University of the Future

The University of the Future reviews the current state of the university sector and makes some suggestions as to how universities will develop in the forthcoming years to meet the challenges they now face.

Universities are under considerable pressure to change, perhaps more than at any time since the modern university was created in the early 1800s. Universities are being criticised for not producing adequately work-ready graduates. They have been criticised for their intense focus on research, which has sometimes been said to have been at the cost of their mandate to educate. Universities are being criticised for their bureaucracy which has led to the coining of the expression managerialism. Universities are being criticised for the current market orientation which is reflected in the fees they charge and the high salaries paid to Vice Chancellors, Deans and others holding high office.

However, what is really happening within universities and what is likely to happen in the future is much more nuanced than most of the criticism which is levelled at them. Universities are a reflection of society and thus they are always a work-in-progress, continually in need of reinventing themselves.

This book is a compilation of 17 chapters written by 28 authors from 15 different countries, Australia, Canada, Denmark, England, Ghana, Ireland, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, South Africa, Syria, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, USA and Wales and it highlights how universities may develop in the future. The names of the contributors are:

Gabriel Donleavy

Madelyn Blairand Denise Lee

Mandla Stanley Makhanya

Ivy Adwowa Efiefi Ekem

Niyi Awofeso and Adi Arida

Dan Remenyi

Kenneth A. Grant and Steven A. Gedeon

Andrew D. Banasiewicz

Christopher J Moon

Lakshmi Balachandran Nair

Peter Sharp

Emanuela Marchetti

Anthony ‘Skip’ Basiel

Gareth Huw Davies, Naomi Joyce and David Bolton

Cees Th. Smit Sibinga, Maruff Oladejo, Isaac Kajja and Arwa Z. Al-Riyami

William Horan, Rachel Shawe, Richard Moles and  Bernadette O’Regan

Dima Moain Dayoub