Professor Somon Marginson's visit to Moscow
From April, 01 until April, 21 a professor of Higher Education Simon Marginson from Centre for the Study of Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of Melbourne came with a visit to the Graduate School of Education (Moscow).
Professor Simon Marginson is Joint Editor-in-Chief of Higher Education, the principal world scholarly journal in higher education studies. He specializes in higher education, and comparative and international education, being one of the world’s most highly cited social science researchers in these fields.
In addition to academic research and writing, doctoral supervision and teaching, and to University-related service, Simon contributes to community and professional organizations and is a regular public and media commentator on higher education systems.
His studies lie in the field of sociology, political economy, political philosophy, history of higher education, especially in comparative/global perspective and are of an interdisciplinary nature.
He is the author of numerous books e.g.: Education and Public Policy in Australia (1993), Markets in Education (1997), The Enterprise University (with Mark Considine, 2000) and International Student Security (with Chris Nyland, Erlenawati Sawir and Helen Forbes-Mewett, 2010), Ideas for Intercultural Education (with Erlenawati Sawir), Regulating International Students’ Well-being (with Gaby Ramia and Erlenawati Sawir) (mid 2013), three books with Peter Murphy and Michael Peters: Creativity and the global knowledge economy (2009), Global Creation (2010) and Imagination (2010). Edited books: Higher education in the Asia-Pacific(with Sarjit Kaur and Erlenawati Sawir), Universities and the Public Sphere (with Brian Pusser, Ken Kempner and Imanol Ordorika), and The Handbook on Higher Education and Globalization (with Roger King and Rajani Naidoo), все в 2011.
You can find extra information about prof. Marginson on his web page: http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/people/marginson.html
Project description
TITLE: Higher education and public good: A global comparison
The research project is supported by three years of funding from the Australian Research Council (2013-2015).
PROJECT: The research will develop an integrated world-wide framework for compiling, classifying and measuring the public benefits created by higher education institutions. This framework is being developed on the basis of a context-based study, comparison and synthesis, of the definitions and measures of public benefits used in each of several higher education systems: Germany, Finland, Russia, China, Korea or Japan, UK, USA, Australia. This is a challenging area to research because (a) while some of the private benefits of higher education can be readily identified, for example using rates of return data, there is no standard or agreed classification system for identifying public goods; (b) different disciplines are used to model public benefits; and (c) the area is highly politicized in many countries, to the point where there is little clarity. Hence the need for the research, more so given that governments, societies and stakeholders expect much of higher education.
The Australian study has been largely complete. The second study will take place in Russia in April-June 2013. National case studies consist of semi-structured interviews with institutional leaders, relevant administrator and selected professors in two or three contrasting higher education institutions in each country (at least one global research university, and one technical-vocational institution), together with government officials and academic experts on the definition and measurement of non-market and public outputs. Case studies also entail examination of relevant policy literatures. A key task of the research is to explore the understandings of and practices of public benefit in areas that appear to be common to all national systems. These include the provision of a framework of equitable opportunity; social communications; literacy and scientific literacy, political competence and citizen formation; intercultural relations; community building and public health; contributions of faculty to policy. There is also the question of the contribution of national higher education institutions to global public goods, an area which is largely neglected in research and policy but one with growing material weight (e.g. cross-border research flows).
In Russia it is planned to conduct one set of interviews at National Research University - Higher School of Economics. The second and a possible third institution have yet to be identified.
Professor Marginson’s performance at the XIV HSE April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development – took place April, 02 at 3 p.m. with an honorary lecture and April, 03 at the morning plenary session.
The next visit is planned for the period May, 26 - July, 01 when prof. Marginson is planning to participate in Interdisciplinary Summer School of The Graduate School of Education HSE in higher education studies “Creating Effective Universities” and carry out his research.