Category: Canada

  • Ford, Trump and the War on Education (Henry A. Giroux and William Paul)

    Ford, Trump and the War on Education (Henry A. Giroux and William Paul)

    Analyses of fascism too often fixate on its most spectacular expressions: staggering inequality, systemic racism, the militarization of daily life, unbridled corruption, monopolistic control of the media, and the concentration of power in financial and political elites. Fascism thrives on a culture of fear and racial cleansing and the normalization of cruelty, lies, and state violence. Yet what is often overlooked is how culture and education now function as decisive forces in legitimating these authoritarian passions and in eroding democratic commitments. As Hannah Arendt, Jason Stanley, Richard Evans, Chris Hedges, and others remind us, the protean origins of fascism are never fully buried; they return in altered and often disguised forms, seeping into everyday life and reshaping the common sense of a society.

    Under US President Donald Trump, we face a terrifying new horizon of authoritarian politics: the erosion of due process, mass abductions, vicious attacks on higher education, and the steady construction of a police state. Canada has not yet descended into such full-fledged authoritarianism, but troubling echoes are undeniable. Public spaces and public goods are under assault, book bans have appeared in Alberta, languages of hate increasingly target those deemed disposable, the mass media bends to corporate interests, labour is suppressed, and democratic values are met with disdain. These may not replicate the worst horrors of the past, but they reveal how culture and education become the terrain upon which democracy is dismantled and authoritarianism gains legitimacy. These are warning signs of a gathering darkness that must be confronted before they harden into something far more sinister.

    Culture and Pedagogy

    Fascism thrives not only on brute police power, prisons, or economic violence but also on culture and pedagogy. Culture has increasingly become a site in the service of pedagogical tyranny. It works through erasure and repression, through memory stripped of its critical force, and through dissent silenced in the name of order. Fascism is never solely a political or economic system; it is a pedagogical project, a machinery of teaching and unlearning that narrows the horizon of what can be said, imagined, or remembered.

    Today authoritarianism seeps insidiously into everyday life, embedded in seemingly obvious maneuvers that consolidate power under the guise of technical or bureaucratic necessity. Its mobilizing passions often emerge unobtrusively in maneuvers that hide in the shadows of the mundane, often at the level of everyday experience.

    This creeping logic is starkly visible in Ontario, where Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative (PC) government has moved to seize control of local school boards. What may look like routine administrative measures should be read as a warning: authoritarianism does not arrive only with grandiose spectacles or open attacks on democracy’s foundations; it gains ground quietly, through the erosion of the ordinary, the capture of the local, and above all, through the weaponization of education as a tool to dismantle democracy itself.

    The Ford government’s seizure of the Toronto, Toronto Catholic, Ottawa-Carleton, and Dufferin-Peel Catholic district school boards is extraordinary, even for this democracy-averse regime. Education Minister Paul Calandra has even mused about eliminating trustees altogether before the 2026 local elections, declaring “Everything is on the table.” His justification that Ontario’s Ministry of Education (MOE) has allowed them to make too many decisions on their own is both unsupported and revealing. It exposes a deeper authoritarian project: the desire to centralize power and strip away democratic oversight from institutions closest to local communities. It curbs liberal instincts of trustees who see first-hand the vast diversity of lives and needs of the families who rely on their schools.

    This is precisely how authoritarian control operates: by eroding intermediary structures that connect people to power. Just as Donald Trump sought to bend national cultural institutions like the Smithsonian Museum to his will, Ford dismantles the modest democratic functions of trusteeship. Both cases illustrate how authoritarianism works through the fine print of governance as much as through grandiose pronouncements.

    Manufactured Deficits and Structural Starvation

    The pretext for takeover was financial mismanagement. Yet none of the investigators found evidence of serious fiscal incompetence. The truth is that boards submitted balanced budgets year after year but only after slashing programs and services, closing outdoor education centres, selling property, cutting staff, and raising fees. What really drives their fiscal crises is a decades-old funding model – first imposed by the Mike Harris PC government in 1997 – that shifted resources from local taxes to provincial grants. This was not a move toward equitable funding; these were neoliberals of the first order who believed in central control of funding so they could squeeze school boards and education workers to contain costs.

    This model, based on enrolment rather than actual need, starved boards of resources for special education, transportation, salaries, and infrastructure. For instance, school boards don’t get funding for actual children who need special education support but rather on the basis of a predictive model MOE devised. Boards pay for the kids MOE doesn’t fund. The Ford government hasn’t funded the full increase for statutory teacher benefits for years, leaving boards short by millions. The result is a structural deficit: chronic underfunding that leaves even well-managed boards teetering on insolvency. The Ford government, while claiming to increase spending, has in fact cut funding per student by $1,500 in real terms since 2018. This is the problem faced by with 40 percent of Ontario school boards.

    It is this manufactured insolvency that led Minister Calandra to get the most out of a useful crisis and put the four school boards under supervision and maybe next eliminate all school boards in the province. Here we see neoliberal austerity converging with authoritarian ambition. Underfunding is not a policy mistake; it is a deliberate strategy to weaken public education, undermine trust in democratic institutions, and prepare the ground for privatization schemes such as vouchers and charter schools. In this instance, the policy of underfunding is a way of weakening public education and then blaming whatever problems occur on education itself. This is gangster capitalism at work, cloaked in the language of fiscal responsibility but fueled by a pedagogy of dispossession.

