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World Universities Forum

World Universities Forum 2011

Background | Supporters

Welcome to the website of the World Universities Forum. In 2011, the Forum will be held at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong from 14 to 16 January. The Forum examines the role and future of the University in a changing world. It is ambitious in its intellectual and practical, agenda-setting scope, and broad in its themes. The major focus of this year’s World Universities Forum is “Asia Rising and the Changing Architecture of Global Higher Education.”

This year’s Forum welcomes the following plenary speakers:

  • Anthony B.L. Cheung, President, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong
  • S. Gopinathan, Professorial Fellow, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • Shi Jinghuan, Professor and Executive Dean, Institute of Education, Tsinghua University, China
  • Hugh Lauder, Professor of Education and Political Economy, University of Bath, UK
  • Colin Power, Chair, Commonwealth Consortium for Education, President, World Education Fellowship, Director/Emeritus Chair of Eidos, Former Deputy Director-General of UNESCO; Australia
  • William G. Tierney, Professor of Higher Education and Director, Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis, University of Southern California, USA
  • Tapio Varis, Professor of Professional Education, University of Tampere, Finland
  • Xu Xiaozhou, Professor and Dean, College of Education, Zhejiang University, China

Additional details on these speakers are available at http://2011.ontheuniversity.com/plenary-speakers/index.html.

The 2011 World Universities Forum will also inaugurate awards for Best Press, Policy and Practice in Higher Education. To learn more about these awards, and make nominations, please see: http://2011.ontheuniversity.com/wufawards/index.html.

Participants are welcome to submit a presentation proposal either for a 30-minute paper, 60-minute workshop, a jointly presented 90-minute colloquium session or a virtual session. Parallel sessions are loosely grouped into streams reflecting different perspectives or disciplines. Each stream also has its own talking circle, a forum for focused discussion of issues.

Presenters may choose to submit written papers to the Journal of the World Universities Forum, a fully refereed academic Journal. Virtual participants also have the option to submit papers for consideration by the Journal. All registered Forum participants receive a complimentary online subscription to the Journal when registration is finalised. This subscription is valid until one year after the Forum end-date.

If you would like to know more about the Forum, bookmark the World Universities Forum site and return for further information – the site is regularly updated. You may also wish to subscribe to the Forum and Journal Newsletter.

For all inquiries, please contact the Forum Secretariat.

Background

The World Universities Forum is held annually in different locations around the world. The Forum was held in Davos, Switzerland in 2008; in conjunction with the Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay, Mumbai, India in 2009; and in the Congress Center Davos, Davos, Switzerland in 2010.

One of the paradoxical characteristics of our time is that some of the most creative thinking comes from business, politicians and other community leaders rather than academe. The World Universities Forum has been created in the belief that there is an urgent need for academe to connect more directly and boldly with the large questions of our time, in much the same way that the World Economic Forum has forged a role of global intellectual leadership for politicians, business people and community leaders.

Established in 1991, the World Economic Forum has been an important site for dialogue and debate regarding the major social and economic problems of the planet. At its annual meetings in Davos, it brings together the most astute thinkers and scholars and the most powerful economic and political organisations, to participate in wide-ranging conversations and set the agenda for on-going debates. It has become increasingly influential in shaping policy debates.

While much of the discussion at Davos concerns political and economic matters, the topics WEF considers have profound implications for universities around the world, not only in relation to their governance but also with respect to the issues of how best to interpret and respond to the global transformations. As they consider the broader context within which they are located, universities are not only more affected by the issues that WEF addresses than ever before, but they also have a greater role to play in solving the global problems and setting the agenda for the knowledge economy and society.

With the interests of WEF and universities increasingly aligned, the World Universities Forum (WUF) has been planned as a counterpoint, enabling a genuine exchange of ideas between political and economic leaders, University sector leaders and leading higher education scholars.

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