SCANDINAVIA: Nordic countries plan cooperative future

Nordic countries would be in a strong position if they presented a common profile in the European field of higher education and research based on their high quality and extensive monitoring, delegates were told at a conference in Denmark last month.

But a Danish member of parliament criticised the ambitions of the European Union's 2020 plan for higher education and research as "hopelessly low".

The conference, Promotion of Nordic Higher Education and Research-Classification and ranking in the Nordic agenda, was organised by the Nordic Council of Ministers with the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in Copenhagen.

Denmark's Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Charlotte Sahl-Madsen told the conference about her recent visit to Beijing where she had opened the Danish research centre. "The Chinese economy is in strong growth despite the financial crisis," she said.

"The Chinese are educating three million engineers each year - in eight years that's as many engineers as there are people in the Scandinavian countries. According to the Danish industrial representatives working in China these are very good engineers - and they can command one tenth of the Danish salary!"

"If we in the Nordic countries are prepared for the challenges the world is now facing, we have to be creative and to exploit those areas where we together have a strong standing," she said.

"We have to demonstrate better that Scandinavia has something special to offer with regard to quality in research and higher education. We have to make the Nordic university a magnet for students and researchers from abroad."

Professor Frans Van Vught, Chair of the European Centre for Strategic Management of Universities, presented the EU's U-Map project for developing a European classification of higher education institutions.

Van Vught said the Nordic countries were in a strong position to present a common profile in the field of higher education and research based on their high quality and extensive monitoring of these sectors.

"On this basis Nordic countries can make a valuable contribution to the European process, if they decide to cooperate more closely," he said.

Malou Aamund, the higher education spokeswoman of Denmark's Liberal party, was not impressed with the EU 2020 plan for higher education and research.

"The plan makes me deeply disappointed," Aamund told the Copenhagen University Post. "It is almost a laughing matter when we see the low ambition of this plan. When Denmark is one of three countries that already allocate 3% of GNP to research, what objectives shall we then tell our colleagues in the EU27 that we have for 2020?"

She was disappointed the first drafts of the EU2020 memo were operating with a 5% GNP objective for EU research in 2020. "It looks as if this objective has disappeared," she said.

Among its conclusions, the conference agreed that, with university rankings now part of a global fight on values, a new multidimensional classification of universities should include more 'soft values' such as pedagogics and learning, and quality of teaching.