Revolution in higher education

BEN WILDAVSKY, fellow at the Ewing Marion Kauffman foundation states that globalization of universities had resulted in a shake-up of the old order in higher education with wide-ranging benefits for all including increased mobility and availability of human capital, scientific talent and greater free trade in minds and ideas. In a discussion organized by the Carnegie Council on his book, "The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities Are Reshaping the World", he points out that mobility of students, cross-national scientific research and branch campuses had increased significantly in the past decade. He opines that a lot of countries now saw a thriving university system as their pathway to innovation and growth and this had resulted in increasing academic investments, partnerships and quality improvements with a greater focus on global metrics to measure academic quality which in turn was feeding a beneficial cycle of improvements.