VIRTUAL EVENT: UCL-Tohoku University joint symposium
Reinventing international university education and the role of globally engaged universities dialogues between the UK and Japan. Our speakers will discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing international student experience and how the pandemic is changing the global engagement among leading universities.
VIRTUAL EVENT: UCL-Tohoku University joint symposium
16 Jun 2021, 10:00 – 12:20
The symposium is organised in the framework of the Strategic Partnership between UCL and Tohoku University (Japan).
It represents the first opportunity to showcase ongoing joint research on higher education. Particularly, the symposium addresses themes related to leadership, crisis management and global engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first part will focus on the experiences of students in UK, Europe and Japan, the second part will elaborate on the long-term implications of COVID-19 or the governance of universities.
The event runs between 10:00-12:20 GMT / 18:00-20:20 JST.
Chairs
- Claire Callender (UCL)
- Kazuko Suematsu (Tohoku University)
10:00 - 10:05 | Opening Remarks
- Prof Akiyoshi Yonezawa (Tohoku University)
1. How is Covid-19 pandemic changing international student experiences at the universities?
Rachel Brooks (University of Surrey)
In this presentation, Rachel Brooks will suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted and helped set some key themes and issues regarding international students that have emerged over recent years.
These include:
- the increasing socio-economic diversification in the backgrounds of international students
- emerging new geographies of international student mobility
- how we assess the ‘value’ of an international education
- and the ethics of policy and practice in this area.
Rachel Brooks will illustrate these points by drawing on the growing literature on the impact of COVID-19, as well as the much larger body of scholarship on international student mobility more generally.
Yukiko Shimmi and Akiyoshi Yonezawa (Tohoku University)
Adding to the traditional motivations for student mobility (migration to and pursuit of cutting-edge studies and professional development in advanced countries), the pursuit of short-term international experiences focused on improving intercultural literacy. Communication has also become an important factor driving East Asian university students to study abroad.
This presentation explores the international experiences of Japanese undergraduate students in both the pre- and during-coronavirus eras.
First, the presentation provides an overview of the policy backgrounds and discusses trends in international student exchange in Japan. This section briefly touches on recent Japanese government initiatives for university internationalisation, such as the Top Global University Project and the Inter-University Exchange Project, characteristics of international mobility of Japanese students, and the shift from long-term degree-seeking mobility to short-term credit seeking mobility.
Next, by referring to the results of a large-scale survey conducted in the pre-corona era, the perceived impacts of study abroad experiences among Japanese undergraduate students are examined. This section focuses on the impacts on developing the competencies required in the current globalised society. It then explores the responses of universities to continuing international education exchange during the pandemic.
Finally, it discusses future directions of international education exchange in Japan and East Asia. The presenters suggest that pursuing the most appropriate mix of online and in-person international exchange will become crucial in the post-pandemic era.
10:45 - 10:55 | Break
2. How is the pandemic changing the global engagement among leading universities?
Liu Jing (Tohoku University) & Tristan McCowan (UCL)
The role of universities in promoting sustainable development has been widely recognised and discussed by the international community. The global pandemic brought unprecedented challenges to universities in terms of teaching, learning, and internationalisation. Meanwhile, it pushed universities to take more comprehensive initiatives in promoting global sustainability. This presentation includes three parts.
First, it explores the ways in which universities have been taking action to respond to sustainability issues at the global level.
Then it introduces Tohoku University’s initiatives in promoting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through education, research, campus management, and community outreach.
Finally, it discusses challenges and barriers for promoting leading universities’ engagement in promoting sustainability in Japan. It concludes by emphasising a whole institutional approach to engage universities in promoting the SDGs as shared world challenges.
Tatiana Fumasoli (UCL Institute of Education)
This presentation will discuss ideas and practices of global engagement in higher education. Specifically, it will outline how 'global engagement' has changed over time and how it has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Drawing on the case of UCL, it will be argued that global engagement is shaped by institutional capacity. This points to distinctive governance, organisational identities, and available resources. The presentation argues that each university should find its unique global engagement profile and that this needs to be articulated within a systemic perspective.
11:35 - 12:15 | Panel discussion
Discussants:
- Fujio Ohmori (Tohoku University)
- Victoria Showunmi (UCL)
Participants:
- Rachel Brooks
- Tatiana Fumasoli
- Liu Jing
- Tristan McCowan
- Yukiko Shimmi
- Akiyoshi Yonezawa
12:15 - 12:20 | Closing remarks
- Dr Tatiana Fumasoli, UCL Institute of Education
CHES research events
CHES research events provide a forum for academic debate, policy analysis and practice insight in higher education, supporting the exchange of theories, methods and data across social sciences.
