Universities and development - Insights from Europe

Opening Higher Education South Africa's 3rd Biennial Research and Innovation Conference, Trevor Manuel - minister in the presidency and chair of the National Planning Commission - challenged South African universities to step up to the plate and actively contribute to the future development of the country and its various local communities.

The conference was held in Pretoria from 2-4 April on the theme of "Higher Education Engaging with the National Development Plan: Exploring the possibilities and limits in research and innovation".

During the conference there was much discussion about: competition between universities; barriers to collaboration; tensions between world-class research and community engagement; the need for non-linear models of innovation; the silos between different departments of state in their dealings with universities; and the absence of a formal role in shaping higher education for South Africa's provinces.

These are not unique challenges, so can South Africa learn from Europe, whose traditions laid the foundations for much of the South African higher education system?

Europe's fragmentation and focus

In Europe universities are involved in a wide range of European policy areas relating to development - education, research, innovation, employment and regional development - but each policy 'silo' deals with single functions of the university.

This policy fragmentation is reinforcing a splintering between teaching and research and the marginalisation of engagement with the economy and society to a third and, by definition, inferior role.

Europe has recognised the 'metrics' challenge of how to measure higher education's contribution to society beyond the academy, and alternatives to institutional rankings based solely around academic prestige, but progress is slow.

The dominant European focus is on science and technology and the 'triple helix' of university-business-government - where the metrics are well established (patents, spin-outs etc). The role of the arts, humanities and social science in addressing societal challenges in a 'quadruple helix' embracing civil society is neglected.

There are institutional leadership and management challenges, especially in longer established universities with loosely coupled organisational structures. Last but not least, many of these integration issues are thrown into sharp relief in cities and regions where universities can play a key role as 'anchor' institutions.

As Ellen Hazelkorn has pointed out, there are tensions throughout Europe between developing world-class universities and building a national higher education system that serves the public interest in all parts of a country.

She suggests that no member state of the European Union will be able to afford all of the higher education that its citizens demand or society requires, and asks whether resources should be directed to a few universities to help them perform best in reputation rankings - the Sheriff of Nottingham model.

Or should national policy ensure resources meet the needs of wider society? More specifically, what are the tradeoffs between public and private good and between institutional ambition and system coherence?

The supposed introduction of a higher education market place in England does not seem to be the answer as it is leading to increasing stratification in its higher education system; there is little evidence that its science excellence model creates significant exploitable knowledge for society.

Many European elite universities are disconnected from society and the places in which they are located. Higher education funding models are tensioned against evidence that much-needed societal innovation derives from interdisciplinary, collaborative solutions and interactions between networks of different actors requiring a diversity of institutions.

But the need for territorially based collaborative clusters of institutions working together to make the system as a whole world-class is hardly recognised by territorially blind higher education policies.

How to avoid the mistakes of Europe

So what does this challenge of opening out universities to wider society mean for South African universities? How can the country avoid the mistakes of European models?

A very insightful 'Diagnostic' prepared as part of South Africa's National Development Plan, on the role of institutions and governance in the 'developmental state', poses a number of challenges for the country but makes no reference at all to the role that universities and their staff could play beyond those activities that are internal to higher education.

The Diagnostic for example refers to: "An institution's legacy, the perspectives and attributes that staff bring to their jobs, and the way in which it [the institution] is viewed by citizens are just as important as formal roles. Staff typically carry out many functions not specified in their contracts; they draw on their experience and their formal training; and they interact socially, which informs their attitudes to their work...

"There is no getting around the complex challenge of enhancing institutional capacity... Isolated initiatives divert attention from the need to strengthen the main [education] systems."

One might therefore ask how the mission to serve South African society is being embedded in its universities. The Diagnostic highlights the role of leadership and argues: "Leaders need to have more than technical expertise.

"They need to be able to identify opportunities and constraints, and find the best ways of working within different organisational strategies and cultures; they need to build cohesive leadership teams; they should be role-models for the values and culture of the organisation to reinforce the sense of professional identity and common purpose; they need to be visible and accessible, to both the public and their workforce, through regular engagements and genuine, meaningful interaction."

How can leaders of South African universities develop such boundary spanning skills? These are all issues relating to building capacity for the developmental state so the Diagnostic notes:

"There are no standard recipes for running an economy. The more fundamental question is not how the state should intervene, but what capacity it needs to intervene effectively. Where such capacity is lacking, policies either need to be revised or to be accompanied by a realistic strategy for enhancing capacity in the identified areas.

"Limitations on state capacity do not make ambitious economic policies unworkable, but they do mean the process of economic policy-making needs to take account of how these limitations can be addressed, or how policies can be tailored to the existing strengths of the state."

The need to break out of silos

These challenges to universities and their funders in terms of the capacity they can bring to development are not unique to South Africa.

Universities and their sponsors here as elsewhere need to come out of their silos and assume their rightful role as key institutions in the building of civil society nationally and in the places where they are located.

One way forward would be for Trevor Manuel to follow up the conference by chairing an independent review involving a number of creative thinkers and doers from inside and outside higher education to explore how best to address some of the challenges.

The review could focus on how to build sustainable bridges between universities and the outside world through what are being referred to elsewhere as 'quadruple helix' partnerships of universities, business, government and civil society, building on some of the imaginative partnerships that already exist in some parts of South Africa.

* John Goddard is emeritus professor of regional development studies at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. This article is a summary of a presentation titled "The Role of Universities in National and Local Development: Insights from Europe for South Africa", given at a seminar organised by Higher Education South Africa and the University of Johannesburg on 4 April 2014.