    Eliminating Trustees, Silencing Communities

    If board takeovers were simply about money, supervisors would have been told to just find savings. Instead, elected trustees were suspended, their offices shuttered, their tiny stipends cut off, and their ability to communicate with constituents forbidden. Calandra’s power grab has all the elements of Elon Musk’s DOGE assaults in the US: move fast, offer absurd excuses, and blame the victims. The supervisors replacing trustees – accountants, lawyers, and former politicians with no background in education – now wield greater power than the elected community representatives they displaced.

    This substitution of technocrats for democratically accountable representatives is part of fascism’s pedagogy. It teaches the public to accept disenfranchisement as efficiency, to see obedience as order. Parents who ask why a program disappeared or why their child’s special education class has grown larger are now met with silence. In this vacuum, the lesson learned is that participation is futile and resistance meaningless – precisely the kind of civic numbing oligarchic fascism requires.

    Command, Control, and the Policing of Education

    Ford’s government frames these takeovers as a “broader rethink” of governance, but the real project is clear: the imposition of command and control over education. This move sends a strong message that it’s time to duck our heads and get back to basics: teaching “reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic and the whole shebang…” as Doug Ford complained last fall after teachers and students attended a rally in support of the Grassy Narrows First Nation and its efforts to deal with generations of mercury contamination in their area. He proclaimed, with no evidence, that the field trip was “indoctrination” by teachers because activists protesting Israeli genocide were present. Community members who supported an Indigenous curriculum, modern sexual education, or even school-name changes honoring anti-colonial figures are dismissed or painted as obstacles. The message from Ford and Calandra is blunt: stick to the basics – reading, writing, arithmetic – and leave politics at the door.

    Yet politics hangs over classrooms like a shroud. Despite his Captain Canada complaints about the Trump tariffs, Ford admires the President quick-marching America toward fascism. In an off-mic moment he commented recently: “Election day, was I happy this guy won? One hundred per cent I was.” It’s not the racism, the authoritarianism, the compulsive lying, the fraud, the sexual assaults that bothers the Premier; it’s that he got stiffed by his friend.

    Usurping trustees according to University of Ottawa professor Sachin Maharaj is just another step toward the Progressive Conservatives’ goal to “squelch the pipeline of more progressive leaders” like those gaining notice and experience attending to the needs of local schools.

    The banning of the Toronto Muslim Student Alliance’s screening of the film No Other Land, which documents Israeli settler violence, shows how censorship now masquerades as neutrality. This is the pedagogy of repression in action: narrowing what can be taught, remembered, or discussed until education is reduced to obedience training. What parades as a “broader rethink” is part of the authoritarian language of censorship and control. Like Trump’s attacks on “critical race theory” or his censorship of the Smithsonian, Ford’s moves are not about protecting students from politics but about protecting power from critique. The real issue here is constructing authoritarian policies that narrow critical thinking, teacher autonomy, essential funding, and knowledge that enable schools to both defend and facilitate democracy.

    For Ford and his adherents, the real issue is not that schools are failing but that they are public and have a vital role to play in a democracy. The real threat to Ford is that a democracy can only exist with informed citizens. Yet that is precisely the role education should assume.

    Bill 33: Codifying Authoritarianism

    The perversely named Bill 33, the Supporting Children and Students Act extends this authoritarian logic. It allows the Minister to investigate boards or trustees on the mere suspicion they might act “inappropriately” or against the “public interest” – an elastic phrase that grants unchecked power. It checks much-maligned Diversity Equity and Inclusion efforts by refusing boards the right to name schools, forcing them to abandon diversity-affirming figures in favor of colonial or sanitized names. It mandates the reintroduction of police officers into schools, despite community opposition to surveillance and “unaccountable access to youth by cops.”

    At work here is the legacy of colonialism, a legacy that is terrified of diversity, of those deemed other, being able to narrate themselves. Viewed as threat, this anti-democratic language ultimately falls back on issues of control and security. This is one instance of how authoritarianism consolidates itself, not through tanks in the streets but through legislation that transforms education into an arm of the security state. Pedagogical spaces are militarized, memory is policed, and students are taught that surveillance is normal and dissent dangerous.

    Trumpasitic Authoritarianism

    Ford’s methods echo those of his southern counterpart. Just as Trump’s politics thrive on dispossession, erasure, and the weaponization of culture, Ford borrows from the same authoritarian playbook. The takeover of school boards not only tightens political control but also grants easy access to billions of dollars in public land, enriching developers tied to his government. Here, neoliberal profiteering fuses seamlessly with authoritarian centralization, an example of the merging of gangster capitalism with the pedagogy of repression.

    What do you expect from a government that makes decisions reflecting the arrogance of power? The Ford government cut Toronto city council in half soon after took office in 2018 and threatened to use a constitutional override, the Notwithstanding Clause, Section 33 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to overturn a Superior Court justice’s decision that the move was unconstitutional. Ford actually used the clause to push through a bill restricting election advertising in 2021 and again, pre-emptively, in 2022, buttressing back-to-work legislation against striking public workers, among the lowest paid in the province. He’s considering using it again after his decision to remove bike lanes from Toronto streets was overturned in court; power makes you petty.

