Going Global 2014: Conference Summary

Last week’s Going Global conference placed the importance of innovative approaches to internationalization in higher education in the spotlight. Hosted by the British Council, the annual Going Global event provides a forum for education leaders from around the world to discuss emerging trends and challenges for the sector, with a focus on the future of higher education.

Although the event has previously been held in the UK, Miami was chosen as the venue for this year’s forum due to the city’s international strengths, its high number of globally recognized universities, and because its geographic location provides a good meeting point for the regions of Latin, Central and North America.

This year Going Global welcomed more than 1,000 delegates, 250 guest speakers and 50 exhibitors. Discussions covered the themes of inclusion, innovation and impact, with a focus on globalizing these efforts and considering the benefits and outcomes for institutions, students, academics, funders and policy makers worldwide.

Sharing lessons on the gender gap in STEM subjects

One speaker, Dr David Docherty, chief executive of the UK’s National Centre for Universities and Business, discussed the issue of gender imbalance in the STEM subjects – saying he was keen to get some insights into how UK universities could close the gender gap in these disciplines. “I’m interested in sharing international experience on gender equality,” Docherty said in an interview prior to speaking at the session entitled ‘Expert nations: developing exceptional talent’.

“Over 50% of the UK graduate pool is now female, and yet only 9% of our professional engineers are female, and on some of our manufacturing and engineering courses 3% of students are female. That’s horrendous,” Docherty said. “Other countries are doing this better. Among eastern and northern European countries, some have 30% female engineers, and in the United States I'm hearing reports of engineering courses that are 55% female. I want to poke around those issues and see if I can bring back some knowledge.”

The challenge of diversifying subject strengths

Another key issue highlighted for the future of higher education was the challenge of trying to boost performance in new subject areas, while maintaining the strength of existing programs. Docherty made the comparison of Japan and the UK to highlight these countries’ shared – yet contrasting – challenges.

“The talent of the future is broad-based and that is a key issue,” he said. “I was in Japan last year with the British Council, talking to senior business people and civil servants, and they told me that they don't have enough liberal arts education because they’ve been so focused on sciences and technology. Therefore, they’re struggling to innovate in a relatively stagnant economy. The point is, there's something embedded in their education system that’s a real challenge to them. I came back to the UK wondering whether our current focus on STEM could force out stuff that we’re actually rather good at, such as liberal arts education.”

Areas for improvement in research infrastructure

In addition to discussion of the benefits of governments in providing grants and scholarships to send students away for international study, another debate raised was the issue of research graduates not meeting the needs of their economy. Professor Julius Weinberg, vice chancellor of the University of Kingston in the UK, said many PhD students in Europe are graduating with skillsets that don’t match the sort of work they end up going into.

He said, “PhD students in Europe are going through programs designed to prepare them for an academic career, yet 80% of them do not go into academia. Meanwhile in developing countries that are building their research and PhD base, the limiting factor is high quality teaching and that is, to some extent, being ignored.”

In the same session, Dr Claire McNulty, director of science at the British Council, said, “Huge advances in technology are changing the way [researchers] collaborate and share and analyze data. It has also been demonstrated that international collaboration is good for research. Researchers need a wide range of skills in order to increase impact and translate it into benefits. Top among these are communication and intercultural skills.”

The constant challenge of “staying relevant”

While the forum unavoidably raised more questions than it was able to answer, the closing session of the Going Global conference emphasized the potential of innovation and development through international collaboration and embracing new technologies, in order to secure the future of higher education by pushing existing models forward into the 21^st century.

“To stay relevant, higher education institutions must reassess their traditional teaching model,” said Hannes Klopper, managing director and co-founder of Iversity, a provider of online open courses. “Universities have to think about how they incorporate non-formal learning into their degree programs. This will challenge them to think hard and re-examine why they continue to operate in the same way they have done for a long time.”