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20 July 2004 n°41

ACA Newsletter

July

Academic Cooperation Association
Rue d'Egmontstraat 15, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium

The registrations for the next ACA conference ‘Opening up to the Wider World: The External Dimension of the Bologna Process’, are now open. The conference will take place on 18 and 19 October 2004 at the University of Hamburg, in Germany. Early registration with a preferential fee is available until 17 September.

As we reported in ACA Newsletter 39, the conference is organised by the Academic Cooperation Association (ACA) in collaboration with the University of Hamburg and the German Federal Ministry of Education. It will host ca. 250 participants, and is designed for an open debate. The event targets representatives from higher education institutions, national rectors’ conferences; national/regional governments and European institutions; European and international intergovernmental organisations and higher education associations.

Among the speakers that ACA has been able to win for the conference are the following internationally renowned experts: Peter Scott (ACA President, Kingston University, UK), Peter van der Hijden (European Commission), Christian Tauch (German Rectors’ Conference), Sjur Bergan (Council of Europe), Rolf Hoffmann (German Fulbright Commission), Pieter van Dijk (NUFFIC), Ulrich Teichler (University of Kassel), Catharine Stimpson (New York University), Tony Adams (Macquarie University), and Salvador Malo (CENEVAL).

Please visit our website for more information about the conference programme, practicalities (accommodation, transport, etc.) and the social programme at

The ACA-organised conference ‘The International Campus’ successfully took place in Budapest from 20 until 22 June 2004.

The conference, organised in partnership with the Tempus Public Foundation (TPF), the Institute of International Education (IIE), the Central European University (CEU) and the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, attracted around 200 participants, amongst which were political decision-makers, academics and practitioners of internationalisation from all over Europe, and featured high-level speakers, experts of internationalisation, such as Eva Egron-Polak (Secretary General of IAU), Yehuda Elkana (President and Rector of CEU), Allan Goodman (President and CEO of IIE), and Hanneke Teekens (Director, Department for Academic Relations, Nuffic).

The aim of the conference was to reflect upon the ingredients for a truly international education, in other words, searching and analysing instruments that could allow for a wider participation of students with regards to mobility and reflecting upon the benefits, as well as challenges, of an international campus. Amongst the main issues explored during the conference were the role of international offices in the creation of international campuses, languages and international learning, the needs of students, and the demands of industry and the international labour market on the internationalisation of universities.

One interesting aspect of this conference was that the issue of internationalisation of education was explored by the perspectives of both policy makers and teaching staff, as well as students, thus allowing for a variety of new innovative ideas and different points of view to be exchanged.

At the end of the conference, ACA received a very positive feedback from the participants, with regards both to the content of the conference as well as the organisation and the social programme. ACA is very grateful to the Tempus Public Foundation, the Institute of International Education and the Central European University for their help in the organisation of the conference, and to the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft for their financial contribution.

The Secretariat is now working on the next ACA conference to be held in Hamburg from 18 till 19 October 2004 (more information to be found in this newsletter or on the ACA website).

Since 1995 there have been two organisations in charge of the administration of the Leonardo da Vinci programme in Finland. The Finnish Leonardo Centre located at the National Board of Education has had the overall responsibility for the implementation of the Leonardo-programme at national level, while the Centre for International Mobility CIMO has had the responsibility for the Leonardo mobility functions.

In April 2004, the Finnish Ministry of Education took a decision on transferring the Leonardo Centre from the National Board of Education to CIMO as from 1 August 2004.

Uniting the two separately administered functions of the Leonardo da Vinci programme to one operational entity leads to organisational restructuring at CIMO: the whole Leonardo da Vinci programme will become a division of its own. Consequently, the number of CIMO´s personnel will grow by 7 to approx. 90 once the present staff members of the Leonardo Centre become employed by CIMO.

After two years of intense work for the Italian University System and the appreciation of the EUA (European University Association) for the activities carried out, CRUI General Assembly confirmed with a unanimous vote Piero Tosi in the Presidency of the Conference of Italian University Rectors.

“Firstly I have to thank the Assembly – Tosi underlined soon after the re-election - for the tangible and unitary support that I was awarded during my first mandate and such support has been strongly confirmed by today’s vote.

Now, with the same unity, we will have to face up to many unsolved matters, indispensable to improve and promote our university system: cycles reform, revision of professors’ careers, university governance, quality assessment, planning, funding of education and research activities. In this framework – Tosi continued – CRUI would like to assert, as it has already happened in the last few years, its role of “proposing centre” on behalf of the university autonomies. This is the direction that we would like to take in the near future”.

