Sunday, February 1, 2009

WORLD CLASS UNIVERSITY



There are four factors that are critical for a World Class University. There must be commitment to breadth and excellence in all fields of human inquiry, not simply in a particular niche. World Class Universities engage in cutting edge research whilst at the same time teaching the next generation, their students. Teaching and research are intrinsically bound together, with top researchers inspiring and monitoring their students. In turn, students themselves inspire and challenge their teachers. Great Universities must allow their researchers the freedom to experiment, succeed and sometimes fail. They must be able to make grand mistakes as well as grand discoveries. They must have permeable boundaries. This means encouraging inter disciplinary research and teaching; it means working with the private sector for example, fostering and encouraging partnerships with industry; and it means international collaboration. Universities must never forget that they are very much embedded in their countries and their regions. We are all very much part of where we live and as we look to future, managing the balance between the international and the local is one of the main challenges Universities confront. – Alison Richard, January, 2008.

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