¿Cómo se desenvolverían las universidades en una nueva Guerra Fría?
El informe de la AEU, que imagina escenarios para 2030, también dibuja un panorama en el que la educación superior se ve presionada por los mercados y el autoritarismo
4 de octubre de 2021
Simon Baker
¿Cuál es el futuro de la cooperación universitaria internacional si las relaciones entre Occidente y China se deterioran y conducen esencialmente a otra Guerra Fría? ¿Qué hacen las universidades si la inteligencia artificial deja obsoletos incluso los empleos altamente cualificados? ¿Y cómo se adaptaría una universidad si un país democrático previamente estable cayera repentinamente en el autoritarismo?
Estos escenarios pueden parecer remotos o a punto de ocurrir, según el punto de vista. Pero el modo en que las universidades podrían afrontarlos forma parte de un nuevo informe (a new report) de la Asociación Europea de Universidades (EUA) que analiza las posibles direcciones que podría tomar el mundo en tres áreas clave: geopolítica, tecnología y democracia nacional.
Thomas Jørgensen, coautor del informe Pathways to the Future (Caminos hacia el futuro) y coordinador principal de políticas de la AEU, afirmó que, aunque las universidades están actualmente preocupadas por los aspectos prácticos de la salida de la crisis de Covid, el mundo sigue estando en un "momento crucial" desde el punto de vista político y tecnológico.
E incluso sin la agitación extrema de la pandemia, los acontecimientos de los últimos 10 años han demostrado lo vital que es para los dirigentes universitarios pensar lo impensable sobre lo que pueden afrontar dentro de una década.
"Hace diez años, el Brexit se habría visto como una opción ridícula. Pero es la realidad y hay que pensar que pueden ocurrir cosas improbables", dijo.
En términos geopolíticos, el informe -que siguió a un taller de liderazgo de la AEU en el que se debatieron los escenarios a principios de este año- imagina tres grandes desarrollos: uno en el que el mundo se solidifica en tres bloques de poder principales que compiten entre sí: EE.UU., la Unión Europea y China; otro en el que se restablecen los lazos transatlánticos entre EE.UU. y Europa para defenderse de una China envalentonada; y un tercero en el que el mundo vuelve al multilateralismo y a un orden internacional basado en normas.
Aunque la tercera opción parece ser la más fácil de negociar para las universidades, los participantes en el taller "identificaron el escenario más cerrado... como aquel en el que Europa tendría la mayor ventaja para atraer estudiantes e investigadores". Ello se debe a que Europa podría presentarse como la "superpotencia sostenible" -entre unos Estados Unidos más mercantilizados y una China autoritaria-, mientras que el escenario más abierto podría significar que "la competencia se desplazaría potencialmente hacia la rivalidad entre clusters y alianzas globales de universidades".
Sin embargo, incluso si las rivalidades geopolíticas se endurecen, el Dr. Jørgensen dijo que esperaba que las universidades siguieran buscando vínculos con instituciones de todo el mundo, independientemente de la política local.
Las universidades quieren mantenerse abiertas a nivel mundial; no querrían acostarse en uno de estos bandos y decir "vale, sólo trabajamos con países afines". En realidad, hay buenas razones para trabajar con países no afines y mantener esos puentes", dijo.
Y como las universidades son cada vez más sensibles a las tensiones geopolíticas, muchas de ellas ya están llevando a cabo una "concienciación y evaluación formal de los riesgos" de tales vínculos, dijo.
Pero, ¿y si algunas de estas preocupaciones sobre la asociación con académicos en países más restrictivos llegan mucho más cerca de casa? En uno de los escenarios más extremos previstos en el informe, las universidades se encuentran en una situación en la que los poderes autoritarios se han hecho con el gobierno y "controlan las instituciones políticas y estatales, los medios de comunicación y las universidades, y limitan los derechos fundamentales".
Como señala el documento de la AEU, un escenario así no está a un millón de kilómetros de las luchas actuales en algunos países, incluso dentro de la Unión Europea, refiriéndose a cómo la Universidad Centroeuropea se vio obligada a trasladar sus principales operaciones de Budapest a Viena tras la presión del gobierno de Hungría.
Maia Chankseliani, que actualmente dirige un proyecto del Centro de Educación Superior Global sobre cómo las universidades trabajan a través de las fronteras, dijo que su propia investigación también había puesto de manifiesto cómo el autoritarismo en países como Rusia y Bielorrusia afectaba a la cooperación internacional.
*******************************
How would universities fare in a new Cold War?