From winter semester 2005/06 on new admission requirements will increase the chances of German undergraduates getting enrolled for academic fields with admission restrictions, as there are business management, biology, medicine and pharmacy. German universities will allocate 60% of their study opportunities available in subjects with restricted admission by internal selections. 20% of the study opportunities in those subjects will be reserved for the top Abiturienten, who can choose their alma mater without any restriction and another 20% will be distributed to applicants after a certain waiting period. The new system will provide the universities with more independence regarding their admission procedures.

"Dany", the new virtual advisor on the DAAD website, is ready to start answering general questions on studying in Germany. Dany speaks English. He answers questions from foreign students, academics, scientists and researchers who wish to begin or continue their academic career in Germany and provides them with an important decision-making basis for a stay in Germany. Besides numerous other activities and initiatives, Dany will also tell visitors about websites which can provide further help; and he will tell them about life in Germany. Dany offers easy and friendly access to the extensive range of information and services offered by the DAAD as well as to the Joint Initiative's six-language information portal www.campus-germany.de
If you'd like to get to know the DAAD's virtual advisor on studying in Germany, just visit him at: www.daad.de/dany

The NORAD Fellowship Programme provides scholarships for students from the South to study in Master's and Diploma programmes in Norway. The programme is based on a vision that good educational opportunities at Norwegian universities and university colleges can contribute to increased competance in the South. Most of the courses in the programme are held in Norway and run over a period of two years. Annual allocation to the programme is NOK 52,5 million.

2004 statistics for the NORAD Fellowship Programme show a positive trend when it comes to the number of female applicants accepted into the programme. The percentage of female students increased from 34,4% in 2003 to 37,1% in 2004. The programme received a total of 2292 applications from 32 countries by the application deadline. This is an increase from 2003, when a total of 1963 applications were received for 93 available fellowships. In 2004, the number of available fellowships has increased to 132, partly due to the participation of two new institutions, the university colleges in Bodø and Stavanger.

The application deadline for studies in 2005, is December 1 2004. For more info, please see our website at www.siu.no/fellows

2. European Policy

The European Commission adopted on 14 July proposals for the new generation of programmes in the field of education and culture. They comprise a proposal for a new integrated lifelong learning programme, incorporating the existing internal education and training programmes, and proposals for the successors to the current MEDIA, CULTURE 2000 and YOUTH programmes.

The integrated lifelong learning programme builds on the current Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes, the e-Learning programme, the Europass initiative, and the various actions in the fields of education and training funded through the Community action programmes. The Erasmus Mundus programme, which has just been launched and will run until 2008, should be incorporated as an additional programme within the Integrated Programme from 2009.

With a budget of around 13.600 million euro over seven years (almost 3 times as much compared to the 2000-2006 budget), the new integrated programme will provide the Union with an instrument to help improve the quality of education and training systems. The effectiveness of the EU programmes in the field of education and training have been repeatedly demonstrated, therefore they can represent a powerful instrument for spreading innovation and good practice and help meet the Lisbon targets. And it is precisely because of the new challenges brought about by the Lisbon targets that the Commission concluded that the new Integrated Programme should aim for a substantial increase in volume and in effectiveness compared to the previous programmes in the same field.

For this Integrated Programme, the Commission has set out the following targets:

· to reach the target of 3 million Erasmus students (since the establishment of the programme) by 2011;

· 25.000 adults each year benefiting from training/mobility under Grundtvig by 2013.

In relation to the 2000-2006 budget for lifelong learning, the 2007-2013 budget shows an increase of over 3 times as much. Within the Integrated Programme, Erasmus will receive 43% of the budget, followed by Leonardo da Vinci (27%) and Comenius (12%).

(Source: Rapid Press Release; ‘Proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an integrated action programme in the field of lifelong learning’, European Commission, 14/07/2004 available on:

At the conference ‘Brain drain, brain gain: new challenges’ held on 30 June at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, Philippe Busquin launched the new network for researchers’ mobility, ERA-MORE.

This new network, which brings together 200 centres in 33 countries in Europe and outside the EU, will supplement the European web portal for the mobility of researchers, and will provide customised practical assistance for researchers and their families in Europe.

ERA-MORE is designed to provide free and personalized assistance to European and overseas researchers before, during and after their periods abroad. By leveraging the resources and expertise of existing organizations in 33 countries, the centres will provide a high level of support on all matters relating to the professional and daily lives of researchers living in a foreign country.