    Democracy in the Smallest Details

    The takeover of Ontario school boards may appear less dramatic than Trump’s assaults on national institutions, but its implications are just as dire. Authoritarianism advances not only through spectacle but through the slow erosion of local democratic practices that once seemed secure.

    If fascism is a pedagogy of fear, amnesia, and conformity, then resistance must be a pedagogy of memory, solidarity, and imagination. To defend education is to defend democracy itself, for schools are not simply sites of instruction but laboratories of citizenship, places where young people learn what it means to speak, to question, to remember, and to act. When trustees are silenced, when curricula are censored, when communities are stripped of their voice, what is lost is not only oversight but the very possibility of democratic life.

    What is at stake, then, is far larger than budget shortfalls or bureaucratic reshuffling. It is whether the future will be governed by communities or dictated from above by those who mistake obedience for learning and silence for peace. Fascism thrives in these small erasures, in the details that seem technical until they harden into structures of domination.

    The lesson could not be clearer: democracy dies in increments, but it can also be rebuilt in increments – through collective memory, through civic courage, through the refusal to allow education to become a weapon of obedience. To resist the Ford government’s authoritarian incursions is not only to protect local school boards; it is to reclaim the very ground on which democratic hope stands. •

    Henry A. Giroux currently is the McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and The Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include The Violence of Organized Forgetting (City Lights, 2014), Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism (Routledge, 2015), coauthored with Brad Evans, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle (City Lights, 2015), and America at War with Itself (City Lights, 2016). His website is henryagiroux.com.

    William Paul is editor of School Magazine website.

    This article first appeared at the Social Project Bullet

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  • UK still top choice for pathway students despite policy changes

    UK still top choice for pathway students despite policy changes

    International students are placing getting a quality education over policy developments – with the UK keeping its spot as the preferred desitnation for 80% of nearly 1,000 pathway students surveyed by NCUK.

    A new report covering the survey’s findings analyses data from 921 students across 88 countries studying an international foundation year or Master’s preparatino programs, looking at their motivations for studying in top destinations, as well as other preferences.

    It found that Australia was the second most popular choice, with 4% of students surveyed marking it as their preference, followed by Canada, the US, New Zealand and Ireland at 3%. Meanwhile, the most coveted programs are business and computer science, as the preferred subjects for just under a third (31%) of respondents.

    Students’ continued preference for the UK comes in spite of a slew of policy changes affecting international students. In May, the government unveiled its long-awaited immigration white paper, setting out the way Keir Starmer’s Labour party intends to tackle migration over the coming years.

    It included plans to reduce the Graduate Route by six months to a total of 18 months, as well as new compliance metrics that higher education institutions must in order to continue recrutiing international students. Tougher Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) requirements are set to take effect this month, meaning that universities will face penalties if more than 5% of their students’ visas are rejected, down from 10%.

    And last September, the UK increased international student maintenance requirements for the first time since 2020. Under the new rules, students coming to London must show evidence of having £1,483 per month, while studying outside of London need proof that they have at least £1,136 per month.  

    But NCUK’s chief marketing officer Andy Howells pointed out that students are looking beyond arbitrary political decision when choosing their preferred study destination, thinking instead about their long-term prospects.

    “This research demonstrates that international students are sophisticated decision-makers who look beyond political headlines to focus on educational quality and career outcomes,” he said. “While policy changes generate significant discussion in our sector, students are primarily motivated by the academic excellence and opportunities that institutions can provide.”

    The survey found that, of a sample size of 646 students, just 12% who said they were considering studying in the UK said that financial requiremwnr increases would stop them from applying to UK instiutuons.

    However, the popularity of other major study destinations were ore impacted by political headwinds, the survey found.

    Over a third (36%) interested in applying the Australian institutions said that proposed international enrolment caps would affect their decision, while 26% of those looking to study in Canada said they would no longer apply to Canadian institutions over policy changes – particularly changes to the country’s postgraduate work permit scheme.

    And almost four in 10 (38%) considering the US said Donald Trump’s second presidency would negatively impact their choice to study in America.

    For the majority of students surveyed (69.9%), education quality is the primary driver leading them to seek study abroad opportunities, closely followed by enhanced career development opportunities (56.4%) and gaining new knowledge (55.2%).

    The survey also shone a light on students’ post-graduation plans. Half of respondents said they wanted to stay in their study destination, with 31% planning to work and 19% looking at further studies.

    This research demonstrates that international students are sophisticated decision-makers who look beyond political headlines to focus on educational quality and career outcomes
    Andy Howells, NCUK

    But a growing number of students plan to return to their hoe country immediately after graduating, with 23% saying they want to do this – up from 18% in last year’s survey.

    Immigration has continued to be a hot topic in the UK as the anti-immigration Reform party grows in popularity.

    Just earlier this week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper drew ire from the international education sector after announcing that the government will be tougher on overseas students who make asylum claims that “lack merit” as a means to stay in the country after their visa expires.

    Some 10,000 students have already been texted and emailed warning them that they will not be allowed to stay in the UK if they have no legal right to remain and explicitly warning them against making bogus asylum claims.