EUA report imagining scenarios for 2030 also paints picture of higher education being squeezed by markets and authoritarianism
October 4, 2021
Simon Baker
What is the future for international university cooperation if relations between the West and China deteriorate and essentially lead to another Cold War? What do universities do if artificial intelligence renders even high-skilled jobs obsolete? And how would a university adapt if a previously stable democratic country suddenly descended into authoritarianism?
Such scenarios may either seem remote or on the verge of happening, depending on your point of view. But how universities might deal with them forms part of a new report from the European University Association (EUA) that looks at potential directions the world could take in three key areas: geopolitics, technology and national democracy.
Thomas Jørgensen, co-author of the Pathways to the Future report and senior policy coordinator at the EUA, said that although universities were currently preoccupied with the practicalities of emerging from the Covid crisis, the world was still at a “pivotal moment” politically and technologically.
And even without the extreme upheaval of the pandemic, the events of the past 10 years had shown how vital it was for university leaders to think the unthinkable about what they may face in a decade’s time.
“Ten years ago, Brexit would have been seen as a ridiculous option. But it’s reality and you have to think unlikely things might happen,” he said.
In terms of geopolitics, the report – which followed an EUA leadership workshop that debated the scenarios earlier this year – imagines three broad developments: one where the world solidifies into three main competing power blocs: the US, the European Union and China; another where transatlantic ties between the US and Europe are re-established to fend off an emboldened China; and a third where the world returns to multilateralism and a rules-based international order.
Although the third option would seem to be the easiest for universities to negotiate, those at the workshop “identified the most closed scenario…as the one where Europe would have the biggest advantage in attracting students and researchers”. This was because Europe could brand itself as the “sustainable superpower” – in between a more marketised US and authoritarian China – while the more open scenario could mean “competition would potentially move towards rivalry between global clusters and alliances of universities”.
However, even if geopolitical rivalries do harden, Dr Jørgensen said he hoped universities would still seek ties with institutions across the world, irrespective of local politics.
“Universities want to stay globally open; they would not want to bed down in one of these camps and say ‘OK, well we only work with like-minded countries.’ Actually, there are good to reasons to work with non-like-minded countries and keep those bridges,” he said.
And as universities are becoming more sensitive to geopolitical tensions, many are already undertaking more “formal risk awareness and risk assessment” of such ties, he said.
But what if some of these concerns about partnering with academics in more restrictive countries arrive much closer to home? In one of the more extreme scenarios envisaged in the report, universities find themselves in a situation where authoritarian powers have taken over government and “control political and state institutions, media and universities, and they limit fundamental rights”.
As the EUA document points out, such a scenario is already not a million miles from the present-day struggles in some countries, even within the European Union, referring to how the Central European University was forced to relocate its main operations from Budapest to Vienna after pressure from Hungary’s government.
Maia Chankseliani, who is currently leading a Centre for Global Higher Education project on how universities work across borders, said her own research had also highlighted how authoritarianism in countries such as Russia and Belarus affected international cooperation. *
In Belarus, for instance, “there are a number of European and other international funding opportunities that Belarusian academics can tap into”.
“Yet foreign funding is seen as potentially leading to political persecution. Academics have to justify to the government why their projects are funded by international funders as the government is suspicious of any international engagement,” said the associate professor of comparative and international education at the University of Oxford.
However, even if authoritarianism still seems a distant risk for universities in Western democracies, more benign changes could still present a challenge, the report warns.
In a scenario described in the document as “technocrats take over”, democracy is increasingly bypassed by decision-making being outsourced to expert committees, often including scientists themselves.
Although this may be positive for universities in some respects, because academics are seen “important problem-solvers”, they could ultimately find that the “level of institutional autonomy and academic freedom for the individual is likely to be limited” as the mission of higher education narrows.
Similar risks also appear in the third area for change discussed in the document, the digital revolution.
The scenarios painted here include policy challenges that higher education is currently grappling with, such as how to reskill people in a world where automation is replacing jobs at a rapid rate and how best to facilitate lifelong learning.
The dangers here, explained Dr Jørgensen, were that through competition with private firms, universities could be pushed further down a road where they are seen merely for their utility in educating people for work.
“There is nothing wrong with equipping learners with skills. I think the threat is if you go for excessive marketisation,” he said.
He added that in continental Europe, “nobody has really wanted to go down that road yet, but that might come from private providers saying, ‘Actually, there is an increasing way to monetise education and make it into a commodity.’”
Overall, the report concludes that a common thread running through the scenarios is that there is “a constant risk that universities, rather than being autonomous actors, become instrumentalised for other purposes and aims, politically or economically”.
“The trends towards authoritarianism, marketisation and increasing global tensions all point to a context that narrows the playing field for universities. At the same time, it pushes them to be more explicit about their values, and to counter these trends by broadening and opening up,” the report says.
simon.baker@timeshighereducation.com
……………………………………..
