WT14 – The reform of higher education

In partnership with :

Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament d’Innovació, Universitats i Empresa. Generalitat de Catalunya. www.gencat.cat/diue/index.html

Workshop presentation

What does society, in China and in Europe, expect today from higher education? What kind of university do we need? For the last two centuries, the world has gone through radical transformations as much in the nature of issues as in their complexity and their scale. Scientific and technical knowledge has literally invaded daily life and have become the main factors of production and power. The development of techno-science is guided by economic and strategic interests more than by pure longing to unveil the mysteries of nature. The expectations of society with regards to higher education have radically changed in scale and in nature.

Nevertheless, in its means of organisation and ideology, the university is still the direct heir of the modern university born in Europe at the beginning of the 19th-century, and the « social contract » between university and society perhaps no longer reflects the role that the university plays in the evolution of society.

In this workshop, direct comparison will be made of the analyses of these issues by actors of various natures.