Links
- Watch the webinar | Download the presentation slides (.ZIP)
- CHES research events
- Event on the Tohoku University website: UCL-Tohoku University joint symposium
- Centre for Higher Education Studies
- Department of Education, Practice and Society
Image - Left: Mary Hinkley for UCL Digital Media / Right: photo provided from Tohoku University
Professor of Higher Education Policy at UCL Institute of Education (IOE) and Professor of Higher Education Studies at Birkbeck, University of London
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Clare is also the Deputy Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education, an international research centre funded by the ESRC.
Her research and writing focus on higher education student finances and its consequences. She has contributed to some of the most significant UK inquiries into student funding, and presented evidence to various Parliamentary Select Committees.
In 2017, she was awarded an OBE for services to higher education. Claire is currently conducting research on student loan debt.
Special Advisor to the President for International Affairs and the Deputy Director of the Global Learning Center
Tohoku University
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Kazuko is responsible for developing international strategies for the university, leading various international projects, teaching intercultural education classes at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and overseeing a variety of incoming and outgoing international programs.
As a specialist of intercultural collaborative learning, she is committed to internationalisation of curriculum and teaching practices as well as research that looks into outcomes of internationalisation at home, and actively engaged in faculty development at universities both at home and internationally.
Professor and Vice-Director of International Strategy Office, and a Special Advisor for the President
Tohoku University, Japan
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With a background in sociology, Akiyoshi mainly conducts research on comparative higher education policy – especially focusing on world-class universities, internationalisation and public-private relationships in higher education.
He actively contributes to international research publications. He is also one of the book series editors of Higher Education in Asia (Springer).
His recent co-edited book 'Researching Higher Education in Asia' (Springer, 2018) was granted the “Best Book Award 2019” from Comparative and International Education Society (SIG Higher Education).
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Rachel is executive editor of the British Journal of Sociology of Education and co-editor of the Routledge/SRHE book series ‘Research into Higher Education’.
She has published widely on the sociology of higher education, and is currently leading the ERC-funded ‘Eurostudents’ project.
Her recent books include:
- Reimagining the Higher Education Student (2021, with Sarah O’Shea)
- Sharing Care: Early and Primary Carer Fathers and Early Years Parenting (2020, with Paul Hodkinson)
- Education and Society: Places, Policies, Process (2018).
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Yukiko’s research focuses on the international mobility of students, including the motivation and the impact of study abroad experiences on students. Recently, her academic interest lies in the enhancement of the connectivity of international education practices between secondary schools and universities.
She also studies international mobility of academics and their experiences. Previously, she worked as an assistant professor and international education advisor at the Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan.
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Jing's research areas include:
- sociology of education
- international comparative education and development
- education for sustainability.
His current research projects include school collaboration for school improvement in China and Japan, small-scale schools and quality education in rural China, and transformation of higher education for sustainability in Asia.
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Tristan's work focuses on higher education and international development, particularly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, including issues of access, quality, innovation and sustainability.
His latest book is Higher Education for and beyond the Sustainable Development Goals (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and he is editor of Compare – a Journal of International and Comparative Education. He is currently leading a multi-country Global Challenges Research Fund project on universities and climate change.
Associate Professor in Higher Education Studies and Director of CHES
UCL Institute of Education
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Tatiana's expertise includes higher education management, strategy and policy in international perspective. Tatiana has coordinated several international projects focusing on global governance, external engagement and the academic profession.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of management studies, organisation theory and sociology of professions and expertise. Tatiana has extensively published in the main journals in the field and is editor of Higher Education Quarterly (Wiley).
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Before joining academia Fujio, he worked at Japan’s Ministry of Education for approximately twenty years.
His research projects, funded by the Japanese government’s research grant scheme (Kakenhi), covered the issues of:
- postgraduates’ employability
- PhD holders as temporary staff at universities
- leadership, management and governance in higher education
- international and transnational higher education.
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Victoria's career profile has reflected her interest the areas of leadership, identity, gender, race and equalities research in education. She is currently engaged with an international research project exploring Black girls'/women's experience in education and the workplace.
Her most recent publications include:
- Showunmi, v. et. al The Bloomsbury Handbook in Gender and Educational Leadership and Management (in press)
- Moorosi, P. and Showunmi, V. (2022) Understanding leadership identity construction: gendered analysis in fourth edition of the International Encyclopedia of Education, published by Elsevier.
Further information
Ticketing
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Cost
Free
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All
Availability
Yes