According to the new report "The Road to Academic Excellence: The Making of World-Class Research Universities", which charts the experience of 11 leading public and private research universities in nine countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, elite research universities are outpacing the smartest companies in the world with their original research. In one recent global study on new patents, for example, leading universities and research institutions are driving more scientific strides in biotechnology than private companies and firms.
"Looking at the elite research and grant money cascading out of world-class universities, as well as their new thinking in the humanities and social sciences, you can certainly understand why countries might think that a top-flight research institution is all that stands in their way of reducing poverty, leaping forward in their national development, and establishing new footholds in the global knowledge economy," says Dr. Jamil Salmi, the Bank’s Higher Education Coordinator, and a co-author of the new report. "But this decision cannot be simply tactical. It must be a long-term strategic decision that aspiring countries take, weighing all the facts, while banishing any notion of fast results."
Common characteristics
The new report concludes that top-performers in the research university world share three common characteristics, without which 21st Century universities cannot survive, let alone, excel: a high concentration of talented academics and students, significant budgets, and strategic vision and leadership.
In most cases, world-class universities have students and faculty who are not exclusively from the country where the university operates. This enables them to attract the most talented people, no matter where they come from, and open themselves to new ideas and approaches. Unquestionably, the world’s best universities enroll and employ large numbers of foreign students and faculty in their search for the most talented. In this respect, the fact that world-class universities succeed in mobilizing a broadly diverse national and international academic staff is likely to maximize these research institutions’ knowledge-networking capacity.
High costs
Another conclusion from the new Bank study is that building and operating world-class universities can cost millions of dollars. For example, the authors show that in late 2007, Saudi Arabia announced plans for a new $10 billion graduate research university; Pakistan plans to spend $750 million for each of its new universities of engineering, science, and technology during the next few years; and the school of medicine established by Cornell University in Qatar in 2002 cost $750 million. The availability of abundant money and international prestige creates a virtuous circle that allows elite universities to attract more top professors and researchers, as is often the case for leading U.S. colleges.
The full publicationhttp://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTEDUCATION/0,,contentMDK:23015722~pagePK:210058~piPK:210062~theSitePK:282386,00.html here.
