Competing Higher Education Futures in a Globalising World PAUL LEFRERE Introduction The ���GlobalisingWorld��� in the title of this article is well-represented in the themes of recent European conferences for senior decision-makers (e.g. politicians, heads of institutions, senior managers) wishing to share experiences and views on challenges and opportunities for higher education. Examples of these conferences include Going Global (2006) and the Guardian Higher Education Summit (2007). Such events tend to focus on pressing questions such as these, posed by the UK Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education: What we can do on a global basis to increase access to education? How do we ensure high-quality provision? And what do we need to do to achieve the Lisbon agenda for the EU to become the most competitive region in the world whilst at the same time not taking the resources developing countries need? (Rammell, 2006). They offer few explicit examples of the differences in perspectives suggested by the first part of the title: ���Competing Higher Education Futures��� and represented by the work of Futurists (Miller, 2007 Milojevic, 2005 Rhoades et al., 2004 Slaughter, 1999 Vincent-Lancrin, 2004).To illustrate,Vincent-Lancrin identifies six Futurist scenarios, each of which could be pursued by at least one university in a country, competing with efforts of other universities promoting other scenarios: 1. a traditionalist scenario that slows or halts moves to mass education, marketisation, distance teaching (use of ICTs) and lifelong learning 2. an embrace-change scenario, bringing in private funding under the control of the Higher Education institutions 3. a market-led scenario, in which organisations concentrated on specialist niches, where they could be market leaders, coupled with international partnerships, outsourcing of much publicly funded science, and productivity-enhancing use of ICT for teaching 4. a continuing professional development and lifelong learning scenario, with universities certifying courses but with other traditional university func- tions moved to the private sector 5. a learner-led scenario, in which learners design their own lifelong learning and source the components from a global network of universities and industry partners European Journal of Education, Vol. 42, No. 2, 2007 �� 2007The Author. Journal compilation �� 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

6. an informal learning scenario, in which formal tertiary education disappears. Futurists increasingly aim to base their views on replicable methodologies for assessing available data and generating and assessing feasible and likely scenarios, some of which anticipate structural or radical change. To judge from their presentations and questions, many higher education leaders are either unaware of such work (and by implication, do not plan for those futures), or discount the value of that work and prefer to plan for a Simple Extrapolated Future (SEF), with today���s trends continuing, but no other factors at work. SEF-type planning is reliant on ���. . . predictive approaches rooted in trend analysis, forecasting models, multi-factor calculations, etc. [which] are tightly integrated with the way risk is managed and decisions taken in industrial society . . . [although] the world around us today, in its evolving conceptual and practical attributes, is creating a context that, on the one hand, is dispensing with industrial era modes of perpetuating systemic stability, risk management, decision making, etc. and, on the other hand, is embracing complexity, heterogeneity and sponta- neity as opposed to simplification, homogeneity and planning��� (Miller, 2007). Scenarios that allow for complexity, heterogeneity and spontaneity can be expected to be very different in nature and potential impact from those based on trend analysis. An example of a general complexity-creating factor is focusing on the achieve- ment of routine targets (according to the dictum ���what gets measured, gets done���), and in so doing, missing weak signals of coming major change, which eventually grow into large signals that threaten organisational survival or even human survival (Slaughter, 1999 2007). An example of a complexity-creating factor that is specific to higher education would be the emergence of low-cost or no-cost ways for libraries, students, teachers and researchers in developing coun- tries to gain access to the knowledge resources (intellectual property, tools, net- works, communities) routinely available to their counterparts in the developed world.The ���digitise the world��� goals of Internet search companies such as Google and the priority given to Open Educational Resources by UNESCO and the Hewlett Foundation are indicators that global access to such resources is in prospect. This could change the rate and scope of capacity-building in the devel- oping world and would be supported by higher education institutions whose mission includes the promotion of global understanding and tolerance, as part of their ethical responsibilities to less-favoured groups around the world ��� some- times called Global Citizenship. Areas of particular importance for capacity-building in the developing world include information-sourcing (access to a widening range of information sources, eventually including some found today only in elite research universities and the R&D departments of multinationals) capability-enhancing technologies, including tools for information-processing (e.g. evaluating sources and identifying which ones are most reliable and relevant) and sense-making (e.g. determining what points of view are represented by each source, and in what ways those sources are relevant for local needs). Such developments could lead to Miller���s ���spontaneity and radical change��� in higher education through a multi-stage process: 202 European Journal of Education �� 2007 The Author. Journal compilation �� 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.