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  • The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada, 2025

    The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada, 2025

    Hi all. Today, HESA is releasing the eighth edition of The State of Postsecondary Education in Canada, co-authored by myself and HESA’s Jiwoo Jeon and Janet Balfour. Many thanks to our partners – Pearson, Studiosity, Duolingo, Capio, Element451 and Riipen – for supporting this year’s edition.

    You probably don’t need to actually read this year’s edition to know that the state of postsecondary education in Canada is a bit perilous. And the reason for this, quite simply, is that public funding for higher education has been stagnant for well over a decade now.

    At one level, of course, it is possible to look at public funding in Canada and proclaim that nothing is wrong. As Figure 1 shows, public spending on higher education has stayed relatively constant over the past fifteen years in inflation-adjusted dollars. Individual provinces may have seen swings up or down in their spending, but collectively the ten provinces have spent a collective $20 billion/year or so on higher education since about 2011-12 (excluding transfer payments from the federal government), and the federal government has spent about $10 billion/year. 

    Figure 1: Federal and Provincial Own-Source Expenditures in Respect of PSE Institutions, Canada, in $2023, 2007-08 to 2023-24, in Billions

    So, at one level it is possible to shrug off the problem.  But that requires eliminating a lot of context.  Let’s see how Canadian funding looks when we put it into various types of contexts.

    If we describe public funding in per-student terms, as in Figure 2, what you see is a mixed picture. Total public funding per full-time equivalent domestic student has dropped by about 6% since 2009, and for university students by about 15%. Complicating this figure is the fact that per-student funding for college students has risen somewhat, however, this is due not to extra funding but rather to a very significant drop in the number of domestic students enrolled in colleges. Whether this is due to a reduction of interest in college programs among Canadians, or a deliberate move away from Canadian to international students on the part of colleges is difficult to answer, but in either event, the rise in funding per college student is a function of fewer students rather than more funding.

    Figure 2: Per-student Spending by Sector, Canada, in $2023, 2007-08 to 2023-24

    If we describe public funding as a percentage of the country’s economy, the picture looks significantly worse. Prior to the recession of 2008-09, public funding on postsecondary education was about 1.3% of GDP, which was substantially above the level seen across other industrialized countries (about 1.0%, according to the OECD). Briefly, that number popped up during the Great Recession, partly because spending increased but also partly because GDP stagnated. Since then, however, spending has stayed constant while GDP has grown. The result is that public spending on postsecondary has fallen to the OECD average of 1% – and the financial advantage our system once held over competitor nations has largely disappeared.

    Figure 3: Public Spending on Postsecondary Education as a Percentage of GDP, in $2023, 2007-08 to 2023-24

    We can also look at these figures in per-inhabitant terms. There was a point in the late 00s where Canada had about 33 million inhabitants and public sources spent $30 billion per year on postsecondary education. Fifteen years and seven million new inhabitants later, we’re still spending $30 billion per year.  That results in a 21% reduction in spending on universities and colleges per inhabitant from public sources, as shown in Figure 4. In Figure 5, we look at postsecondary spending as a percentage of government budgets.  Again, we see a case of spending on postsecondary institutions falling consistently because overall government expenditure is rising quickly. In the past fifteen years, aggregate provincial spending on postsecondary has fallen as a percentage of total provincial expenditures from 5.4% to just 3.3%; for federal spending it has fallen from 1.6% to just 1%.

    Figure 4: Public Spending on Post-Secondary Education Institutions Per Inhabitant, in $2023, 2007-08 to 2023-24

    Figure 5: Public Spending on Postsecondary Education Institutions as a Percentage of Total Government Spending, Federal and Provincial Governments, in $2023, 2007-08 to 2023-24

    In other words: we have been able – just — to keep our public investments in higher education level with inflation.  But we have only been able to do so because our population is larger, and our economy has grown over the last fifteen years, and we can do so with less relative effort.  Had we kept up funding on a domestic per-student level with where it was in the immediate aftermath of the Great Financial crisis, post-secondary education system would have an extra $2.1 billion. If we had kept funding on postsecondary education level with overall population growth we would have invested another $7.3 billion.  If we’d had funding for postsecondary institutions level with GDP growth we would have invested another $13.6 billion. And if we had kept it level with the overall growth in program spending, we would have invested another $19.1 billion. So, depending on the measure chosen, we are anywhere from $2-20 billion short of where we would be had we kept our spending levels of the late 00s/early 10s.

    But, you say, isn’t this true everywhere? And aren’t we at least better than the United States?

    It is certainly true that Canada is in a pattern that would seem familiar both to residents of Australia and the United Kingdom. These three countries have all followed roughly the same path over the past decade and a half, combining stagnant public funding with slightly growing domestic numbers, paid for by an absolute free-for-all with respect to international students paying market tuition rates. All three countries looked like they had made a good deal at least for as long as the international student boom lasted.

    But take a look at our biggest competitor, the United States. During the financial crisis of 2008-9, funding for postsecondary institutions tumbled by over 10%.  But then, in just the eight years between 2012 and 2020, funding for higher education grew by a third – from about $150B (US) per year to over $200B/year. In fact, for all we hear about cuts to funding under Trump (not all of which may come true, as at the time of writing the Senate seems quite intent at least on reversing the billions of proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health), even if all the proposed cuts were to come through, total US spending on  higher education would be roughly 20% higher than it was in 2008-09, while Canada’s would be more or less unchanged. And of course, in the United States domestic enrolments are falling, meaning that in per- student terms, the gap is even more substantial. 

