Universities in the Knowledge Economy

CIRGE is participating in the “Universities in the Knowledge Economy (UNIKE)”, project funded by the EU’s Marie Curie programme for Initial Training Networks (ITN).  This initiative is led by Dr. Susan Wright, professor of  Educational Anthropology at Aarhus University and collaborator of CIRGE.

The  UNIKE Programme of Research Training aims at developing the knowledge and skills of young as well as more advanced researchers. This will enable them to critically examine how universities in regions of the world are being reformed during this process of creating knowledge economies and societies.

To grasp how managers, academics and students in their everyday practices adopt, modify or contest transnational, national and institutional policies, and take their own alternative initiatives, requires not only an expanded and invigorated approach to researching the transformation of universities, but also the development of capacity, via networked expertise in research training, to make systematic explorations of these questions.

Where the research on university reform has tended to focus on one or more aspects of reform – e.g. the policy role of transnational organizations, or the reforms of university governance and management – this has not revealed their cumulative effects on what is actually happening on the ground and in the sector as a whole. Comparative analysis of university transformations demands strengthened and strategic European networking of expertise in the analysis of the sector, and improved collaboration between European and “third world country‟ researchers, especially in the Asia Pacific Rim, using a model of distributed interdisciplinary cooperation.

To address these challenges, UNIKE  recruited 12 doctoral positions and two post doctoral positions at six European Universities in an Initial Training Network (ITN). Applicants from all countries were encouraged to apply.  See  Basis for application

More information in http://unike.au.dk/