A thought about international university cooperation

As Europe and Asia have now joined the United States in the forefront of science and technology (after decades of catching up), there should be more interest in twinning of U.S. and overseas university groups. While I have been primarily interested in the past in university partnerships in which U.S. institutions help build developing country institutions, it is increasingly to U.S. interests for our best institutions to partner with the best institutions abroad.

The Internet makes a big difference since it makes transaction costs so much lower. It is possible to offer joint courses or to develop joint curricula or joint research projects with little added cost using the Internet, the cloud, email, Skype, etc.

Actually being present in someone's lab or classroom remains important. There is a lot of tacit knowledge that is transferred by "being there", as there is a lot of information transferred by non-verbal communication such as body language. I discovered in my grant management in the past that university professors in the United States often have resources at their disposition that they can use to support someone once that person is located nearby, but have great difficulty obtaining the travel money to move themselves or their colleagues across borders. A small grants program, with grants of a few thousand dollars each, could make a lot of difference in promoting better international networking of U.S. universities.

How to understand other people

I heard an interview with a novelist, Gina B. Nahai, who said that to understand a people you have to read their fiction. It is in their fiction that you can see how they think and how they interpret events.

Of course, it is important to read history of a people. I also think that it is important to read the standard stuff you find on the CIA World Factbook -- economy, demographic profile, political organization and recent history, etc.

Still, I think Nahai is right. In my experience if you understand someone's premises and how their analytic processes differ from your own, you have a much better chance of predicting how they will extrapolate from observations. Besides, reading fiction is interesting. I note, however, that you can also learn quite a bit from popular culture about how people think -- foreign movies, foreign popular televesion shows. Even watching British, French or German international news programs indicates not only what information is forming other peoples opinions, but what information their news agencies feel is best to broadcast.

American Kids Studying Abroad

Source: International Institute of Education via
The New York Times

Comment: The increasing trend is encouraging. The decreasing trend of kids spending a year abroad is worrisome.. I think a year is a relatively short time to get acquainted with ones first foreign country. The distribution of countries is also of some concern. It might be better for the United States were a larger portion of the students to go to Asia, especially China and India. It might be better for the students were more to go to Latin America, where they might learn more about society and the social sciences and less about art and high culture, and at a lower cost.

Perhaps a foundation could step in to work on policy for international education for the United States. A fairly small program might make a difference in the choices of several thousand students per year, especially if it were to enable Latin American universities to offer more attractive programs to U.S. students, or to reach more of them with more attractively presented programs. JAD

Workshop on the International Mobility of Researchers

28 March 2007
International Energy Agency (IEA)

he aims of this one-day workshop were to:

• assess the stocks and flows of researcher mobility in OECD and certain non-member countries;
• analyse the policy options for enhancing the international mobility of researchers at the national and institutional level; and
• examine the policy options for designing researcher mobility schemes that can build research capacity in both OECD countries and non-member economies.

The National Academies | News | U.S. Needs New Approach to Improve International Education

The National Academies | News | U.S. Needs New Approach to Improve International Education:

"More support from all levels of the U.S. education system is needed to develop an integrated approach to improving foreign language skills and expertise on other cultures, says a new report from the National Research Council. Also, the Education Department should consolidate oversight of its foreign language and international education programs under a high-ranking official who would provide strategic direction and coordinate its work with other federal agencies."

From "The Week"

* Suddenly Suspicious of Canadians: New travel rules may weaken relations with the neighboring countries.

Until last week, these two neighboring peoples could visit each other with no more ceremony than the flash of a driver’s license. Now, though, the security-conscious U.S. has begun requiring all airplane passengers crossing the U.S.-Canada border to carry a passport. By 2009, the rule will also apply to anyone who crosses the border by land.

* The magazine also notes "Is America closed for business? Middle Man" by Clay Risen from the New Republic Online. The paragraph long article points out the Bush administration travel restrictions are such that foreign business men are increasingly rejecting U.S. venues for business meetings, and U.S. executives are having to travel abroad.