    Figure 6: Indexed Real Public Spending on Postsecondary Institutions, Canada vs. US, 2011-12 to 2023-24 (2011-12 = 100)

    In sum: Canada is not alone in seeing significant falls in higher education spending, but few countries have seen declines in quite as an across-the-board fashion, for quite as long, as we have. Canada began the 2010s with one of the best-funded tertiary education systems in the world, but, quite simply, governments of every stripe at both the federal and provincial levels have been systematically squandering that advantage for the past 15 years. We had a genuine lead in something, an advantage over the rest of the world. But now it is gone.

    So much for the past: what about the future?  Well, it depends a bit on where you stand.  The federal Liberals came back to power on a platform which was the least science-friendly since 1988. They promised money for postsecondary education, but most of it was either for apprenticeship grant programs which they themselves had deemed poor value for money just last year, or for programs to switch apprenticeship training from public colleges to union-led training centres – as crass a piece of cash-for-union endorsements as one can imagine. (The only saving grace? The losing Conservatives promised the unions even larger bribes). What they promised for science, for direct transfers to public universities and colleges, was a pittance in comparison.

    Moreover, following the election, in the face of a set of tariff threats from the Trump Administration, the federal and provincial governments united in a program of “nation-building” which revolved entirely around the notion that national salvation was to be found in programs which “produced more goods” and “gets them to markets” (i.e. non-US markets, meaning ports) more quickly. The idea that the country might pivot to services, to a more knowledge-intensive economy in which university and college research efforts might be seen as useful, was apparently not even considered. Rather, the country rushed head-first into the familiar – but in the long-term disastrous – role being hewers of wood and drawers of water.

    Now, hewing wood and drawing water has traditionally been Canada’s lot, and one could argue that historically have not fared so very badly by focusing on this core competence. But it is worth remembering the Biblical origin of this phrase, in the book of Joshua. A group of Canaanites known as the Gibeonites had not been entirely truthful when signing a treaty with the returning Israelites; claiming to be a nomadic people rather than a settled one (which would have led to them being exterminated).  When the Israelites discovered the deception, many wanted the Gibeonites killed; instead, Joshua decided that they should hew wood and draw water for the Israelites instead. That is to say, they fell into bondage. The political analogies in today’s Trumpian world should be obvious.

    To return to higher education: things look pretty bleak. Investment is falling. Governments are unwilling either to spend more on higher education, or to permit institutions to generate money on their own through tuition fees. Their idea of economic growth is, at best, out of the 1960s: sell more natural resources to foreigners. The idea of making our way in the world as a knowledge or science powerhouse, a spirit that infused policymaking at both the federal and provincial level in the early 2000s, has simply disappeared. Colleges might see some boosts in funding over the coming years for vocational programming, although it’s likely that they will need to scrap with private-sector unions for the money; the likelihood is that universities will see real decreases in funding. The fate of the promised increase in research spending in the 2024 budget seems especially at-risk.

    The path to a better Canada does not lie in becoming better hewers of wood and drawers of water.  It lies in developing new industries based on cutting-edge knowledge and science. Spending on postsecondary students, on its own, does not guarantee that these new industries will come into existence.  But the absence of spending on postsecondary education certainly guarantees that they will not.

    The country has a choice to make. And right now, we seem to be choosing poorly.

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  • BPP Education Group expands portfolio with acquisition of Sprott Shaw College

    BPP Education Group expands portfolio with acquisition of Sprott Shaw College

    BPP Education Group’s growth plan has been backed by the private equity firm TDR Capital, with a view to expand geographically into various sites around the world.

    The group, which provides education and training in various fields of work like Law and Finance, hopes to increase the variety of ITS portfolio of courses through the acquisition of dynamic education businesses like Sprott Shaw College.

    Sprott Shaw College (SSC), founded in 1903, is one of the largest regulated career colleges IN Canada and offers students connections with real-word opportunities to ready them for work in positions such as nursing and business.

    Prior to the deal, it was a subsidiary of Global Education Communities Corporation (GECC), which is one of the largest education and student housing investment companies in Canada.

    The college also places a large focus on cultural awareness and inclusivity – and its courses are designed with these in mind.

    According to Graham Gaddes, CEO of BPP, the acquisition marks an “important milestone into BPP’s internationalisation”.

    “The acquisition will support SSC’s plans to continue to be agile in meeting the needs of the domestic and international community, with programmes developed with cultural awareness and inclusivity in mind,” he added. “We admire what Sprott Shaw College has achieved to date and look forward to welcoming the team to the BPP Education Group.”

    The college has grown substantially in size with integrity and has gained respect from the global education community
    Toby Chu, GECC

    This purchase opens doorways for BPP to offer a vast range of professional education programs due to an alignment with other institutions in its portfolio, such as Ascenda School of Management and Arbutus College.

    The programs would range from certificates to degree levels, which would aid both domestic and international students.

    Toby Chu, president and CEO of GECC, said that he is “confident that Sprott Shaw College will continue to flourish under BPP’s ownership”.

    The college had weathered many difficulties in recent years, he said, including the Covid-19 pandemic and more recent study permit caps in Canada.

