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International university collaborations as a policy tool for higher education reform and innovation leverage A snapshot

International university collaborations as a policy tool for higher education reform and innovation leverage A snapshot of the MIT-Portugal Program. Sebastian Pfotenhauer , PhD pfotenh@mit.edu. MIT-Portugal Program MIT Technology & Policy Program MIT Teaching & Learning Lab

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International university collaborations as a policy tool for higher education reform and innovation leverage A snapshot

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  1. International university collaborations as a policy tool for higher education reform and innovation leverage A snapshot of the MIT-Portugal Program Sebastian Pfotenhauer, PhD pfotenh@mit.edu MIT-Portugal Program MIT Technology & Policy Program MIT Teaching & Learning Lab Harvard Program in Science, Technology, and Society

  2. An MIT tradition • MIT has engaged in large-scale collaborations for decades • India, Egypt, Argentina, Iran, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, UK, Abu Dhabi, Portugal, Russia (?) • Different purposes: • Capacity building in STEM education • Excellence-building: Transfer educational best–practices & institutional governance • Internationalization • Systemic change for national HE & innovations systems • Innovation & entrepreneurship leverage • Experimental “one of” character of collaborations – no unified strategy?

  3. MIT-Portugalin a nutshell • MIT + 6 PT universites + 20 research centers • Faculty: 236 @ PT + 59 @ MIT • Students: 350 @ PT, 140 @ MIT • 50+ industry affiliates • 4 Engineering Systems focus areas • Innov.- & mobility-centered curricula • 5 year funding period • 58.9 M€ (81.0 M$) Key facts:

  4. MPP timeline • 2004: Portuguese “Technological Plan” and “National Plan for Employment” • 2005-06: OECD Review of tertiary education sector • Nov. 2005: MIT approached by Portugal • Feb 2006: agreement to conduct assessment: Identify feasible areas of collaboration • February-July 2006: faculty visits in both directions • October 2006: launch of 5-year program • Sep 2008: launch of program assessment • 2011 renewal negotiations for Phase 2

  5. Why MPP? • Why university-based strategy in Portugal? • Human resources: Mismatch between engineering education and innovation/industry needs • S&T capacity: Key role of universities in production of knowledge and technology in catching-up countries • National systems trajectory + international reform pressures (Bologna, Lisbon) • New roles for universities in national innovation systems • Some achievements: • Raise student internationalization and selectivity • Targeted human resource formation in innovation & entrepreneurship • Increase networking between students & institutions, and industry linkages • Excellence formation and critical mass-building: overcome tradition of research isolation and sub-critical funding dispersion • Mobility: Shift from sending to receiving country • International visibility and benchmarking • Spillovers into the system!

  6. Challenges, lessons, research needs • Cultural differences, esp. in innovation & entrepreneurship • Program objectives vs. administrative and legal framework conditions (multiple stakeholders, absorptive capacity of system, political interference) • “Teaching the teachers” • Slow program take-off vs. extremely high expectations & steep learning curve • Real-time program assessment is crucial: • Demonstrate impact • Foster organizational learning • Study the generalizability of MIT-Portugal framework • Problem: temporal lagging of effects & attribution problems • Tools: comparative student surveys, special-purpose surveys, faculty interviews • “One of” problem: unique character of international programs • MIT Technology & Policy Program, MIT Teaching & Learning Lab, Cisco: • Launch project on creating a “best-practice manual in international university collaborations” to systematize and preserve a set of unique lessons

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