The Unesco Forum on Higher Education, Research and Knowledge is published a Research Report, Systems of Higher Education, Research and Innovation: Changing dynamics that explores rapid changes in global knowledge systems.

Edited by Lynn Meek, Ulrich Teichler and Unesco Forum director Mary-Louise Kearney, the report marks the end of the first phase of the Forum. It will be presented at a session of the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education in Paris from 5-8 July.

The Forum was established in 2001 as a global platform for critical engagement with knowledge systems. Its mandate has been to study, analyse and deepen understanding of structures, policies and developments in higher education, research and innovation. The report pulls together Forum research and findings over the past decade.

In her introduction, Kearney argues that higher education, research and innovation (HERI) systems are driving the Knowledge Society and Knowledge Economy, making 'research on research' increasingly important to all countries. She highlights global inequalities in the funding and production of knowledge, and describes results and strategies that have emerged from Forum research and debates.

In chapter one, Berit Olsson and Thandika Mkandawire trace the Unesco Forum's work and argue for its continuation as an arena for researchers to present studies and for gathering data on HERI systems, enabling trends and developments to be assessed and country comparisons to be made.

Lynn Meek and Dianne Davies chart developments in higher education, research and innovation over past decades. They investigate radical changes in higher education and argue that declining public funding has undermined the idea of universities as producers of public goods and placed research at risk. The involvement of stakeholders, patterns of diversity and differentiation and new roles for universities in HERI systems, are also investigated.

In chapter three, Ulrich Teichler and Yasemin Yağci look at impacts of developments in higher education, research and knowledge on academia. Effects of internationalisation and global mobility on countries are probed, along with growing pressures on academics and researchers, and issues of quality, relevance and cultural diversity.

One of the Forum's major undertakings was a review, led by Johann Mouton and Roland Waast, of the research systems of 52 developing countries. They gathered data and commissioned new studies on these relatively uncharted research systems, found a growing gap in knowledge production within the developing world and looked at reasons why research productivity is on the rise in some nations but not in others.

Chapter five - by Simon Ellis, Ernesto Fernandez-Polcuch and Rohan Pathirage - considers ways of comparing knowledge systems using instruments such as the OECD's Frascati Manual. They argue that indicators for measuring knowledge systems in developing countries need to be redesigned to make statistics and indicators cross-nationally comparable and able to reflect a country's specific economic and societal features.

The Research Report concludes with a chapter by Mala Singh who suggests elements for a future Forum agenda so that 'research on research' can continue to advance. Singh argues that the Forum needs to redefine key concepts that underpin research and innovation, and that more effective ways must be found to link knowledge to development.

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