Upcoming Talk: Building World-Class Universities: Policies, Enabling Conditions, and Broader Measures of Excellence
Date & Time:
September 29th (Tuesday) at 9:00-10:15 AM (Hong Kong time)
September 28th (Monday) at 8:00-9:15 PM (Bogotá time)
Venue: Zoom
Speaker: Professor Jamil Salmi, Emeritus Professor of higher education policy, Diego Portales University in Chile; Research Fellow, Boston College’s Center for Higher Education
Chair: Professor Gerard A. Postiglione, The University of Hong Kong
Registration: Scan the QR code or use the link below.
https://hku.zoom.us/meeting/register/zFeIrYtaS2OQNLbcV4w-LQ
Abstract: The talk will address the question of the effectiveness of national policies and institutional efforts to build World-Class Universities (WCUs) by examining the evolution of the global higher education landscape over the past twenty years and by analyzing the main policy approaches adopted to foster the development of WCUs. It will argue that their successful emergence depends on the alignment of three essential factors—concentration of talent, availability of financial resources in a sustained manner, and appropriate governance frameworks—combined with openness to global collaboration and academic freedom. The presentation will look at the need to broaden the common perspective on WCUs by considering the importance of developing high-performing national systems of higher education and expanding the criteria used to define excellence beyond purely academic outputs. It will also assess the growing influence of geopolitical dynamics on the performance and positioning of WCUs in an increasingly fragmented and polarized world.
About the speaker:
Jamil Salmi, a Moroccan education economist, is a global tertiary education expert providing policy advice to governments, universities, professional associations, and development agencies, with 35 years of experience working in 110 countries around the world. Until January 2012, he was the World Bank’s tertiary education coordinator. Dr. Salmi is Emeritus Professor of higher education policy at Diego Portales University in Chile and Research Fellow at Boston College’s Center for Higher Education.
In 2009, Dr. Salmi wrote “The Challenge of Creating World-Class Universities, and the Road to Academic Excellence” in 2011. His 2017 book focused on Tertiary Education and the Sustainable Development Goals. In 2020, he wrote a report on the impact of Covid on higher education through the equity lens for the Lumina Foundation. In 2023, he edited Transforming Lives, a book documenting innovative equity promotion initiatives at the institutional level worldwide. His latest book, coedited with Phil Altbach and Maria Yudkevich and published by MIT Press, is entitled Academic Star Wars: Excellence Initiatives in Global Perspectives.