The ERA-MORE network was the highlight of a two-day conference devoted to the mobility of researchers, attended by Mr François d’Aubert, the French Minister for Research, and over 700 scientists and representatives of research bodies and industry.

Philippe Busquin reminded the audience that yet major progress needs to be done in order to meet the Lisbon objectives as Europe is still lagging behind its main competitors, namely the United States and Japan. Besides, he criticised the fact that in Europe physical mobility of researchers is hardly encouraged, and that differences amongst different pension and social security systems make mobility come across as a complicated process for researchers to go through.

Therefore Europe faces the challenge to increase its attractiveness and as a result its competitiveness at global level, by creating appealing conditions which would invite researchers to work in Europe.

Busquin also announced a forthcoming conference on brain gain organised by the Dutch Presidency of the EU and that will take place in The Hague from 29 till 30 September 2004. He was also happy to announce that in 2005 the Commission will launch a campaign – Researchers in Europe - aiming at raising awareness of the importance of the role of researchers for the evolution of society.

Mobility and citizenship education were the main topics during the informal meeting of the European Ministers of Education held from 12 till 14 July in Rotterdam, under the Dutch Presidency.

The meeting, chaired by the minister of education, culture and science in the Netherlands, Maria van der Hoeven, was also attended by the commissioner for education and culture Viviane Reding.

The Monday meeting was dedicated to the topic of mobility. The education minister of Denmark, Ulla Tornaes, pointed out that mobility is indeed paramount to the making of a knowledge-based society, however, it is not sufficient if it is not accompanied by quality, that is creating a European education, research and innovation area, providing sources of finance, which complete Community funding, and making mobility a much broader objective involving companies and social partners.

Commissioner Reding was pleased at the increasing number of Erasmus students, however, she pointed out that the number is still quite low in relation to the total number of students in Europe. She added that the EU should therefore provide the opportunity for more students to benefit from this programme, and aim at reaching three million by 2011.

Ms Reding announced that the Commission would be proposing to double the funding which is currently allocated to education and youth programmes entering into force after 2006, but this decision will have first to be ratified by the European Parliament and the Council.

Education and citizenship was also discussed, and it was suggested that universities should cooperate and start exchanges of best practices, thus reflecting the motto of the Dutch Presidency “Learning from each other”. Commissioner Reding underlined that although cooperation amongst universities is strongly encouraged, education policies still remain the responsibility of Member States, therefore it is up to them to ensure that these policies are applied.

With regards to values to be taught to young European citizens, minister van der Hoeven cited respect for diversity, differences and minorities. Commissioner Reding added that the youth need to be educated from the youngest age possible to listen to and respect their neighbours, as Europe’s task is to find solutions through consensus. Nobel Peace Prize in 2004, Shirin Ebadi, who was invited to express her view on education and culture at the meeting, raised the problem of religious fundamentalism in Europe and called for measures to prevent religious fanaticism through education.

The ministers further agreed that they would use 2005, the European Year of Citizenship through Education, a project of the Council of Europe, to emphasise the importance of citizenship education.

3. Public Tenders and Calls for Proposals in the EU

The purpose of the study is to provide insurance for third-country students who have received a Community grant to study in Europe as part of an Erasmus Mundus Masters course. The deadline for sending proposals is 17 August 2004. Please visit the link below for further details.

4. Other Sources

Throughout the last year, and especially during spring 2004, the ACA Newsletter has followed the on-going debate and the different stages of the new UK education bill on its way to become law (see for example Newsletters no. 35, 36, and 38). The bill created heated debate and provoked numerous student demonstrations across the UK especially because it was to give universities the possibility to charge tuition fees of up to £3,000 (about €4,550) a year for undergraduate study. On the first day of this month, the bill passed the final vote when it was approved by MPs and peers, and will now become law. Universities will now assess the price to charge for each course. These prices will be included in the prospectus for 2006 entry.

While students, among other groups, have seen this bill as a violation of right and equal access to education, the provision for top-up fees has been considered necessary to keep universities’ finances healthy. The education secretary Charles Clarke said, that “Added to the £10 billion that the government will invest in higher education in 2005-06, [the funds raised through tuition fees] will provide universities with the funding they need to improve laboratories and lecture theatres, student accommodation and lecturers' salaries."

