University as a global actor in the international system of the 21st Century

Abstract: Francisco Del Canto Viterale Since its foundation, the university has always been a relevant actor within the international system as the main producer and transmitter of scientific knowledge. Considered as a global actor and historically interrelated with multiple agents at the national and international level, the university must now face new and powerful challenges within the international context. Since the last decades of the

20th Century, the world has entered a vertiginous path of transformation, driven by multiple and profound global processes that have generated significant changes in all the parameters of the international system and have prompted the creation of a new international system. The research problem that arises in this work focuses on studying whether this new international stage will mean an opportunity for the university as an international actor to assume new roles on a global scale or if, on the contrary, whether threats and pressures will erode its global position. The main objective of the present investigation is to analyze the role of the university within the changing world order of the 21st Century and for this purpose it is proposed to know the main changes that operate in the current international system, to decipher how these new global trends affect the university and, understand how the university is reacting to these systemic changes. To achieve these objectives, an extensive literature review has been carried out within the fields of International Studies, Education Sciences, and other Social Sciences. Finally, it is expected to obtain as a result some concrete answers about the context, the impact and the reactions of the university to the modified international system to contribute to a much broader, complex and necessary debate regarding the future of the university as a global actor in the new international system of the 21st Century.

* Francisco Del Canto Viterale (francisco.delcanto@fresno.edu / fdelcanto@jhu.edu), PhD, is Project Coordinator at Fresno Pacific University (USA); Director and Visiting Professor of MA Program in Global and International Studies (Science, Tech, and Innovation) at the University of Salamanca (Spain); and Visiting Researcher at Johns Hopkins University (USA).

More information about the author is available at the end this article.

Tuning Journal for Higher Education

http://www.tuningjournal.org/

169

Keywords: international studies and higher education; international scientific relations; internationalization of higher education; cooperation and competition in higher education; higher education in an interdependent world; international challenges to higher education; emerging topics in the higher education scenario worldwide.

I. Introduction

From its remote and somewhat confused beginnings in the Eastern world, through the creation of the first institutions in medieval Europe, to the closest modern configuration, the university has always been a relevant actor within the international system. At the beginning of the 21st Century, the international system seems to be in transition and reconfiguration resulting in a modified world order. The end of the Cold War finished the bipolar scheme and has contributed to a period of profound change in the main systemic parameters of that order. In this new and convulsive international context, the university, which key features are being global in scope and historically interrelated with multiple actors at a national and international level, faces new and powerful challenges as an international actor.1

From the field of Educational Sciences and Social Sciences, there are many experts who approach and study the future role of the university within the changing international system. Mostly, these investigations are aimed at recognizing how the main changes that occur in the “international system” affect Higher Education and the university, as well as understanding the effects of the internationalization process that many universities have promoted in recent decades. Particularly, the field of study linked to Higher Education has made considerable efforts to analyze the role of the university on a global scale.2 At the same time, from Philosophy and other Social Sciences such as Sociology or Economics, there have also been approaches

1 To be considered an international actor, it is necessary to have the capacity to generate or participate in relationships that are intentionally significant for the entire international system (Dallanegra Pedraza, 2001, 2003).

2 Cf. Sheila Slaughter and Larry Leslie, Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997); Jürgen Enders and Oliver Fulton, Higher Education in a Globalizing World: International Trends and Mutual Observation (Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media, 2002); Roger King, The University in the Global Age (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004); James Forest and Philip Altbach, International Handbook of Higher Education (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006); Philip Altbach, Liz Reisberg, and Laura Rumbley. “Tracking a global academic revolution.” Change March/April (2010): 30-39.