World Class Worldwide: Transforming Research Universities in Asia and Latin America (review)

This edited volume examines the status of research universities in seven middle-income and developing countries of Asia and Latin America, namely Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Mexico, and South Korea. The book's comparative approach "highlights common problems and accomplishments and suggests new ways of thinking" (p. vii) about fostering the growth of research universities. Due to space considerations, however, this review will focus on the chapters related to Latin American higher education.

Philip Altbach's introduction provides a comprehensive description of research universities and outlines the major challenges that they face, such as funding, the growth of the private sector, academic freedom, and professionalism of the professoriate. He sets the premise that strong research universities are important for allowing middle-income and developing countries to participate in the knowledge-based economy of the twenty-first century.

The collection's six case studies from Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile well illustrate the complexity of building research universities in Latin America. Simon Schwartzman discusses the Universidade de São Paulo (USP), a state-funded institution, which annually awards about 25% of all doctoral degrees in Brazil. The author maintains that USP is one of the few Brazilian institutions that has the ability to become a world-class university, provided that policy changes are made to allow the institution more autonomous decision-making related to enrollment, resource management, and personnel. João Steiner's article provides a broad overview of graduate education in Brazil with a focus on institutional rankings and prestige. He finds that none of Brazil's universities can be considered world-class, but that there are certain academic programs at particular institutions that do make the grade. Steiner's article would have been improved by a more detailed analysis of Brazil's national approach to building research capacity.

Imanol Ordorika and Brian Pusser present the case of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) as an example of a state-building institution. Their chapter provides a thorough discussion of the role of state-building institutions and critiques why the flagship university concept, imported from the U.S. and Europe, may not be an appropriate model for higher education institutions on the global periphery. They close by considering UNAM's future as it adjusts to neoliberalism's challenge to its "historical centrality" (p. 199). Salvador Malo's review of the Mexican system of higher education brings up the role of institutional autonomy in building research-oriented universities, a recurrent theme throughout the book. He offers a cogent response to Altbach's introduction by questioning whether resources invested in building research universities might be more effectively used for other pressing higher education needs in middle-income and developing countries.

The chapters on Chile and Argentina by Andrés Bernasconi and Ana García de Fanelli, respectively, provide good insight on the higher education systems in these two countries. Funding limitations, lack of full-time research faculty, and governance issues (particularly at the University of Buenos Aires) are barriers to the development of full-fledged research institutions.

Jorge Balán's conclusion aptly ties together the issues raised by the country case studies. He contrasts the Asian and Latin American experiences, pointing out that some of the Asian countries benefit from greater differentiation in governance and funding than the Latin American countries. Latin America has also had more difficulty than Asia in transforming the professoriate into a full-time career path. Balán expressly states that his chapter does not deal with the issue of whether the goal of building research universities "is the right thing to do" (p. 305) for middle-income and developing countries. As readers, we are left to draw our own conclusions about this.

Scholars of comparative and international education will certainly welcome this collection's valuable insights on the status of Latin American...