Universities for a New World ― Making a Global Network in International Higher Education, 1913-2013

Universities for a New World takes the Centenary of the ‘Association of Commonwealth Universities’ (ACU) as its point of departure in exploring what a 2009 ‘United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’ (UNESCO) Report has evocatively termed an ‘academic revolution’ in modern higher education.

The book succinctly explores the rise of the ACU as the world’s oldest network of universities, before focussing primarily on that protean ‘revolution’ in higher education provision - with a particular sampling of the diverse Commonwealth experience across the globe. Gains as well as losses are analysed through critical and interrelated essays. Transformation may have been inevitable, but progress towards greater participation rates has not always been manifested through quality provision for students or societies at large. Measuring those changes to universities is inherently challenging as transformations are still proceeding apace. The volume accordingly concludes with informed perspectives on the potential future(s) of universities in the 21st century. Paradoxically, further change is now the only constant for higher education in an era of globalisation.