This is the first update to the participants of the Developing Universities project, following the successful and constructive workshop in Lund, 15-17 June. We promised to send you some kind of “proceedings” from the workshop, consisting of guidelines/checklist for the future work, and that is what follow in this update.

Some important comments/conclusions from the workshop included the following:

• The project should not be limited to economic development
• The National System of Innovation (NSI) is a useful concept for including social, cultural issues and recognizing the national context
• It is important to achieve comparability, while at the same time also acknowledging the national context-specific issues
• The role of universities is the unifying element
• The importance of including policymakers
• The need to define what we mean by ’academic institutions’ (institutions providing knowledge / education for the public good)
• It is paramount to find a ground for common research questions

Much of the discussions focussed on what kind of expectations we have on the project. It was pointed out that it is important:
• To find out what is really happening in different countries
• To have something to compare
• To have a basic framework of questions
• To get input on how to catalyze / influence change in each country

There was general agreement that the main purposes of the project were, in addition to the obvious importance of experience sharing, also its learning and competence-building potential, and the opportunity of raising awareness about the increasingly important role of higher education institutions in society.

It was suggested that, as a benchmark, country contributions could use the following main approach:

1. National System of Innovation
* Qualitative and national context-specific
* Characteristics / strengths / weaknesses
* ’Key markers’

2. Mapping University / Higher Education Systems
* Quantitative and qualitative
* Governance, institutional issues
* Milestones / ’Key markers’
* Funding
* Other

Role of Universities / HE systems in NSI
a) General
* Qualitative and quantitative
* Coping with challenges / change / crisis
* Links with the productive sector
b) Case Studies (nationally recognized institutions)
* Internationalization / globalization
* Interaction / learning economy / knowledge economy
* Funding
* Other

The Case Study

It was agreed that the country reports should include one in-depth case study, selected by being “a place that is emblematic for dealing with the challenges of the knowledge economy”. There is a need for an analytic framework/guidelines for composing case studies in order to avoid case studies being too descriptive. Case studies should illustrate / support main themes of the general report

Mapping the national HE System: Suggested Indicators

With respect to the mapping of the university/higher education system, it was suggested that the following indicators could be used:

• Gender / equality
• Student enrolment development
• Funding patterns
• Role / weight of institutes
• Allocation of funds (the place of research in the institution)
• National geography of higher education
• Institutional issues
• Interaction with private sector
• Indicators of change
• Internationalization indicators
• Research issues/potential
• Evaluation / quality control systems

Identifying Key Questions

It was pointed out that all project teams should try to identify key questions that could become common research issues for all (or at least most) of the country studies. In this way each country report would have chapters that (more or less) correspond to the chapters of the other country reports.

Sources/Data issues

It is important that all teams from the outset start with the compilation of a list of surveys currently being undertaken (e.g. national innovation surveys), that could be helpful for other teams as well.

Tentative Timeline

• Proceedings/Update to be sent out beginning of July on weblog
• Comments/input to RPI coordinators by end of July
• 1 page on workshop (by July 31): to be posted on the weblog
• National workshops (should be held before interim meeting); possibility of a second workshop being held later
• Draft working paper by September 2006
• Interim meeting: second half of 2006; Location: to be determined
• Final drafts: to be determined
• Final conference: September/Oct. 2007 Location: to be determined
• Project ends December 2007

Calendar of Related Events

It was stressed that it was important to keep project teams informed about project events, including related events that team members might be interested in. Here follows a few such events:

• Globelics Third Conference, Pretoria, South Africa Oct.31-Nov.4, 2005
• ”Universidad” Conference, Havana, February 2006
• World Bank/SSRC meeting on ”university-industry linkages in Asia project”, November 2005, Washington DC

Position papers

The workshop participants had been asked to prepare country position papers in order for us to evaluate to what extent there were common points of interest, and to what extent there were diverging interests of project teams. You have all access to the various position papers. We are at the RPI currently reviewing all position papers in order to find a synthesis that we could present to you. We will try to present such a synthesis, with suggestions and comments, in the next update (August).