    “Despite these challenges, the college has grown substantially in size with integrity and has gained respect from the global education community. I am confident that Sprott Shaw College will continue to flourish under BPP’s ownership,” he said.

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  • Priyanka Roy, York University

    Priyanka Roy, York University

    Introduce yourself in three words or phrases. 

    Borderless thinker, story collector, quietly fierce.

    What do you like most about your job?

    Connecting people to possibilities. It blends everything I’ve studied and lived through, connection, culture, and human behavior.

    With a background in clinical psychology, I lean into the why behind choices, but I also love thinking big: What changes access? What drives outcomes? What makes strategy stick? Helping students dream bigger is what I do daily, but assisting institutions to see differently is what I’m growing toward.

    Best work trip/Worst work trip?

    Best: Nepal. A place where spirituality meets ambition, and every conversation felt like a masterclass in purpose. I met students who challenged assumptions,
    asked global questions, and reminded me why this work isn’t just recruitment, it’s relationship-building across borders.

    Worst: One of those everything-goes-wrong kind of trips – delayed flights, tech glitches, and a schedule that changed by the hour. I remember the panic, but
    more than that, I remember pivoting fast, staying present, and making it work. It showed me how adaptability and clarity under pressure aren’t just nice-to-haves;
    They’re the bones that build leaders.

    If you could learn a language instantly, which would you pick and why?

    Arabic. I was born in Saudi, so it’s always felt like the soundtrack of my early life. Learning it would be more than linguistic. It’d be a way of reconnecting with
    something I’ve always found myself drawn to.

    A close second would be Japanese. With how they’re innovating in education and global engagement, it feels like a language that’s about to take centre stage.

    What makes you get up in the morning?

    The fact that someone out there is making a life-changing decision, and I might get to play a small part in it. That, and the promise of good coffee.

    Champion/cheerleader which we should all follow and why?

    Tunde Oyeneyin. Peloton coach turned powerhouse. She speaks about purpose, identity, and growth like she’s been reading your journal. I was never athletic or sporty and exercise never felt like it belonged to me.

    But something shifted when I found her. She made movement feel like a celebration, not a punishment. Her energy is magnetic, her story is powerful, and her voice makes you believe you can rewrite your narrative, and when used intentionally, can move people.

    Best international ed conference and why

    APAIE in India earlier this year. My first global panel! Sitting among leaders I Googled in awe and quietly learn from, now contributing to the conversation at the same table as them was surreal. It was one of those “you’re not in the audience anymore” moments.

    Worst conference food/beverage experience

    One conference served “fusion” snacks. I tried something that was somewhere between dessert and deep regret. Coffee didn’t salvage it either. It’s fine.
    Character was built.

    Book or podcast recommendation for others in the sector?

    The One Thing by Gary Keller. This sector moves fast. There’s always something to do, someone to help, somewhere to be. This book forces you to pause and ask: “What’s the one thing I can do right now that actually makes a difference?” Game changer for anyone juggling a million priorities.

    Describe a project or initiative you’re currently working on that excites you.

    I’m working on a storytelling series that spotlights international students who’ve carved out unexpected paths. It’s about humanising the data and reminding
    institutions that behind every stat is a story worth telling. Still in early stages, but it’s one of those ideas that just won’t leave me alone.

    The post Priyanka Roy, York University appeared first on The PIE News.

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  • Re: University is on. Are you in?

    Re: University is on. Are you in?

    Hi everyone — pardon the summer interruption, but we’ve got news worth breaking the quiet for.

    You may recall that earlier this year, we announced something new: a national conference dedicated to helping Canadian universities rethink what they are and what they could be. We called it Re:University. We said it would be the conference that couldn’t have been an email. We meant it.

    Re:University will take place January 29–30, 2026, in downtown Ottawa. Two full days, bringing together hundreds of university leaders and impactful industry and government voices from across Canada, with some brave perspectives from abroad. A lot of hard questions. And, most importantly, some real answers.

    As I put it recently: Canadian universities won’t prosper unless they act with ambition (no one cuts their way to greatness), embrace experimentation (the old ways won’t get us where we want to go), and commit to dissemination (share what works, and what doesn’t).

    Re:University is our attempt to put those principles into practice. We want to give the sector a space to think new thoughts, to learn from both bold successes and instructive failures, and to build toward models that are better aligned with the challenges and possibilities of the 2020s.

    So, two things:

    First: If you’ve been involved in a reinvention story, institutional or program-level, we want to hear from you. Daring initiatives, experiments in delivery, innovative partnerships, tough decisions with real lessons. Success is not a requirement. We’re equally interested in failure because learning from what didn’t work is how we build better.

    Second: Tickets are now on sale (reuniversity.higheredstrategy.com). There are a limited number of Early Bird tickets, and space is limited (really — AI-CADEMY sold out quickly), so don’t wait.

    We already know the old playbook is running out of pages. Flat revenues, rising costs, rigid structures. People are tired. Innovation is often more slogan than substance. But some institutions are finding new ways forward, experimenting, adapting, making hard decisions and learning from them.

    This conference is about putting those lessons on the table. Moving beyond admiring the problems, and into working on the solutions. You’ll hear from institutions that have executed real turnarounds, from financial officers who stabilized budgets without gutting their mission, from private universities doing what publics often can’t (but maybe should), and from leaders building new academic models, cross-sector partnerships, and service strategies.

