How will higher education shape the future? A symposium

Roles and responsibility of the university in shaping future societies

How can higher education adapt to rapid changes? How can we prepare the students for an unknowable and uncertain future? How can digitalisation contribute to or represent a threat to the original missions of the university? What organisational/national policies can help to prepare universities for the changes to come?  These will be the focus of a session at ISA World Congress 2018 in Toronto this summer, where experts of the field will be engaged with the audience in discussion about the topic.

The future of the higher education sector in general and higher education institutions in particular is both troubling and uncertain. At the moment, it seems that there are several social, political, economic and technological trends which really test the sector’s and the institutions’ adaptive capacities. A large part of the academic discourse is concerned with these changes and challenges which all lead back to a core question, namely, what the future roles and responsibilities of higher education institutions in society can be. While many studies deal with how HEI can adapt to future trends, less attention is given of what roles these institutions can play in creating more democratic, socially and environmentally responsible societies.

There are two forums addressing this question organised by the Future of Higher Education Research Centre (FHERC). One of them is a special issue in the making at Futures (Elsevier). Based on this, there will be a session at ISA World Congress 2018 (details) in Toronto this summer, where the authors and additional presenters will be engaged in discussion about the topic. The session (Wednesday, 18 July 2018, 15:30-17:20 room 206D) focuses on what kind of roles universities can play in shaping society. Applying an atypical format, there will be three main topics, which will be discussed in small groups after the initial thoughts of the presenters:  1) Teaching and learning about the future, 2) Digitalisation & the future of Higher Education, 3) Policy issues & the future of Higher Education.

Here you can meet

• John Holmwood and Chaime Marcuello-Servos, who will address the question of Public University Pathogens: Digitalisation, Commodification and Precarity,
• Mark Murphy and Cristina Costa, who will be talking about Digital Scholarship, Higher Education and the Future of the Public Intellectual (Full article is available via this link),
• Lars Geer Hammershoj, who will introduce to us The Academic Ethos of Shaping the Future: Cultivating a Sense of History and a Sense of Purpose,
• Mduduzi Mtshali and Radhamany Sooryamoorthy, who will share their research about Challenges for Higher Education in South Africa: The Case of Universities of Technology,
• Elmar Schuell who will show his analysis about Current Trends and Future Challenges of the Austrian Universities of Applied Sciences,
• Farah Purwaningrum who will focus on Towards Societal Relevance? Unpacking the Arrangements of Knowledge Flow in a Private University in Indonesia,
• Shane Duggan who will give details about The Politics of Aspiration: Digital Disruption and the Promise of the New in Australian Higher Education Policy,
• Senan Gardiner who will provide an explanation about Embodying Transformative Futures: The Relationship of Agency and Anticipatory Competence,
• Andrea Toarniczky, Reka Matolay, Judit Gaspar who will present their experience about Responsible Higher Education – Practicing Transformative Learning and Teaching.

We look forward to having a discussion with you!

Zsuzsanna Géring and Gábor Király (FHERC)

Budapest Business School