Key Challenges to the Academic Profession [antikvár]

Foreword The UNESCO Forum on Higher Education, Knowledge and Research is pleased to present the publication, entitled Key Challenges to the Academic Profession. Edited by two celebrated academics, the late Professor Maurice Kogan (United Kingdom) and Professor Ulrich Teichler (Germany), this volume emanates from an experts' workshop on the subject hosted by the International Centre for Higher Education Research (INCMER-Kassel) at Kassel University, Germany, in September 2006. First and foremost, it is appropriate to situate this publication to the aims of UNESCO Forum and, thus, to contextualize the specific issues related to the academic profession. The UNESCO Forum focuses on the role and status of national research systems and international trends in this domain in relation to the challenges posed by the Knowledge Society of the 21 "" century. Located at UNESCO and supported by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), the UNESCO Forum provides a platform for researchers, policymakers and relevant stakeholders to engage critically with the key elements unpinning research systems.-trends, infrastructure, human capacity, and investment. This project has assured follow up action for two major UNESCO conferences, the !998 World Conference on Higher Education and the 1999 World Conference on Science, and links closely to the intergovernmental programme for the Management of Social Transformation (MOST), located in the Sector of Social and Human Sciences. Since 2001, the UNESCO Forum has consolidated its efforts to bridge research and policy in a number of ways through facilitating and broadening the space for critical debate and through revisiting the established and dominant views so as to reconceptualize future directions. To date, its various components for attaining these goals - mobilizing experts, stimulating global and regional debate, producing and disseminating research, promoting strategic partnerships, facilitating communication, and strengthening the systemic approach - have yielded creditable results. The UNESCO Forum believes that it is central to reaffinn the importance of research at the cuiTent moment given the rapid developments since 2000 in knowledge production and management and their ramifications for social change and progress. Research on research has become, therefore, even more crucial and is now well recognized as a major field of enquiiy for international organizations, charged with advising their member states about the questions involved. In this regard, the World Bank and the OECD are key partners of the UNESCO Fonim. The UNESCO Forum pursues a systemic approach to the analysis of research so as to address strengths and weakness, as well as specific issues and concerns, in a critical manner. This work will embrace research and in both industrialized and