    You’ll also hear from our industry partners who are offering transformational approaches to experiential learning, supporting WIL, improving institutional operations, driving commercial collaboration, and advancing research and innovation.

    This isn’t a conference of passive panels and polite applause. Expect provocative plenaries, high-impact keynotes, and case spotlights. Expect to wrestle with questions like: “What would you stop doing tomorrow if you had the courage?” and “If you could build a university from scratch, where would you even begin?”

    There will also be protected space for institutions to talk to each other and to connect over what’s working, what’s not, and where we go next. If we’ve learned anything from the Recovery Project and AI-CADEMY, it’s that some of the best thinking happens not just on stage, but over coffee, in workshops, and in the shared realization that, “Oh s$!t, you’re dealing with that too?”

    We’re especially proud to be presenting Re:University with the RBC Thought Leadership Office as our Title Partner. Over the past year, we’ve worked together to convene a series of cross-Canada roundtables on the future of post-secondary education. As an engagement leader and catalyst for national postsecondary dialogue, our partnership reflects a shared commitment to turning insight into action and supporting bold, collaborative thinking about what comes next.

    If you’re also interested in partnering with us at the conference, please take a look at our Conference Partnership & Exhibitor Prospectus or reach out to explore creative and bespoke ways to get involved.

    We’ll be releasing more details on speakers and sessions throughout the fall. But for now: block your calendar. Book your flight. We’ll see you in Ottawa.

    And until then, please, resume your well-earned vacations.

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  • Top govt figure in the dock for role in Kenyan scholarship scandal

    Top govt figure in the dock for role in Kenyan scholarship scandal

    Jonathan Bii, governor of Uasin Gishu, one of Kenya’s prominent counties, is now facing legal scrutiny over his alleged involvement in the controversial Uasin Gishu Finland/Canada Scholarship Program. 

    Bii, a member of the United Democratic Alliance, an affiliate of Kenya’s ruling coalition, is accused of supporting the scholarship scheme and requesting additional payments from students.

    As per media reports, he later distanced himself from the initiative amid allegations of misappropriation of over KSh 1.1 billion meant for scholarships.

    Individual accounts by parents of the students revealed that payments ranged from KSh 650,000 to over KSh 1.2 million (approximately USD$5,000–$9,230), with some families reportedly paying up to KSh 3 million (around USD$23,100). 

    These amounts covered expenses such as tuition, visa and insurance fees, and accommodation deposits.

    Kenyan news outlet Daily Nation reported that a key witness, Mitchelle Jeptanui, testified before senior principal magistrate Peter Ndege that in June 2023, Bii held a meeting with parents to assure them that the overseas trip would receive approval shortly.

    The parents, already anxious as their children had received admission letters from universities in Canada and Finland, were allegedly asked to pay an additional KSh 200,000 to KSh 300,000 (approximately USD$1,540 to $2,310) for accommodation fees. 

    However, despite the payments, none of the students were able to travel abroad.

    My son never travelled. I am still hoping either for a refund or support for him to go
    Benjamin Kibet, parent

    When parents once again demanded answers, Bii allegedly shifted the blame to his predecessor, Jackson Mandago, who initiated the program.  

    However, testimony from seven out of eight witnesses last week confirmed they made their payments after Bii assumed office.

    Benjamin Kibet, a parent of one of the affected student, told the court that he took out a loan of KSh 650,000 (around USD$5,000) to fund his son’s education at Stenberg College in Canada, after being introduced to the programme by Mandago and Bii.

    “My son never travelled. I am still hoping either for a refund or support for him to go,” Kibet told reporters. 

    As the case unfolds, Mandago, along with former county officials Meshack Rono and Joshua Lelei, is expected to face criminal charges related to the alleged misappropriation of the scholarship funds.

    Over the past two years, the scandal has shaken Kenya’s growing middle class, who have aspirations for overseas education.

     A 2020 survey had found that more than half of Kenyan students preferred studying at international universities over local institutions.

    Moreover, Kenya has been identified as a “high-growth potential” source market for international education.

    It ranked as the leading East African market for US universities, with enrolments rising by 45% in 2022 compared to 2019.

    Canadian institutions, a key draw for many of the students who ultimately became entangled in the scholarship scandal, also recorded a 12% rise in Kenyan student enrolments during the same period. 

    Kenyan parents have taken to the streets across Uasin Gishu County over the past few years, demanding answers, as the scandal has left over 300 students stranded at home.

    Many of them have reportedly been expelled from Finnish universities or deported, as previously reported by The PIE News. 

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  • Summer 2025 | HESA

    Summer 2025 | HESA

    So. This is the last blog of the academic year. Service resumes Tuesday, 2 September.

    It’s been a long year. I’m pretty tired. How about you?

    This was the year it all kind of came crashing down: not just here in Canda, but everywhere else too. It’s too long to go through and my more faithful readers already know the story. It’s not just in Canada. In France, Australia, and the UK, we saw institutions having similar problems: all these fantastic higher education institutions we’ve collectively built and, quite simply, nobody wants to pay for it. Not through public funds, not through private fees. Nobody wants to pay for it.

    And then there’s American higher education would probably be going through something similar this year, only a greater catastrophe arrived first. I’ll pass over this in silence.

