Conversations with Frans van Vught:
Quality, Standards and Multi-Dimensional Rankings 2010
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Quality, standards and rankings are three of the buzzwords in tertiary education today. Whilst no one would argue against quality as a cornerstone of any system, standards and rankings are far more controversial concepts. Starting from a basis in welfare economics, Frans van Vught will argue that whether we like it or not, we cannot escape sorting out the standards debate and coming up with standards that will serve to convince our external constituencies about the qualities we stand for. Yet, if we are forced to go down this path, we need to come up with much more fine-grained approaches to standards and rankings than currently are in place. Van Vught proposes a multi-dimensional ranking approach that can be used on an international scale and has the ability to compare “like with like” across tertiary education systems. Examples are drawn from the European multi-dimensional ranking project for which Frans van Vught is one of the project leaders.
Program Content
Among the specific topics to be considered are:
- Why tertiary education institutions need to be much more explicit to prospective students and employers about the quality of their programs and educational experience offered;
- Why standards are inevitable, and why we cannot use standards in the traditional conceptualisation of threshold quality;
- Why rankings are here to stay and why they need to be improved;
- How one may go about institutional classification schemes in order to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges;
- How a multi-dimensional ranking system can be constructed and implemented;
- How Australia and New Zealand may benefit from the experiences gained in Europe so far.
Designed for
This seminar is designed for senior executives including Pro-Vice Chancellors, Deputy Vice-Chancellors, Chief Financial Officers, Deans, Head of Schools and Executive Directors.
Delivery mode
A highly interactive one day seminar.
Dates and locations
9 March 2010, LH Martin Institute, Melbourne, 10am – 5pm (registration 9:30am)
Cost
AU$1,090 (AU$1,199 inc GST)
Fee includes all materials, lunch and refreshments.
Register Now Download 2010 Brochure
Please note that numbers are limited to a maximum of 20 participants.
Find out more
If you would like more information on this program please contact Anna Steer or call +61 3 8344 3157.
Seminar Leader
Frans van Vught
After finishing an 8 year term as President and Rector Magnificus of the Twente University of Technology in the Netherlands in 2005, Frans van Vught, as an independent higher education expert, combines a number of European and international functions.
In the European context he is a member of the Group of Social Policy Advisors of the president of the European Commission, chairman of the board of the European Center for Strategic Management of Universities (ESMU), and president of the Netherlands’ House for Education and Research (Neth-er). Internationally he is a member of the University Grants Committee (UGC) of Hong Kong and a member of the board of the LH Martin Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Management in Melbourne, Australia. Until very recently he was a member of the board of the European University Association (EUA) and of the German “Akkreditierungsrat”
Frans was the founding and first director of the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS). Over the period 1984 – 1996 he developed this center into one of the largest higher education research centers in the world and became an internationally well-known higher education policy and management expert.
In the Netherlands Van Vught has held a number of top-level executive and advisory positions. Until very recently he was a member of the national Innovation Platform of the Netherlands (chaired by the prime-minister) and of the national Social-Economic Council. He has also served as a member of the national Education Council, president of the board of the International Institute on Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences, chairman of the national Foundation for the Advancement of Science and Technology.
Van Vught has published 30 books and over 250 articles, primarily on higher education and research policy, innovation policy and higher education management. He currently leads several major international research projects, of which the two funded by the European Commission are the most relevant to the “conversations”. The first is on the design of a classification instrument to create more transparency about the diversity of the European higher education and research areas, and the second on the development of a new, multidimensional global ranking tool for higher education and research. In these two projects he has designed, implements and coordinates a comprehensive stakeholders consultation process involving higher education institutions, students, business and industry and policy-makers at various levels
Recent publications:
National Innovation Policies and the Academic Research Enterprise, David. D. Dill & Frans. A. van Vught (eds), Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (2010) - special offer
“The EU Innovation Agenda: Challenges for European Higher Education and Research”, Higher education Management and Policy, Volume 21/2, 2009
Mapping the Higher Education Landscape, Towards a European Classification of Higher Education, Springer Press, Dordrecht, (2009)