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In this episode, Attila Pausits, Professor of Higher Education Research and Development, delves into the inaugural report by the Global Observatory on Higher Education Changes (GOHEC). Attila sheds light on the latest trends in higher education, the role of AI in research, and the importance of a global perspective in understanding educational transformations. Discover the key findings from GOHEC's 2024 survey, insights on digital transformation, political interventions, and regional contrasts across the globe.
👉 Episode Links:
👉 Episode Links:
- Global Observatory on Higher Education Changes (GOHEC)
- Annual Report of GOHEC - Journal of Research and Innovation in Higher Education (JRIHE)
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Creators and Guests
Guest
What is The World of Higher Education?
The World of Higher Education is dedicated to exploring developments in higher education from a global perspective. Join host, Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates, as he speaks with new guests each week from different countries discussing developments in their regions.
Produced by Tiffany MacLennan and Samantha Pufek.
Alex Usher: Hi, I'm Alex Usher and this is the World of Higher Education Podcast. As you know, this show is dedicated to a global perspective on higher education, one that generally tries to encompass the entire world. But covering the entire planet is difficult. There's a lot of countries out there and very few trends which are truly universal. That means you need to keep track of lots of developments and policies in different countries that are overlapping, complicated and contradictory, and that's hard. I know, I've been writing our World of Higher Education Year in Review publication, out on December 3rd, and trust me, it's a brutal task.
But for the past year or so, another group has been trying its hand at something similar. The group is called The Global Observatory on Higher Education Changes, or GOHEC. It's a collaboration between researchers from 15 countries, including some figures familiar to faithful podcast listeners, like Rómulo Pinheiro and Isak Frumin. And it's specifically devoted to answering the question, what is new in higher education?
The Group's first annual report was published a couple of months ago as a special issue of the Journal of Research and Innovation in Higher Education, and we've all had a chance now to read it.
Today, our guest is Attila Pausits. He's Professor of Higher Education Research and Development, and head of the Department of Higher Education Research at the University of Continuing Education in Krems, Austria. He's one of the ringleaders of this group, and in the show today we talk about what goes into making a truly global report like this. What the findings were for this year and what kinds of trends we might see in the future. But enough from me, let's hear from Attila.
Attila, tell us about this new report and the idea behind the Global Observatory on Change in Higher Education. What gap were you hoping to fill in the way that we study, higher education globally.
Attila Pausits: Well, the idea of the Global Observatory of Higher Education Changes, as we call GOHEC, grew out a, a network of exchange established during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the global higher education community was confronted with the sudden profound disruptions. At that time, colleagues like, Isak Frumin, Simon Marginson, among others, Uh, we started with essential, not only to immediate transformations, but also to understand their longer term implications for how higher education, systems function. And, um, I consider it this initiative important because higher education research itself stands at the crossroads, I would argue, for that. The way in which we study, fund, and communicate scholarship are changing, and we need to ask fundamental questions about the role, purpose and, and mission of higher education research in the future, and with this conviction, I was able to secure initial seed funding from my university and from Austrian government to establish this observatory and, and coordinate the, the international network behind it. And in fact, I'm also very thankful to Isak Frumin especially who is a strong supporter of GOHEC, as well as all the colleagues who are engaged and committed to work with us, um, including my colleagues at the Department of Higher Education Research back at my university in Krems, Austria. And the gap, we are trying to address, is the, is the absence of an a comprehensive and timely perspective on changes in higher education worldwide.
While there are many excellent publications, a few focusing on particular issues such as governance, funding, or digitalization, or on a specific region or system, there has been no global platform to monitor and interpret change across these domains, and as it happens systematically. So over time, we hope that GOHEC will provide an increasingly comprehensive, comparative and accessible perspective on global transformation in higher education. So basically this is the story behind GOHEC.
Alex Usher: Why is it so important to shift from describing systems to observing change as it happens? I mean, one of the problems with just observing change is, you know, if you're, if you're trying to do that alone, apart from the more, the deeper description of systems, sometimes you miss, like what's the, the, what is what it is that's being changed. Why the shift?
Attila Pausits: Well, I think there was a number of great contributions towards longitudinal studies and time series. But somehow, what's often missing is the translation of these findings into insights that are directly usable for policy makers, institutions and other stakeholders, so to say the client of our work.
So simply how the systems look at the given moment, I think this is not enough so to say, but how they evolve, transform, and respond to emerging challenges or think this is more interesting, um, because change by definition involves movement, which is something that cannot be captured by the kind of a snapshot, uh, without looking in the progress.
