production and transmission reflect, in part, increased academic mobility both within the global network of universities and at other sites engaged in research. Mobility and transdisciplinarity have created vast opportunities and scope for scientific partnership among researchers in the North and South.

Knowledge-Building Needs of African Higher-Education Institutions

This section explores the knowledge-building needs of institutions of higher learning. The focus here is on research and development missions. Our discussion is framed by two challenging questions raised by Paul Zeleza (2007, p. 98):

What new tasks should African institutions of higher education undertake to meet the changing economic needs of African economies? How, indeed, can the universities best serve their societies as a whole, in addressing pressing social issues from the HIV/AIDS pandemic to civil conflicts at the same time as they seek to protect and promote their own institutional and intellectual autonomy?

Research

The social benefits of university research often are underestimated in both North and South. In addition to vital economic impacts, McMahon (2009, p. 256) reminds us, “research keeps the faculty in touch with new technologies and knowledge developed worldwide, which is then embodied in master’s, PhD, and professional students at the research universities and elsewhere who then teach undergraduates, and leave to teach at other colleges or to fill research and administrative positions in firms, in government, and abroad.” Research also contributes in manifold ways to societal capacity to address glocal challenges. Research at the interface of science, technology, and international relations, for instance, facilitates “progress on otherwise intractable transboundary conflicts” (Juma and Yee-Cheong 2005, p. 157). Biosocial research that joins breakthroughs in anthropology, political science, and economics with those in epidemiology, clinical practice, and molecular biology advances health equity (Farmer 2013, p. iv).

Transcontinental collaborations and access to Northern expertise are particularly important for Africa because modern science and technology are characterized by the increasing concentration of higher-level development research and knowledge production within the industrialized countries and chronic stagnation and erosion in the countries of the South (see Crossley and Holmes 2001, p. 391; Damtew and Altbach 2003, p. 10; Samoff and Carrol 2004, p. 98; Obamba and Mwena 2009, pp. 351, 355, 362, 366; UNESCO 2009, p. 6). The twenty-first-century African research university must be transnational in scope, with faculty and staff collaborating across porous boundaries through team-based, cross-disciplinary partnerships (Mohrman et al. 2011, pp. 43–44).

Grafting Development on Research

The important development function of basic and applied research often is ignored when assessing the contribution of transboundary partnerships (Crewe and Young 2002, p. v; Mohamedbhai 2008, pp. 200–201). From a foundational perspective, technological and informational imbalance, marginalization, and dependence only can be redressed when scholars in the South possess in-depth understanding of change processes and the facilities and incentives that enable innovative and contextually appropriate breakthroughs. As Samoff and Carrol (2004, p. 151) point out, “the conduct of basic research and the opportunity for original thought are in the last resort the only means by which societies can take control of their destiny. Such a function is not a luxury . . . , but an integral part of the development process itself.” Africa’s universities hold the keys to rewarding research-breakthrough initiatives.

Transnational Collaboration for Context-Based Investigations

Transnational and multidisciplinary research partnerships facilitate the collective generation and sharing of knowledge and diverse, yet complementary,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction: Transnational Higher-Education Partnerships for Research and Sustainable Development
• 1  Higher Education and Development: Knowledge as Igniter
• 2  The Landscape of Research and Development THEP Opportunities
• 3  Asymmetry and Symmetry in Transnational Higher-Education Partnerships
• 4  Initiating and Constructing the Transnational Higher-Education Partnership
• 5  Managing the Transnational Higher-Education Partnership: What Does Not Work and What Works
• 6  Symmetrical Capacity-Building Challenges for THEPs
• 7  Partnership-Sustainability Challenges
• 8  Symmetrical THEP Evaluation Challenges
• 9  Evidence from Africa
• 10  Conclusion: Promoting Synergy through Symmetry
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index