Global Governance and Higher Education Development

Abstract

This paper aims to clarify the unique characteristics of the higher education field in terms of global governance and education development. We overviewed the relationship between global governance and higher education development with a primary focus on the multilayered initiatives in international cooperation cases by international organizations, national governments and agencies, universities and other higher education institutions, as well as individual academics. We identified two main approaches in global governance for higher education development. The first approach is based on providing global and regional governance frameworks through the settings of international laws, treaties, and charters or presenting new concepts through research, reports, and dialogues. The second approach is to build frameworks of international cooperation through the initiatives of universities and higher education institutions as well as individual academics and their networks. The second approach is inherent in the higher education field that is backed by the tradition of academic autonomy as well as the more recent trend of their market-based behavior as knowledge industries. Finally, the authors suggest implications for stakeholders in higher education development in Japan: (1) the need to know the global landscape of issues in higher education, (2) a precise understanding of the position of the Japanese case among countries with various experiences of higher education development, (3) the importance of promoting higher education development in collaboration with the Japanese industry and society, (4) the importance of fostering leaders who can play active roles as facilitators in international dialogue and collaboration in higher education, and (5) the necessity of linking international cooperation and collaboration activities with the internationalization reform of Japanese higher education.