So from higher education research or I think without higher education development, and vice versa, this makes very little sense. So, I think that these engagements towards this kind of a transformational perspective is really needed, that the ways our work is kind of currently funded and how academic areas are structured often limits our ability to pursue this kind of sustained and dynamic observations, um, you know, being a higher education researcher. And I think the question regarding the impact beyond academia remains limited, and this is maybe where we really would like to increase the relevance and the reach of higher education research with this initiative.
Alex Usher: So most observatories tend to focus on national systems or regional systems, or maybe they're focusing on a particular slice of higher education. You're trying to look at all of higher education and you're adopting a global perspective. And obviously that's very, very challenging, but there's, there's gotta be like, what are the insights that only become visible when you observe change across borders rather than within single countries? I mean, what's, what's the payoff for all that extra work?
Attila Pausits: You know, simply I could answer your question, we like challenges, but I think this is a bit more here. So, the global perspective, I think allows us to see patterns and, um, interdependencies that remain invisible without national regional boundaries. Uh, many of these forces, uh, reshaping higher education today, such as, most likely we'll talk about this later, geopolitical tensions on demographic shifts, are in fact transnational in nature, yet they manifest differently across contexts. So observing these dynamics globally reveals how similar pressures produce divergent institutional responses, depending on governance traditions, policy frameworks, and academic cultures. And then this is, this is our, I think our work, uh, getting more and more interesting.
Why? Uh, you know, by comparing systems side by side, I think we can identify bridging trends, but also looking and mapping asymmetries and vulnerabilities. So, this makes it possible not only to monitor change, but to understand how global drivers penetrate into local realities and very early signals of transformation are likely to emerge next, and I think this is, this is a really a challenge towards, you know, dedicated methodologies and also the perspective on individuals contributing to this network and the observatory. So I'm not saying that this is, you know, gonna happen, within our first year or so, but at least that should be the goal for the observatory over time.
Alex Usher: I understand you used some, uh, AI assisted text analysis to do that. What, methods did you use there?
Attila Pausits: Well, I think today almost everyone, you know, look at the AI and, and, and try to do research on it or try to use it for its own research. So at GOHEC, we see a great value in combining this AI tools, but with human expertise. So for example, and this is a kind of a spoiler here, we used AI assisted text analyzers to map higher education research centers, programs and thematic clusters globally, which will be published early next year. And these matters help us detect growth patterns and emerging trends across larger data sets, so to say, the signal of change that might oversee, remain hidden.
And in fact, uh, without our international network and the interpretation of the, and the validation of these data, I think we might, create also some, some errors. So I think there's this, kind of combination, or in this way, we ensure that human insights provides depth and nuances and meaning to the story behind the data.
And just coming back to this idea of mapping higher education research centers, which, uh, has been, I think greatly contributed in the, in the vast educators. So by International Center of Higher Education, Boston College, so to say, we, took over this idea of a, a kind of a global inventory of higher education research centers and programs, but with our limited resources, here also, AI did a great contribution to really map the evolution and the development of these centers and programs in recent years.
Alex Usher: We're gonna take a short break. We'll be right back.
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Alex Usher: And we're back. So Attila, let's turn to what you actually found in your work. Looking across all the 2024 data and the regional analyses, what were the most significant or surprising changes that you observed worldwide?
Attila Pausits: Well, I, I think one of the most striking developments in, uh, 2024 is the activation of digital transformation initiatives, particularly the integration of AI in teaching, administration, research, and operations across different regions, for example, Japan and South Korea.
Another significant shift is the reorientation of internationalization strategies. While earlier ways kind of pushed the student volume and mobility, many European systems are now moving towards a more selective values based partnerships and resilience frameworks post-COVID. It's somewhat surprising, and I think that you discussed in this podcast also this topic area, a trend in the increasing political and regulatory interventions and higher education systems, especially in the US and some central eastern European countries. These challenges, longstanding assumptions about institutional, autonomy.
Alex Usher: And one of the report's key contributions, I think, is the topology of change from governance reforms and funding models to, as you say, digital transformation, internationalization. Uh, which of the most was unexpected? I mean, digitization, we probably knew about, internationalization, probably we knew you could have known that without, you know, doing, doing quite that much work. What was the unexpected stuff?
Attila Pausits: I think and, and, and in fact maybe the speed of change. I mean, we know that higher education institutions besides the church and the military are the, the oldest organizational forms on earth. But in this particular case, when it comes to the rapid uptake of AI guidelines, for example in Japan, um, an institutional restructuring around digital data governance, I think signals a deeper systematic shift than just incremental change.
So governance and funding models shift also featured strongly, I think that's a very interesting kind of dynamic here, particularly where state actors revisited institutional budgets and research funding mechanisms. So I think that, maybe the unexpected here is, is the speed overall.