The bill includes also important provisions to protect access to higher education for students from less advantaged backgrounds: the Higher Education Act will reintroduce an upfront maintenance grant for the poorest students of up to £2,700 (€4,090) a year. In addition, the higher fees have to be repaid after graduation only once earnings exceed £15,000 (€22,700). Whether this will be sufficient to guarantee equal access, and how this new bill will affect the attractiveness of the UK as a study destination for students from other European countries will remain to be seen.

(Sources: The Guardian, 2 July 2004 and Times Higher Education Supplement, 2 July 2004)

As reported in the ACA Newsletter no. 41, Federal Education Minister Edelgard Bulmahn had announced, on 7 June, that a consensus had been reached between herself and her state (Länder) minister colleagues on the creation of the much-debated German “elite universities” and networked centres of excellence. The funding programme worth 1.9 million Euro, for the period between 2006 and 2010, was to be finally approved in a meeting of the Bund-Länder-Kommission (liaison body of state and federal governments in education) on 5 July. But this aim has not been achieved. While stating their continued determination to go ahead with the programme, a formal decision was postponed until the next meeting of the Bund-Länder-Kommission on 15 November 2004.

A £185m pool to help universities develop closer links with business and industry in the wider community has been announced by the British government.

This sum, awarded by the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), represents the largest figure ever earmarked for this type of project, and will be distributed over the next two years to 124 different projects. One of the fund's primary intentions is to encourage collaboration between higher education institutions, and 46 of the awards have been granted to partnerships involving more than 100 universities.

The awards also focus on the importance of regenerating regional economies. The aim is for the pool to allow universities to translate their research and development into real job opportunities and increased productivity.

The University of Leeds has received £2.5m in total to encourage inward investment and develop business in Leeds and Yorkshire. London South Bank University has been awarded £2.43m and plans to use the money to support the needs of second generation black and minority businesses in the London area.

It is hoped such a strategy will help new business initiatives get off the ground, increase prosperity and boost job opportunities.

France has launched its first public utility research foundations, which are aimed at encouraging private industry and individuals to invest in public research through tax breaks.

Research minister Francois d'Aubert gave details of nine theme-based foundations being developed to promote research. These will benefit from new statutes that will make their operations flexible and entitle sponsors to tax reductions equivalent to 60 per cent of the donation within the limit of 20 per cent of taxable income for individuals, or 0.5 per cent of a company's turnover.

Under the initiative, part of government attempts to meet a target of €3bn for overall research spending during the next three years, the private finance will be matched euro for euro by state funds.

In one, four industrial partners will contribute total capital of €4 million towards research into sustainable development in building technologies. The second will support research into and prevention of cardiovascular diseases and conditions including obesity and diabetes.

Seven private partners, including MacCain, Unilever, Auchan and Credit du Nord, will together provide €10 million. The themes of the other seven foundations are aeronautics and space; finance; ICTs and their effects on health; nutrition, focusing on chemical and microbiological safety and quality and sensory perception of food; alternatives to animal experimentation; road safety; and clinical and physical methods of exploration and treatment in neurology and cardiology.

Proposals for future foundations include transport and limiting carbon dioxide emissions; technology for motor, sensory and cognitive disabilities; biofuels; the converging fields of bio, information and nanotechnologies; and diseases of the nervous system.

A new portal on education in Latin America and the Caribbean has been set up by UNESCO. The aim of the portal is to favour the exchange of ideas and debates about how to improve education, and to spread information and knowledge. The website is managed by the Oficina Regional de Educación para America Latina y el Caribe, whose task is to transform education in Latin America and the Caribbean into an effective instrument for social equity, economic and cultural development.

5. Publications

How are competent teachers to be trained and retained in their profession throughout their entire careers while preserving an optimal balance between the supply of teachers and demand for them? This threefold concern lies at the heart of current thinking and discussion among policy-makers who are anxious to have highly qualified and motivated teaching staff at their disposal so as to ensure that everyone benefits from quality education.

The study consisting of four reports (other three were published in 2002 and 2003) from Eurydice on the teaching profession in Europe has been especially concerned with the initial training of teachers and their transition to working life (Report 1), the supply of teachers and demand for them (Report 2), and their working conditions and pay (Report 3). In this final volume, Eurydice suggests a number of areas for further consideration, which view these complex and interrelated issues from a broader perspective.

Developing the potential of multimedia technology and the Internet for educational purposes is an essential component of European cooperation in education. Three years after publication of the report Basic Indicators on the Incorporation of ICT into European Education Systems, Eurydice is offering a fresh appraisal with 35 indicators.

