Professor Hisham Elkadi, Dean of the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Salford in Manchester, England, said that in the future, many of the functions of universities will merge with those of industry, and that university leaders must be ready for these changes. In fact, developing successful relationships with industry may be key to a university’s success in the near future. But developing successful partnerships is not always simple. He pointed out that while many academics believe they have successful relationships with industry, few know how to accurately assess these relationships.
“Higher education-the university as we know it-will not survive in the future,” Prof. Elkadi said “Some in technology think they know better than universities and are taking over many of their functions. Much of the role of the university will be taken over by industry in the future. It is a whole political shift.”
Competency-based education is growing in the U.S and the UK, he said. In this system, an employee who worked at a firm like Samsung might return to the university and be granted a degree based on little or no coursework, but on the competencies he has developed while working for a company.
“It is a little like a video game, where you keep moving up to the next level“, he said.
Students may go straight to work at a company after high school and the company may then send them to university one day a week with tax dollars, instead of the usual model of finishing a college degree before beginning a career, he said.
As universities learn to work with technology firms and others in the corporate world, they need to bring company leaders into the university and make them feel a part of it-not just teaching a course or conducting a bit of research, which ultimately becomes a transaction that does not last. Industry leaders need to be made a part of the university through long-term decision teaching appointments, service on industrial advisory boards and deep involvement with research, even helping universities set research agendas as industry and university researchers collaborate. Then industry leaders can then become co-creators of a university’s research and curriculum.
Prof. Elkadi pointed out that universities in Vietnam must prepare for this close collaboration with industry and take a leadership role in creating.
One foundation for developing such successful partnerships is to create an assessment tool. The university of Salford had built an assessment method based on 14 criteria, under the headings of research, engagement and teaching. He said the criteria may be different in Vietnam, and suggested that HUMG faculty develop their own criteria for measuring successful collaboration with industry and tech.
A pilot assessment using these 14 criteria was presented in evaluation the partnership between HUMG and Rosneft Vietnam – one of HUMG’s industrial partners.
The university will now work to develop its own criteria, and deans and other leaders will meet in the next few weeks to assess other partnership between HUMG and industry.