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    Building a Research University: Sunway Shorts
    Building a Research University: Sunway Shorts
    Building a Research University: Sunway Shorts
    Ebook147 pages1 hour

    Building a Research University: Sunway Shorts

    By Peter J Heard

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    About this ebook

    Building a Research University: A Guide to Establishing Research in New Universities is a guide for university leaders who aim to manage the switch from being a teaching institution to one that is research-led. Drawing on the author's own experience leading two different universities, the book covers the importance of research in a modern university, and examines the right balance between teaching and research and the strategies to go through phases of growth and development.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSunway University Press
    Release dateFeb 8, 2022
    ISBN9789675492655
    Building a Research University: Sunway Shorts

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      Building a Research University - Peter J Heard

      Preface

      The demand for higher education has never been greater. In such rapidly changing and uncertain times, it is heart-warming (to me, at least) that the demand seems only to be growing stronger by the day. Universities are places that naturally, and quite possibly uniquely, dwell simultaneously in the past, present, and future—professors of history look back at past events, professors in the business school seek to understand how today’s globalised economies work, and professors in the science departments look to create new technologies that will serve us in the future.

      Individually, these perspectives are not unique. In universities, however, they coexist, collide, and bounce off each other, creating an environment perfect for young, open minds to learn from the mistakes of past experiences alongside the possibilities of the future, while being grounded in the reality of today. That is why higher education is so important, and why it is so heart-warming to see that across virtually all sections of society, the value of higher education is recognised and its growth supported.

      The growing demand for higher education has come not just with the expansion of existing universities, but also an explosion of new universities in pretty much every corner of the world, particularly in parts that do not have the benefit of long-standing higher education systems. Most newer universities begin life as small teaching-only institutions, struggling to attract the best students and teaching staff within a highly competitive environment. Not surprisingly, students want to go to the most prestigious universities because they believe that the standard of education will be higher and that they will be able to achieve more, and hopefully secure a well-rewarded job upon completing their studies.

      Prestige is thus a very valuable commodity in higher education—universities are, almost universally, in a constant arms race to become better recognised than those around them locally as well as globally. A common denominator among the world’s most prestigious universities is that they are actively engaged in high-quality research. Indeed, research has become de rigueur that without it, a university is unlikely to be truly recognised as prestigious. For new, teaching-focused institutions, it is almost an existential imperative for them to establish research programmes alongside their teaching ones and to endeavour to join, and then climb, the regional if not the world university league tables.

      Based on my own experience in helping to lead two newer universities at the beginning of their research journeys, this book seeks to shed some light on the following questions. How is a university to make the transition from a teaching-only institution to one that is also actively engaged in research? What are the challenges universities and their staff and students will face? How can universities successfully overcome some of these challenges?

      This book aims to provide a useful guide to university leaders, staff, and students who are frustrated by some of the new policies and directives emanating from their university. There is of course no single, right way for a university to grow its research, but there are some wrong ways to do things. I hope this book will enable universities to avoid some of the mistakes that others, including myself, have made.

      Peter J Heard

      Chancellery Office

      Sunway University

      Chapter 1: The Expansion of Universities and Research

      What is a university? Most people assume a university to be an organisation that has two primary roles: teaching students to an advanced level and undertaking research. Is that necessarily so? The Oxford English Dictionary defines university as

      an educational institution designed for instruction, examination, or both, of students in many branches of advanced learning, conferring degrees in various faculties, and often embodying colleges and similar institutions.

      Notice that nowhere in this definition is the word research mentioned. Indeed, if we were to look at the universities that existed little more than a hundred years or so ago, most of them were focused very much on the teaching of students rather than research. In his now famous book, The Idea of a University, which was first published in 1852, John Henry Newman argues that the university is a place of teaching universal knowledge, not scientific and philosophical discovery.¹ In other words, universities are for teaching, not research. However, times change and universities, which are not generally renowned for embracing change, were starting to transform as well around the time Newman wrote his book.

      Philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt, a name that not many outside or even inside academia may know well, has had a profound influence on the shape of modern universities. He championed higher education to be a synergistic combination of research and teaching, a model now known as the Humboldtian model. The University of Berlin, founded in 1810 as a direct result of Humboldt’s influence, was renamed Humboldt University of Berlin after the Second World War. Since its establishment, the University focused on having a unity of teaching and research.

      This basic idea that a university should be a place of both teaching and research took hold, spreading across Germany to Northern Europe and then to the United States (US), where Humboldt’s ideas were very much embraced. Despite, or perhaps because of, having one of the longest established systems of universities in the world, the United Kingdom (UK) came rather later to the party—the model only gained traction here by the end of the First World War. By the 1960s, the idea that a university was really only a proper university if it was doing research was almost universal.

      There are now somewhere in the region of 30,000 universities and other institutions of higher learning worldwide.² The number continues to increase rapidly, particularly across parts of Asia and Africa where education is seen as a route to greater prosperity and social mobility and where increasing wealth means higher education is no longer the preserve of the fortunate few. A good example that shows this expansion, and one with which I am most familiar, is the UK.

      In 1850, there were just eight universities in the UK. That number had grown to around 20 by 1950 and then to 47 by 1989, the year I first went to university. Today, there are more than 147. We can only wonder how many there might be by 2050 (but that is for another book altogether!). As it is true in the UK, so it is much more in other parts of the globe—the vast majority of universities are really quite young.

      The Research Arms Race

      The road to establishing a university can be long, arduous, and bureaucratic, and one that more often than not requires getting multiple layers of government approval. Governments are rightly reluctant to allow new entities to join the university club for fear of damaging the country’s higher education sector in both the eyes of its own citizens and the wider world, and because of the burden that universities, even private ones, tend to place on the exchequer. That said, in most countries, research is not a necessary criterion for an institution of higher learning to be granted the moniker university and be allowed to grant degrees.

      Given that most new universities rely almost exclusively on fees paid by undergraduate students to support themselves, and that research is a costly endeavour, almost all universities start out as small teaching-only institutions. Although the majority of universities in the world today are relatively new and have a greater focus on teaching than research, the amount of research conducted has also grown rapidly over the last few decades. In 1989, for example, the Web of Science lists just over 900,000 publications for the whole of the year; in 2019, in contrast, there were almost 3.2 million publications (and the Web of Science is far from the largest database of scholarly output).

      As research is now all but universally seen as a key part of any good university’s mission, it is hardly surprising that many—although not all—universities see increasing their research output as a way of improving their standing with stakeholders. This is true not just for newer and traditionally teaching-focused institutions, but also research-intensive universities which are, in many respects, under even greater pressure to keep growing the volume and quality of their research. If they do not, they will be overtaken by those that do!

      Universities are, and have been for several decades, in a high-intensity research arms race where they have to run fast just to stay where they are. Research costs a lot of money and this is one reason why university fees have risen so much in real terms. It is no coincidence that the number of international students accepted by universities has also blossomed. The need to secure additional funding streams is a significant factor behind the drive to recruit more international students; in most countries, international fees are higher than home fees, providing a net income boost. Of course, universities prefer to highlight more altruistic reasons for international student recruitment drives (and of such reasons there are many), but behind the scenes, money is undeniably a key consideration.

      Some people argue that the research arms race has been detrimental to

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