Centre for research on global perspective of universities launched
Posted on 23/01/2013
Professor Alison Wolf CBE launched the International Centre for University Policy Research (ICUPR) at King’s this week. The Centre forms part of King’s Policy Institute (KPI) which provides a base for centres and institutes working in the field of public policy.
The ICUPR is primarily concerned with higher education as a global system. Its focus is on major policy issues, such as the rising real cost of higher education and the appropriate role of governments in a period of mixed public and private funding.
Panel members (from left-to-right): Nick Hillman; Lord Rees of Ludlow, OM, FRS; Professor Alison Wolf; and Professor Nick Barr.
Alison Wolf, Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management in the Department of Management at King’s, and Director of the ICUPR, said: ‘Higher education is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing sectors and comprises many of the world’s longest-lived institutions. Yet academic research on universities is limited in scope compared to that on schools or most other public services and largely directed to national issues. The new Centre will help redress the balance and address a number of pressing and international policy issues.’
ICUPR will conduct major academic research studies drawing on national and international data sets and will be developing a network of international collaborators with a parallel interest in one of the major drivers of 21st Century society. Its first major publication, due at the end of 2013, will address alternative strategies for allocating public research funding to universities.
The ICUPR was launched at an event on 21 January in front of an invited audience from policy institutes, the higher education sector and government bodies. There was a panel discussion, ‘Universities in a global economy – the old, the new and the contested’, led by Lord Rees of Ludlow, OM, FRS; Professor Nick Barr (LSE); Anthony McClaran (Chief Executive, Quality Assurance Agency) and Nick Hillman (Special Adviser to the Minister of State for Universities and Science).
Notes to editors
For further information please contact Alison Wolf.
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