[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Focus Group Title: “University-Government Partnerships: Why do they matter?”
Date: 16th of November, 2017
Time: 9:00am – 12:30 pm
Location: Ruby
Moderator: Prof. Amr Adly, Vice-President for Graduate Studies and Research, Cairo University, Egypt
Co-moderator: TBA[/vc_column_text][vc_separator css=\”.vc_custom_1507612131383{margin-top: 0px !important;margin-bottom: 0px !important;border-top-width: 0px !important;border-bottom-width: 0px !important;padding-top: 0px !important;padding-bottom: 0px !important;}\”][vc_column_text]Focus Group Brief:
Universities play a crucial role in supporting human, social and economic growth and in contributing to the achievement of national priorities set as part of government strategies. The higher education system within the Arab region is highly diversified in term of its capacity to contribute to both the national and regional economic development and its ability to support national priorities in terms of research and innovation or the creation of a skilled workforce.
Initial finding shows that for many countries the relationship between government and universities is still limited and confined to a funding and/ or regulatory relationship with limited dialogue between the two occurring.
Research for example is one of those areas that may require both parties to come together to identify priorities and set directions. Broadly speaking, research and innovations is still perceived as a low priority to governments within the region and very small budgets in terms of % of GDP are allocated by the government to support research; despite few countries now showing an increasing interest in encouraging and supporting research and innovation. However, promoting university – government partnerships entails more than just funding and supporting research and innovation; both universities and government also need to work together to ensure that a skilled workforce that can support a strong, sustainable and balanced ecomincal growth is developed. Equipping the workforce with the skills required for the jobs of today and those of tomorrow is a strategic concern in the national growth and development outlooks of most countries in particular with the rapidly evolving markets in which we operate and the emergence of globalization. The key challenge is to identify ways to enhance the responsiveness of our educational systems to these changes and to improve access to training and skills development; to support this national strategic policy framework are needed to be developed in a collaborative manner.
Universities also have an important civic function to achieve which should be of focus to both governments and higher education.
Key Questions to be address during the Focus Group Include:
- What are the global drivers for strengthening university-government partnership?
- To which extent are universities able to contribute to the government strategy and in which capacity? What role they play in
- What are the key enablers to support a better university-government engagement?
- Where are the priorities for the region?
- Are there examples of successful partnership between regional government and universities where returns on investment were achieved? What lessons were learned?
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][button icon=\”icon-left-big\” background=\”#941c1f\” url=\”https://clicks-uae.com/mena/forum-structure-program-2/\”]Go Back[/button][/vc_column][/vc_row]
