STRUCTURED ABSTRACT
IGIP/ICL CONFERENCE
Defining the next generation university model
CONTEXT
University education, and engineering education in particular, is currently going through the period of intensive
change [1, 2]. A number of new universities have been established in recent years to fulfil modern educational
model in STEM. Often such new universities are privately funded initiatives [3, 4, 5, 6]. Current research effort
reports the finding of a recent study commissioned by a private foundation with a goal to establish a new
engineering university in Europe.
PURPOSE OR GOAL
The purpose of the study was to identify significant global trends in education and to develop recommendations
for setting up a model for a next generation university capable of creating an environment sufficiently fertile for
the development of an intellectual elite suitable to the modern world. Preference was given to the
recommendations relevant to the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) concept. The study has been commissioned by
a private foundation with a final goal to establish a new private university in Europe.
APPROACH
The research method included a series of expert interviews. The expert poll was held in the format of in-depth
expert interviews — detailed structured conversations with respondents. During the study, 20 experts
representing academia, business, art and policymakers from Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, France, Ireland, Spain,
Belgium, Singapore, Israel, USA and Russia
Expert interviews provided an opportunity to get acquainted with the respondents' opinions on: economic and
social processes that influence the education system and how the education system in general and higher
educational institutions in particular respond to these processes; what innovations are developing in modern
universities and what new projects and models of activity within these the universities have been successful and
why; what the respondents think about launching a new, next generation university, what features they consider
necessary for success and what key risks they see in this project.
OUTCOMES
Globalization and increased competition as factors in spawning inequality: According to experts, the
globalization of the economy, the massification of higher education and the growing mobility of students and
professors all over the world have led to fiercer competition for talent and resources, increases in the level of
necessary investment, and, as a result, have forced universities to compete with large corporations for
researchers. This in turn has led, inevitably, to greater separation among universities. In the future, it is to be
imagined that only two entities will survive: the powerful, stable and rich, and those which are small, flexible,
and exceptionally resourceful.
An advanced university in the future as autonomous and independent from the state centre of intellectual
power: Independence from the state and involvement in the network is a promising trend is to be regarded as
essential. Many experts noted that such autonomy represents a vital criterion for the success of the university in
the future. Therefore, the University of the future must be able to stand on its own feet as an independent center
of intellectual power (although at the moment a great number of strong universities directly depend on the state
and its funding, and therefore have no choice but to tolerate its intervention at the management level). In order
to ensure a quick start and optimal positioning, it is crucial for any newly-established university which shares a
mission that is discussed in this paper to join, at an early stage, the necessary networks and form partner
programs with other, preferably well established and even famous, universities.
Personalised education: Almost all experts expressed the idea that personalization of education is the leading
trend in the development of higher education and will become an important criterion for the success of any
educational project in the future. The expert opinion correlates well with Gallup Research Group [7], where the
main criterion for the success of higher education from the standpoint of graduates is the level of attention paid
by professors to the students as individuals.
Return to the origins of liberal arts: Experts agreed that in a world that is getting more and more complicated,
university education should shape thinking in a broad sense, orient people towards the solution of global issues
that humanity faces. Extensive basic knowledge in different disciplines should be combined naturally with a
deep expertise in concrete subjects. A professional of the future should possess balanced knowledge and skills
both in humanities and technical fields.
Advanced technologies for instruction and the composition of the program: Experts suggested introducing a
number of advanced teaching methods: combination of on-line courses with working in a classroom with a
mentorship from of a professor, mixed groups of young students and students who already have work
experience, partnership undergraduate programs with other universities, ideally attracting several mentors to
work on a project/diploma.
Distributed and cross-border campus: Experts recommend — for launching international programs — using
the distributed campus model at the beginning of the project, where there is a physical building downtown with
all the advantages of city life, and in addition a country pavilion, then possibly campuses in other cities of the
world (thus a cross-border campus). Experts recommend not buying/constructing a campus, but renting
facilities. In a city where the main campus is located, there should be a high concentration of intellectual capital
and a vibrant economy that provides job opportunities for graduates.
CONCLUSIONS
In the face of rapidly changing social and economic landscape in the world and education in general, it is
important to stay tuned with global and local trends and redefine the approaches to education through one’s life.
We do not aim to determine the one and only possible and complete model of a university of the future, but
rather prefer to demonstrate that there is no single approach, that will be able to address every challenge that the
society is facing at the moment. We believe that modern world needs substantially more different educational
models, more universities with fundamentally different agendas targeting variety of stakeholders in different
time of their lives.
REFERENCES
1. Carey, K., 2015. ‘Are We about to See the End of Universities as We Know Them?’, World Economic
Forum, April 29, 2015.
2. Rosenbloom, J., 2011. Reinventing the Way We Teach Engineers.
[Link]
[Accessed March 7 2019]
3. Kondratiev, D., Tormasov, A., Stanko, T., Jones, R., Taran, G. 2013. Innopolis University – a new IT
resource for Russia.” In the proceedings of the International Conference on Interactive Collaborative
Learning (ICL), Kazan, Russia, September 25-27, 2013.
4. Crawley, E.F., Edstroem, K., Stanko, T., 2013. Educating Engineers for Research-based Innovation –
Creating the learning outcomes. Proceedings of the 9th International CDIO Conference, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 9 – 13, 2013.
5. Introduction to the Grand Challenges for Engineering. [Link]
[Accessed March 7 2019]
6. Minerva Project, [Link] [Accessed March 7 2019]
7. Gallup Purdue Index Study, 2015 [Link]
[Link] [Accessed March 7 2019]
KEYWORDS
Trends in higher education, modern university, life-long learning, online education