Alex Usher: Okay. Uh, people say universities can't change, but, you know, I guess they do. Um, so in addition to the global picture that you provide, you've got a series of regional briefs. What were the most contrast, what were the most striking contrasts that you saw between regions, say between East Asia and Europe or North America?
Attila Pausits: Of course, I would recommend you read the publication, because in the nutshell I can't really kind of tell everything in this very moment and within, you know, a couple of minutes, but at least maybe some directions like, uh, you know, in East Asia, the key focus was on leveraging technology and population shifts, like the AI integration and strategic internalization tied to a kind of demographic decline of world central where in, in Europe the trends are more kind of values oriented, like uh, while internationalization remains important, the framing is shifting towards ethical partnerships, microcredentials and digital transitions. Concerns about academic freedom and institutional autonomy in North America, especially in the US, they already mentioned, market, you know emerging patterns, like increased political interference, and equity and inclusion and diversity issues that we all heard and knew about this. Um, and kind of this ideological regulation sending contrast to the more kind of multilateral collaborative models in Europe and the tax driven strategies in east Asia.
Alex Usher: The report emphasizes the importance of detecting early signals of change before they consolidate. Is there any examples of say, weak signals from 2024 that may point to more significant shifts in the years ahead?
Attila Pausits: Hmm. That's a, that's a very interesting question. I mean, if I would have a glass ball in front of me, then uh, maybe I could tell a bit more about this, but maybe just to mention one and this might lead to not only to kind of a stronger signal to changes over time, but maybe a kind of a fundamental discussion about new public management, because one of the weak signal we picked up in a report is the emergence of funding reallocation national systems, which might lead to a broader discussion and, and then change of governance tools used in the past, such as performance agreements. So more broadly, I think there should be a debate over, there's already an ongoing debate on new public management as a conceptual framework for higher education, which we all know are used in the last two decades or so. I think that, we need maybe a new public management as the, the governance tools being used or not appropriate regarding the dynamics and the speed of change, as I mentioned earlier. So I think that could be kind of a, maybe a more fundamental discussion about the tools and instruments, which we all know and all learned to use in the last twenty years, so that those instruments might be not kind of able to support us kind of driving through this dynamics and speed of change in the upcoming years.
Alex Usher: This is GOHEC's first report, and you describe it as a kind of a pilot for the Observatory's broader mission. What are your priorities for the next phase? Like, is there gonna be methodological changes or conceptual changes next year, uh, in the next report or as the observatory continues to evolve?
Attila Pausits: Yeah, I think that, you know, we are, of course, we are eager to, to gather feedback from the community, from colleagues, from our different networks and kind of clients of the observatory. But, yet I think there is at least three kind of goals, uh, maybe even in the, in the short run.
One is indeed, as you mention, the consolidation of a methodical framework. In the first reports, we kind of used the kind of a geographic dimension, and we, we try to kind of accommodate the topics around dedicated regions. I think that this, the goal is to expand the coverage beyond our covered regions by including more robust data also from regions that remain underrepresented in our first pilots such as Africa, South America, and the Middle East, which are kind of also very interesting regions and development. And we often tend a bit to kind of, you know, sitting the very moment in Austria, like, you know, looking to Europe, looking to the US, looking to Canada, looking to Australia. So I think that that should be also somehow incorporated in our future work. And this would kind of call for a new regional partnerships and experts involved, um, in their work and in the, in the future, so that GOHEC could reflect through global diversity of higher education systematically over time. And I think the ambition is for GOHEC to evolve and let's see how far we get with this from a, a kind of a traditional observatory into a global early warning and foresight, a platform capable to detect structural shifts before they consolidate and, and maybe even inform both policy and institutional strategy worldwide, which I know that it's quite a demanding and, challenging, goal, but why not to aim high? And I think that is maybe also something that we would need because I started to, to put some kind of criticism on higher education research, being also a higher education researcher in the network, and I think that the evolution and the development of higher education research over time, including journals, publications, and the knowledge production is really impressive. But I think we should also look at our different customers, clients, and I think we should not only look back, but uh, especially looking into the future. And I think this is also where policy makers are more interested not only reading the past, but really looking into the future. And maybe that could be a kind of a, or that is a goal in the, uh, maybe a future strategy or mission of GOHEC for the upcoming years.
Alex Usher: Attila Thanks so much for being with us today.
Attila Pausits: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
Alex Usher: And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers, Tiffany MacLennan and Sam Pufek and you, our listeners and readers for joining us. If you have any questions or comments about today's episode, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at podcast@higheredstrategy.com.
Join us next week when our guest will be Rob Annan. Rob is president and CEO of Genome Canada. He'll be joining us to talk about the developments of global science and science policy in Canada. Bye for now.