We Must Create New Models of International Interaction

The big question facing universities around the world is: How can we systematically connect academics so they can work together most effectively to resolve issues that cross national boundaries? Today new international-research models are emerging through broad coalitions of universities. An example is Universitas 21, or U21, an association of universities spread across 13 countries.

Collectively, Universitas 21 incorporates more than 650,000 students, 130,000 staff members, and two million alumni from Australia, Britain, Canada, China/Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, and the United States. The participants' annual budgets together amount to over $13-billion, with annual research-grant income of more than $3-billion.

Since its founding, in 1997, the network has concentrated on developing links among members to strengthen their internationalization efforts. It has organized credit-bearing interdisciplinary summer schools each year for students from member institutions, and it holds an annual multidisciplinary conference, at which undergraduates showcase their research. In addition, it sponsors a research conference for graduate students, where they have the opportunity not only to discuss their research with colleagues from around the world, but also to hone their presentation skills for an international audience. U21 also organizes an array of other conferences, workshops, and visits among member institutions. The goal is for researchers to create international networks at a key stage in their careers.

An example of how U21 is working to encourage collaborative research across national borders can be seen in its Water Futures for Sustainable Cities program. A potential global disaster brought about by the lack of clean water and proper sanitation is perhaps only a generation away. Already five million deaths occur each year because of water-related illnesses, and more than 50 percent of all hospital-bed occupancies in developing countries are the result of water-related problems. Our water future is closely related to global climate change, flooding, sedimentation, droughts, rising sea levels, pollution, and waste. And the interconnected nature of the water crisis demands that researchers go beyond local or regional concerns and have a truly global perspective in their search for solutions.

The U21 program has four regional nodes—in Australasia, China/Hong Kong, Europe, and North America—to allow for regional concentrations as well as a worldwide approach. For example, although drought occurs in many countries, the issue in Europe is largely one of increased floods and pollution. Problems in Africa are well documented, relating mainly to a lack of finance, poor governance, and an inadequate infrastructure to get water to where people live and work. In the Middle East, China, and the American West, water consumption exceeds supply, resulting in the depletion of groundwater resources and the drying up of rivers and lakes.

While the issues in various parts of the world manifest themselves in somewhat different ways, the opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration are immense—as engineers, geographers, social scientists, and many others join to confront concerns that people share around the globe. Australia has faced a major drought for the past 13 years, and northern China has experienced water shortages for its large population. They can learn lessons from each other that can be applicable elsewhere.

The Universitas 21 program intends to deliver a series of global research projects that deal with such water issues. The effort is being led by John Langford, director of the Water Research Centre at the University of Melbourne and formerly executive director of the Water Services Association of Australia. The projects include innovative strategies for city water systems, sustainable waterfront development, and water reclamation and re-use. Research on the sustainability of city water systems is driven primarily from Australia but with strong links to the University of Birmingham. Similarly, work on sustainable waterfront development is strongly driven from the University of Virginia, but with links to India, Britain, and Australia.

The program illustrates the benefits of and obstacles to international research collaborations. Although we clearly recognize the need for a robust, interdisciplinary approach with a global reach to tackle cross-continental issues, the research model is still at the pioneering stage. In setting up our program, we initially envisaged how future cities would look in relation to their water supplies, water usage, and pollution. Then, we hoped, separate studies could be conducted in, say, America, Australia, Britain, and Hong Kong, with consistent interaction to compare notes, develop common themes, and eventually produce a common global vision. That is happening, but things are moving much more slowly than we anticipated. We have to overcome a number of obstacles. When we collaborate with a team from overseas, geography is a problem, and we also cannot assume shared values.

For example, water in the Scottish context is stuff we have far too much of, and how we value it is totally different from Australia or Africa, where it is viewed almost in terms of survival. Similarly, with carbons and the climate-change aspects of water, Europeans want to aggressively reduce carbons, yet Americans are not yet convinced. Those may of course be stereotypes, but we who live in different countries do not assume shared values in many aspects of global water sustainability. I am not sure how we in U21 can overcome such diversity, or whether we must just learn to accept that we all have different cultural values and that they are part of the rich cultural mix of our network.

The fact is that solutions to major global issues will come only through a willingness of countries and scholars to share resources across nations and disciplines. This year we hope that the U21 program will continue to gather significant momentum by bringing together academics, graduate students, and practitioners in a broad coalition. It is just one example of how higher-education institutions around the world can become less competitive and more collaborative—and, in doing so, provide crucial research insights into a wide variety of global concerns.

Alan Ervine is an emeritus professor of water engineering at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland. Jane Usherwood is Secretary General of Universitas 21.

Published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 14 February 2010.
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