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About Us

Global University Network for Innovation

Presentation

The Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi) was created in 1999 by UNESCO, the United Nations University (UNU) and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. BarcelonaTech (UPC) after UNESCO's World Conference on Higher Education (WCHE) in 1998, to give continuity to and facilitate the implementation of its main decisions. Ten years later in 2009, GUNI played a significant role in the second WCHE, following its mandate to further reflection and action frameworks to facilitate the exchange of value between higher education and society globally.

GUNi’s mission is to strengthen the role of higher education in society contributing to the renewal of the visions, missions and policies of higher education across the world under a vision of public service, relevance and social responsibility.

GUNi is a network currently composed of 214 members from 76 countries, including the UNESCO Chairs in Higher Education, higher education institutions, research centers and networks related to innovation and the social commitment of higher education.

GUNi has regional offices in Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Arab States, and Europe and North America (USA and Canada). The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain hosts its presidency and the International Secretariat.

Background

GUNi was created within the framework of the UNITWIN / UNESCO Chairs Programme, under the following principles:

Education, academic and vocational training, sustainable research and education capacities are prerequisites for the development of any country.

Human resources play a major role in the socio-economic and cultural development of countries.

Inter-university cooperation aims at long-term linkages between institutions of higher education and research in both industrialized and developing countries, by focusing primarily on the transfer of knowledge.

Any cooperation should be based on a desire to promote the development of the partner university in accordance with its own aims.

Progress in higher education should be based on long-term choices made in response to social requirements, particularly those connected with peace, democratic government and sustainable development.

Association based on common interest, mutual respect and credibility should be a prime matrix for renewal in higher education.

Inter-university cooperation between higher education institutions and society, based on solidarity and mutual respect, constitutes a common cultural heritage.

Mission

At the beginning of this century there was a strong need to establish new bases for a sustainable global society, taking into account environmental limits, re-examining the dynamics of global economic, political, human, social and cultural models, as well as their local manifestations. In fact we are currently experiencing a crisis of civilization, in which we must facilitate the transition towards a paradigm shift aimed at rebuilding society, with the collective desire and responsibility of attaining a better world for future generations.

This is significant enough to warrant a discussion on what the role of higher education and its social contract should be in this new era, to reinvent an innovative and socially committed response that anticipates and adds value to the process of social transformations. These changes are mostly related to the review of the educative purpose, the role of knowledge in society to address major global issues, local needs in a global context and the need to prepare people to be global actors of positive transformation of societies.

This requires reconsidering what the social contribution of higher education should be. GUNi encourages higher education institutions to redefine their role, embrace this process of transformation and strengthen their critical stance within society.

To face these challenges, the mission of GUNi is to strengthen higher education’s role in society and contributing to the renewal of the visions, missions and policies of higher education's main issues across the world under a vision of public service, relevance and social responsibility.

Objectives

Higher education faces the challenge of creating and distributing socially relevant knowledge and of doing it with anticipation so as to play a proactive and committed role in the positive evolution of societies. That implies taking into account how the creation and distribution of knowledge could contribute to human rights, sustainable development, intercultural understanding, democracy, equity, peace and justice among other main issues.

GUNi has circumscribed a sphere of action that is based on encouraging the exchange of resources, ideas and innovative experiences, fostering cooperation between higher education institutions and actors at all levels of activity to achieve this proposals.

GUNi’s main objectives are to:

Encourage higher education institutions to reorient their role for broadening their social value, embrace this process of transformation and strengthen their crucial stance within society.
Promote the exchange of resources, innovative ideas and experiences to facilitate higher education’s role for social transformation.
Foster networking among higher education institutions and cooperation between them and society.
Help bridge the gap between developed and developing countries in the field of higher education and foster the cooperation North-South and South-South.
Allow collective and cooperative reflection, exchange and production of knowledge regarding what social responsibility should mean and relevance in the emerging planetarian era.

Activities

GUNi develops the following main activities:

Higher Education in the World Report

The Report is a collective work published as part of the GUNi series on the social commitment of universities. It is the result of a global and regional analysis of higher education in the world, with a specific subject chosen for each edition. The Report reflects on the key issues and challenges facing higher education and its institutions in the 21st century. It is currently published in English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic.

