Briefing Notes

OECD Study on Supporting the Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to Regional Development

The OECD through its programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education has recently published the final report of its study on Supporting the Contribution of Higher Education Institutions to Regional Development. This study involved work in 14 regions across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia and was partly supported by the participating regions and countries and the UK Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).


Lilara Executive Summary

Learning Cities and Regions are complex places in which organisations and people work together to create an interactive, interdependent and mutually supportive learning society. They are not easily created. The LILARA project takes as its mantra the TQM notion, expressed in the opening quotation, that comprehensive change will not happen unless everyone in the administration of a city or region knows about, and concerns themselves with, assisting the progress of the learning city/region strategy. At the same time the partners are aware that knowledge of learning cities and regions is in short supply. The challenge therefore was to develop a tool that would simultaneously provide both understanding and new knowledge, while gathering personal observations, raising curiosity and encouraging further learning.


IMPACT website for the Impact of Higher Education Institutions on regional economies initiative.

The overall aim of the initiative is to promote better understanding of the key economic and social impacts generated by UK higher education institutions on their host regions and on other regions of the UK. 

The initiative runs for 3 years from 2007- 2010.

The initiative is being supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in partnership with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), Department for Employment and Learning (DEL) in Northern Ireland, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW.)

 

For more information please see: http://ewds.strath.ac.uk/Default.aspx?alias=ewds.strath.ac.uk/impact


Peoples Open Access Education Initiative: Peoples-uni.org

Click here to view a progress report. 

Most developing countries currently have to cope with a wide range of health problems that interfere with their future economic development. Public health is a major priority, especially continuing high levels of maternal and child mortality, the spread of AIDS, tuberculosis and common infectious diseases, as well as the emergence of chronic disease epidemics.

A trained workforce of health professionals is essential, both for the populations themselves and to help deal with global threats to public health. Local universities offering public health education may be oversubscribed for face to face courses and fees for overseas universities, including e-learning distance programmes, are higher than can be afforded by most potential students in these countries. Internet-based e-learning has the exciting potential to deliver high quality learning resources anytime and anywhere, and although access is by no means universal it is improving quickly. 


Social Capital and Community Building through the Internet

PASCAL associate, Professor Duncan Timms together with Dr Sara Ferlander of the Stockholm Centre on Health of Societies in Transition (SCOHOST)
at Sodertorn University College have recently published a new article on 'Social Capital and Community Building through the internet' in Sociological Research Online.

 

For full text go to http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/8.html


National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) of Mauritius

This briefing by Vimi Goorah concerns the work of the National Productivity and Competitiveness Council (NPCC) of Mauritius and details projects that are being considered in the field of Lifelong Learning. It follows visits by PASCAL Associate, Professor Erik Wallin and by PASCAL Co-director, Professor Michael Osborne.


Neighbourhoods and Schools: PASCAL Project for the Scottish Executive

This project is a contribution to on-going analytical work in the Scottish Executive to underpin elements of the regeneration strategy, People and Place, published in February 2006.   The Scottish Executive is interested in better understanding ‘neighbourhood effects’, and the factors and processes that produce them.   A particular aspect of this relates to the complex impacts of neighbourhoods on schools within them, and conversely of schools on the neighbourhoods in which they are situated.   PASCAL associates co-ordinated by John Tibbitt have reviewed the knowledge-base relating to these issues and have just provided a ‘state-of –the art’ report to the Executive. It is envisaged that the full report will be made available more widely at a future point.


From Denial of Place to Death of Distance: Higher education institutions working for their regions

This article has been prepared for Pascal by Richard Yelland, Head of IMHE at OECD. The project that it describes explored in very practical ways questions at the heart of Pascal’s mission: how can academic knowledge and the work of universities more generally be put to practical use in supporting learning city-regions, enhancing social capital, etc; and what modes of collaboration actually work in which settings.

The article explains the launch of the project findings in the form of a monograph at Valencia in September. Immediately after this OECD Conference, the annual Pascal conference at Pecs in Hungary will offer an opportunity for OECD project participants to review what has happened since the project, and consider what further work they would like to undertake together. Within the Pecs conference there will be Round Table session on the project which will enable a wider group to discuss further work in this area, building on the results of the OECD project.


The PASCAL team at the University of Stirling, led by Professor Mike Osborne, was approached recently by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to conduct literature searches on assessment and grading and advise them in their deliberations on future examinations policy.  This briefing note discusses the team's activities.


The LILARA Project: Learning in Local and Regional Authorities

The PASCAL/Grundtvig project, Learning in Local and Regional Authorities (LILARA), is funded by the European Commission from 2005-2007. Co-ordinated by Professor Norman Longworth and Dr. Lesley Doyle, the main aim of LILARA is to make a significant contribution to the development of lifelong learning organisations, regions and cities throughout Europe. The objectives are to research, develop and disseminate materials relating to the training and learning needs of staff in local and regional authorities and their institutional stakeholders.


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