Academic Freedom and Emerging Research Universities

Ahmed C. Bawa Academic Freedom and Emerging Research Universities HIGHER EDUCATION HAS REEMERGED AS A KEY INGREDIENT IN THE developm ent strategies of emerging nations and economies, with unprecedented growth in its provision and participation rates. Worldwide there is a deliberate, planned shift toward its massification. Between 1960 and 2004, the number of participants in some form of higher education grew from about 13 million to about 132 million— that is, from 0.4 percent to about 2 percent of the world’s population, a five-fold growth in participation rate (Haddad, 2006). Even in sub-Saha­ ran Africa, where the participation rate of 18 to 24 year olds is no more than about 3.3 percent—and keeping in mind that the participation rates of the two larger systems, South Africa and Nigeria, are 16 percent and 10 percent respectively—the number of 18 to 24 year olds in higher education is growing at the rate of 8.7 percent per year (Morley, 2007). Higher education is a costly provision. Its development is spurred on by two primary conditions. The first is what is perceived to be an inextricable (and enviable) link between higher education and economic growth that has emerged in the global North and also in powerfully growing emerging economies such as South Korea and Brazil. The second condition is the undeniable increase in social (and hence political) pressure for access to higher education as democratic transformations take hold in many parts of the developing world. On social research Vol 76 : No 2 : Summer 2009 481 the one hand this is a political process—politicians responding to popu­ lar pressure. On the other it is a reflection of the link between upward social mobility and success in higher education. Massification—because of its cost—is a major source of rethinking about higher education. In particular, it has spurred on a debate about the cost of higher educa­ tion, how it should be paid for, and the extent to which it should be subsidized by the public purse. While massification is a powerful driving force for the transfor­ mation of higher education, research and research capacity building are always central to the discussion. In recent times this transforma­ tion has been increasingly directed and goal-driven as nations contem­ plate their entry into the global economy through their participation in the “knowledge economy.” Some nations contemplate the estab­ lishment of new research universities and others concentrate on how to grow and strengthen the research capacity of existing universities and institutes—the larger systems, such as in China, do both. We shall explore later in the paper the imagination that drives these discussions. As one might expect, there is considerable interest and ambition to develop universities based on the most successful research universi­ ties of recent times even though the prevailing conditions may be so vastly different. Explicit discussions are at an advanced stage about the establishment of US-style research universities in China, India, parts of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa. Having said this, there are many research or research-intensive universities outside of the global metropoles and in the developing world that compete strongly with the famous research universities in the global North. Universidade de Sâo Paulo, Brazil’s foremost university, for instance, produced about three times as many PhDs as did the University of California at Berkeley in 2003 (Schwartzman, 2007:144). Since research universities reside within local systems of higher education, it is important to pay attention to what is happening with these systems. They articulate with the other institutions in those systems through qualification structures and curricula. On the other hand, research universities are intricately linked with the global 482 social research research system. And so it is a risky business to disaggregate the creation or development or evolution of research universities from the national systems and from the global frameworks that affect them. They are embedded in both. In terms of the purpose of the theme of this volume it is important to understand how academic freedom plays itself out within the overall system instead of just at the research university. C O NDITIO NS FOR THE EMERGENCE OF RESEARCH...