International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education

The GUNi Conference is an international forum for debate on the challenges facing higher education. Each edition of the Conference deals with the subject chosen for the Report. Held in Barcelona and attended by renowned experts, university leaders, academics, policymakers and practitioners from all over the world, the Conference addresses innovative proposals and ideas, as well as the results of the latest research on each subject.

Networking

GUNi reinforces and expands its network beyond its member institutions by encouraging the dynamic involvement of a wide range of actors in higher education in its activities. It fosters cooperation between them and promotes debate and the creation and exchange of knowledge on higher education worldwide by means of both on-site and on-line activities. The website and the monthly Higher Education Newsletter are cornerstones of the accomplishment of this objective.

GUNi Knowledge Community

GUNi.KC is a virtual meeting point and resource center with the objective of supporting the creation, transfer and application of knowledge. It aims to provide a space for discussion and exchange that will reinforce the reports and the ongoing work presented at our conferences. Through a variety of specific topics focused in the transformation of higher education and its role in responding to global challenges, GUNi.KC offers tools to stimulate the direct participation of the affiliates in order to facilitate the exchange of expertise, resources and good practices that returned as a knowledge gain to community members.

GUNi.KC also provides specific objectives aimed:

to provide specialized know-how in the particular experience of each territory;
to share the result of research and reflection on hot topics and emerging issues;
to encourage the submission of proposals to improve synergies between the broader network and the institutional members.

Higher Education and Innovation Observatory of Good Practices

GUNi.HEiOBS is a point of dissemination and a place for the exchange of significant practices in emerging issues on higher education under a social responsibility perspective. It identifies, documents and facilitates the transfer of good practices and innovative experiences, which enrich the process transforming higher education institutions and its relationship with society.

Research projects

GUNi undertakes research projects on higher education for public and private not-for-profit institutions. GUNi has carried out a number of research studies by its own initiative, alone or in collaboration with other institutions.

The three Delphi surveys conducted – one for each of the three first reports issued by GUNi – are particularly significant.

Delphi Study on Leaders’ Perspectives on Financing Higher Education (2006)

74 Higher education experts and leaders around the world participated in the survey.

Delphi Study on Accreditation and Social Commitment (2007)

103 Higher education experts and leaders around the world participated in the survey.

Delphi Study on Higher Education for Human and Social Development (2008)

214 Higher education experts and leaders around the world participated in the survey.

The results of the Delphi Studies have been published in the Higher Education in the World Report, but have been also presented in different conferences.

In addition, GUNi undertakes research projects on higher education for public and private not-for-profit institutions.

Report on Tertiary Education in Spain (2007), commissioned by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. We presented the report to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as part of a comparative study of higher education systems in member countries.

Higher Education Needs in Latin America (2007), commissioned by the Carolina Foundation as part of its strategy to establish future lines of action. The report included an analysis of the following countries’ higher education systems: Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Trends in Higher Education in the World (2009), commissioned by the UPC. It presents the main trends identified by various sources as present and future determinants of higher education in the near future. The report was and will be used as a basis for discussion in the process of developing the UPC Vision 2020 project.

Promotion of Sustainable Development by Higher Education Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa GUNi, the International Association of Universities (IAU) and the Association of African Universities (AAU) have been jointly developing this project. The main objective of the project is to obtain an overview of the major actions, experiences and practices that higher education institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa are developing so as to promote sustainable development through their activities.

Additionally, the GUNi Secretariat, together with other UPC units, has been working on an education-innovation project aimed at introducing the concept of professional ethics based on respect for diversity, sustainable human development and complexity. We have created educational materials for UPC and other technical universities in Spain and Latin America. These materials, designed for use in university syllabi, introduce cross-disciplinary skills of ethics and professional responsibility related to awareness and consideration of the social impacts of activities; diversity, with special emphasis on cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue; sustainability; human development in southern countries; transdisciplinarity; and complexity in engineering problems.

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