In this edition, Eurydice information on the teaching of information and communication technology (ICT) and on teacher education is combined with empirical data collected in the international PISA and PIRLS surveys. This material helpfully sheds light on the level of computerisation, including Internet access, and on the use made of computer facilities – whether in terms of frequency or activities in the home or at school.

In the last decade, we have witnessed new forms of cross-border post-secondary education. These forms not only include international student mobility, but also the mobility of educational programmes and institutions across borders. Until now, however, there has been no comprehensive account of these activities at the global level.

This book fills the gap by bringing together up-to-date statistics, case studies and policy reports. It analyses the major trends and developments in cross-border post-secondary education in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. It identifies the rationales of stakeholders and the major approaches to cross-border education. It then focuses on the main challenges that the rapid growth in cross-border education presents for policies both at the national and international levels. Topics covered include policy initiatives to promote cross-border post-secondary education; size and growth of cross-border post-secondary education in terms of student, programme and institutional mobility; assessment of the possible impact of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (WTO), and challenges facing cross-border post-secondary education as well as domestic post-secondary education systems in a context of growing internationalisation.

Internationalisation and Trade in Higher Education: Opportunities and Challenges will be of particular interest to policy makers, researchers, and others involved in post-secondary education.

Cross-border education is undergoing new and growing developments such as e-learning, for-profit providers, joint campuses and transnational consortia. These changes are challenging existing national quality assurance and accreditation frameworks and agencies. At the same time, increasing student and professional mobility across borders has emphasised the importance of mutual recognition of academic and professional qualifications.

This book gives an updated overview of how a number of countries are dealing with these challenges as well as examining international frameworks on recognition of qualifications including UNESCO Regional Conventions and trade agreements. A key conclusion from this overview is that the national framework of quality assurance, accreditation and recognition of degrees is, in many cases, insufficiently geared towards addressing the quality of cross-border and private provision. This increases the risk that learners are victims of rogue degree providers (degree mills), offering low quality educational experiences and qualifications of limited value. In order to fill in this gap of the existing frameworks, OECD and UNESCO are currently working together on developing non-binding international guidelines on “Quality Provision in Cross-border Higher Education”.

6. Upcoming Conferences

July 25-29
12th IAU General Conference: “The Wealth of Diversity - The Role of Universities in Promoting Dialogue and Development”
University of São Paulo, Brazil
www.unesco.org/iau

August 26-28
17th International Conference on Higher Education: “Fundraising for Universities”
University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
http://www.intconfhighered.org/program.htm

August 26-27
OECD conference: “Communicating Higher Education: Image and Reality”
Paris, OECD
www.oecd.org

September 5-8
26th Annual EAIR Forum: “Knowledge Society Crossroads”
Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona, Spain
www.eair.nl

September 8-10
2004 SEFI Annual Conference: “The Golden Opportunity for Engineering Education?”
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Spain
www.sefi20004.com

September 13-15
7th IMHE General Conference: “Choices and Responsibilities: Higher Education in the Knowledge Society”
Paris, France
www.oecd.org/edu/higher

September 15-18
16th Annual EAIE Conference: “Universities: education providers or market players”
Torino, Italy
www.eaie.org

September 18
“The Universality of Institutional Autonomy and Academic Freedom as Fundamental Principles of University Development”
Bologna, Italy
http://www.magna-charta.org/

September 30
Nuffic Conference: “Brain Gain: the Instruments”
The Hague, the Netherlands
www.nuffic.nl

October 4-8
18th IDP Australian International Education Conference: “International Education: The Path to Cultural Understanding and Development”
Sydney, Australia
www.idp.com/conference

October 10-12
Dutch EU Presidency Bologna Seminar: “Designing policies for mobile students”
Noordwijk, the Netherlands
http://www.eu2004.nl/

October 11-12
3rd OECD Forum: “Trade in Educational Services”
Sydney, Australia
www.oecd.org/edu/higher

October 25-29
12th World Congress of Comparative Education Societies: “Education and Social Justice”
Conference Centre of Havana, Cuba
www.hku.hk/cerc/wcces

Online Educa Berlin – 10th International Conference on Technology supported Learning and Training
Berlin, Germany
http://www.online-educa.com/en/

CONTENTS

2. European Policy

3. Public Tenders and Calls for Proposals in the EU

4. Other Sources

5. Publications

6. Upcoming Conferences