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The strategic positioning of Australian research universities in the East Asian region

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Abstract

Regional tendencies in higher education are increasingly important, for example the common rise of North-East Asian universities in China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and South Korea, and Singapore in South-East Asia, to a major global role, following the prior trajectory of Japan. Though the rapidly modernizing Post-Confucian countries do not constitute a formal region, they share a common political and cultural dynamism, entailing rapid improvement of quantity and quality in education and research. This poses challenges and opportunities for Australia, a British/European heritage nation located at the edge of Asia, with extensive trade into East Asia, and an Asian-influenced demography, providing that it can (1) further develop its research capacity, given that research provides the main medium of deep collaboration in higher education, and (2) lift its cultural capacity to interface with systems in the region.

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Notes

  1. The author previously used the term ‘Confucian Model’ (Marginson 2011b). However, ‘Confucian’ carries unintended meanings reflecting prior usage in terms of fixed cultural categories. Cultural identity in higher education in East Asia (like elsewhere) is not fixed, but continually evolving, and hybrid in character.

  2. The citation data are provided in both raw form and on a field-normalized basis, whereby the Leiden group adjusts the raw data to account for different rates of publication and citation in research fields.

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Marginson, S. The strategic positioning of Australian research universities in the East Asian region. High Educ 70, 265–281 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-014-9839-5

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