The Promise of Higher Education

This book is a collection of short essays, accessible through open access, which takes the interested reader on a tour across the global higher education landscape. It addresses pertinent themes and challenges in higher education. To mark the 70^th anniversary of the International Association of Universities (IAU) and its role in higher education since 1950, experts from around the world share their insights into higher education’s recent past, present and future. The book is divided into six parts:

Part I – “70 years of Higher Education Cooperation and Advocacy” looks back at key events in  IAU’s history, its mission and significant activities over time, and remarks on the  current global context informing its quest to promote academic partnerships and solidarity on a global scale.

Part II – “Facilitating International Cooperation” provides for different perspectives on the transformation of the internationalisation of higher education and the contribution of higher education to international cooperation.

Part III – “Coding the Values” debates the values upon which higher education was, is and will have to be built to provide for a democratic and inclusive society.

Part IV – “The Changing Landscape” analyses various aspects of the transformation of higher education in an evolving context across the globe.

Part V – “The Promise of Education” reflects on the role of higher education, its ideals and shortfalls and what it must do to stay true to its promise to help shape our societies.

Part VI – “Opening up – The Future of Higher Education” focuses on future scenarios of higher education and call on the reader to envision a different kind of higher education and reimagine the contribution of higher education to society, as well as future roles for the IAU.

The book will be of interest to higher education policy makers and academics. It is also of interest to the general public, as it provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges higher education institutions currently face and suggests scenarios of what the future of education might look like.

• Open access
• International Association of Universities
• Relevance and value of higher education
• Fundamental principles of higher education
• International co-operation for higher education
• Changing landscape of universities
• IAU principles
• 70 years of IAU

• International Association of Universities, Paris, France

  Hilligje van't Land, Andreas Corcoran

• National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania

  Diana-Camelia Iancu

Hilligje van’t Land is Secretary General of the International Association of Universities and Executive Director of the International Universities Bureau. Over the past years, initially as Director and later as Deputy Secretary General, she co-supervised the overall programmatic activities of the IAU and the everyday work of the secretariat, she engaged in developing the IAU Membership base and strengthening the IAU membership development strategy. Prior to joining the IAU, Dr van’t Land taught comparative francophone literature at the Universities of Groningen, Laval (Québec) and Avignon et les Pays du Vaucluse. For five years she also headed the Institute for American Universities in Avignon. She has been very active in the field of Canadian Studies globally, since 1987. Hilligje van’t Land holds a PhD in comparative contemporary francophone literatures from Groningen University, in the Netherlands and completed a post doc research period at Laval University (Québec).

Andreas Corcoran took up the position as Deputy Secretary General of the International Association of Universities in 2019. Prior to joining the IAU, Dr. Corcoran was Director of Higher Education at SOFIA in Rome, in charge of financial, academic and institutional development and governance of a university in Tanzania. Previously, Dr. Corcoran worked for the University of Kent in the UK, the Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt Foundation and the German Historical Museum in Berlin. Dr. Corcoran holds a PhD in History and Civilization from the European University Institute in Florence and a Master’s from Trinity College Dublin.

Diana-Camelia Iancu is senior fellow of the International Association of Universities since 2019 and Dean of public administration, at the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration (Bucharest), since 2012. For the past decade, she has taught comparative public management in Bucharest and Nijmegen (at RadboudUniversity) and assumed different academic assignments in Greece, France, Slovenia, Spain and the US. Her research interests include international development and administrative capacity building in transitional countries, as well as quality assurance in teaching public administration. Dr. Iancu holds a PhD cum laude in public administration from the National University of Political Studies and Public Administration.

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