Taskforce on the Identity of Tomorrow's University

BACKGROUND

In December 2004 – referring to the Magna Charta’s use of the term ‘true’ university – the Observatory decided to explore the values and functions that make the institution today, that explain its self-understanding, and that justify the various forms of its autonomy: how can and should these values and functions evolve in the mid- and long-term future, especially if modern societies are to structure their development around knowledge? To discuss these themes, the Observatory decided to set up an international taskforce that first met at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik on 2 and 3 May 2005 to search for a common vocabulary by analysing those shared references that come from the ‘founding myths’ of the university as a social institution. This resulted in a ‘mapping’ of academic functions that was used as a reference framework in the second session of the taskforce: it moved from questions of university identity to its expression in the academic integration of society’s present and future needs. That second session was hosted by the University of Luxembourg from 11 to 13 May 2006.

THE CONFERENCE

Bringing together some twenty participants, the meeting was facilitated by Eva Egron-Polak, the Secretary General of the International Association of Universities in Paris. The leitmotiv of the conversation was the changing role of knowledge as expressed and moved by universities. The first day of the programme looked at the internal logic of university development when the institution tries to meet social demands, that it is not necessarily prepared to take up. The second day centred on the logic of outside partners who require university support in putting the community on the path toward a knowledge society. The aim was to explore possible scenarios for ‘unpredictability’ – as times to come are open and difficult to foresee. Is there an axis for university development that could help academic leaders and their social partners to rally around flexible and differentiated compacts so that the responsibilities for new relevance are really shared between academic institutions, students and their supporting community. The last part of the first days was open to the public and dealt with the role of polyvalent universities in smaller countries – like Iceland or Luxembourg – where universities are the visible key actor for social and cultural development.

The conversation concluded on a sharp focus on complexity that could help prepare further discussions, the third session of the taskforce being asked to discuss in 2007 ‘The multidimensional university in a multidimensional society’. The narrative of that rich meeting – heavily influenced by the techniques of future oriented thought as they have been developed by Sohail Inayatullah (2000) in ‘The University in Transformation’, a book that was also used as reference material in Iceland in 2005.

PROGRAMME

Bologna, 8 April 2006