The Road to Academic Excellence: The Making of World-Class Research Universities

The Road to Academic Excellence: The Making of World-Class Research Universities
Philip G. Altbach and Jamil Salmi, Editors. World Bank 2011

 

“To propose a more manageable definition of top-research universities and to understand the foundations and circumstances of successful research universities, Salmi (2009) made the case that the superior results of these institutions—highly sought graduates, leading-edge research, and dynamic knowledge and technology transfer—could essentially be attributed to three complementary sets of factors at play in top research universities:
(a) a high concentration of talent (faculty members and students); (b) abundant resources to offer a rich learning environment and to conduct advanced research; and (c) favorable governance features that encourage leadership, strategic vision, innovation, and flexibility and that enable institutions to make decisions and manage resources without being encumbered by bureaucracy. It is the dynamic interaction among these three groups of features that makes the difference as the distinguishing characteristic of high-ranking research universities, as illustrated in figure I.1.

Salmi (2009) also identified three major approaches that governments intent on setting up such institutions could follow. The first consists of upgrading a few existing universities that have the potential to excel (picking winners). The second relies on encouraging several existing institutions to merge and transform into a new university that would achieve the type of synergies corresponding to a world-class institution (hybrid formula). Finally, governments can decide to create new world-class universities from scratch (clean-slate approach).

The main chapters of this book are nine case studies that illustrate what it takes to establish and sustain research universities and help validate the analytical model outlined above, including the paths to building research excellence.”