    Here in Canada, the sector is increasingly friendless. Parents and students seem less convinced that universities in particular represent good value. And governments are simply indifferent, not because they dislike universities necessarily, but because they dislike or distrust the knowledge economy universities are built to serve.

    Unfortunately, I think it is going to get worse. Not a single government in Canada released a budget this year which took into account the effects of US tariffs. The result? Allegedly healthy federal and provincial balance sheets are going to get pounded this year and next (and the especially unhealthy ones — BC and Quebec in particular — are going to be especially ugly). Deficits as far as they eye can see. As the saying goes, no one is coming to save us.

    I have no doubt that community colleges will find ways to get through this, because they have so far through this crisis mostly shown themselves to have the ability to do what it takes to right the ship. They might not look too good after another round or two of cuts, and it’s not impossible that a few rural colleges might disappear or shrink radically because what they get from governments and domestic tuition fees just isn’t enough to properly serve their communities, but on the whole, I think they will be ok.

    Universities, on the other hand. Well, that’s a different story.

    About a year ago, I said that the biggest change universities were going to have to undergo in this new financial age was shifting from a belief that every problem had a revenue-side solution to one in which every problem has a cost-side solution. Institutions can no longer solve their short-term problems by just recruiting another hundred international students. They actually have to change the way they do business. They have to change processes. They have to think about production functions and work processes in a way they haven’t before. And they have to do it while trying to pivot to new missions that give them more traction with government and the public.

    I am here to say that I don’t think it’s going so well.

    The message that “there is no one coming to save us” has, thankfully, penetrated fairly deeply in universities. Maybe not quite everywhere (hello, VIU!), but in most places. But what I am not sure has penetrated quite so deeply is the corollary that actual change is necessary. My (admittedly limited) vantage point on the sector is that:

    • I still see universities spending inordinate amounts of time trying to come up with new revenue-based solutions. It’s a habit they have a hard time kicking.
    • Universities are deeply resistant to doing more than the bare minimum of restructuring to meet immediate financial needs. The idea that deep structural change might be necessary remains pretty much anathema. This bare minimum approach means that when the next round of government cuts come – due to recession, or national re-armament or whatever – they are just going to have to cut again, and again, and again. There is very little sign of anyone trying to get ahead of the curve to make both big cuts and big investments in new areas that will help them survive the turmoil.
    • I still hear, distressingly often, senior people in universities utter the worst seven words in all of higher education: “we just gotta tell our story better”. Universities are reluctant to face the possibility that governments and the mass public don’t love them the way they are and that they may need to actually, you know, change.

    We need to stop acting like the research university of today – which in Canada is really only a creature of the 1970s or perhaps 1960s — is eternal. Universities can die, and have done so rather frequently across history. Universities are the product of particular configurations of social and economic forces. And now, at the moment when the western world is basically re-considering the entire post-WWII order, the idea that universities are going to be uniquely immune to change is bananas. Past performance — which I think has been pretty good — is not a guarantee of future safety.

    I am not saying here that universities shouldn’t fight for their own corner: they should! Often more vigorously than they currently do (see my piece on Bill 33, or on how they need to gear up for a fight with Bay Street over whether temporary residents will be international students or TFWs). But they can’t do it by digging in on the status quo.

    And so, I will end the academic year by repeating something I said a few months ago. To survive this coming period, universities are going to need:

    1. Ambition. Don’t waste time doing small things.
    2. Experimentation. The worst possible thing right now is an addiction to “the way we’ve always done things”
    3. Dissemination. No one institution got us into the mess. No one institution is going to get out of it alone, either. Institutions need to commit to sharing the results of their experimentation.

    I know every university in Canada can, if it chooses, commit to those three things. I have faith. And I believe that if they do, our university sector will come out as strong or stronger than any system in the world.

    But any institution that chooses not to commit to them…well, I think they are going to have some issues in the next three years. Serious ones.

    It’s up to us. Rest up this summer. Re-charge. We’re all going to need it in ‘25–’26.

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  • Last Week in Parliament: Three Takeaways

    Last Week in Parliament: Three Takeaways

    It was a busy week in Parliament last week.  The King came to Ottawa to deliver a Speech From the Throne.  His speech – almost exclusively a re-hash of Liberal promises from the April election – was deeply depressing for anyone who thinks the words “knowledge economy” have any meaning.   

    The main feature of the Speech from the Throne was that it spelled out, in excruciating detail, how the Liberals intend to double down on re-creating the Canadian economy of the 1960s.  Oh sure, the King uttered a line in there early on about how his government is committed to “building a new economy.”  But read the document: that sentiment was in no way followed up by anything resembling a commitment to any kind of new economy.  Instead, here are the major economic elements to which the government is committed:

    • Speeding up permits for major construction projects like roads and pipelines and whatnot: because natural resources have to get to the coasts somehow!
    • Building a lot of houses
    • Spending more on defense
    • Breaking down internal trade barriers
    • Er…
    • That’s it.

    Whatever you think of the merits of the various proposals here, this is not a new economy.  It is barely even a warmed-over version of the old economy.  At best, it is about finding new markets for old products, not developing any new products.  I am unsure if it is more that the Liberals have no sweet clue about how to create a new economy, or that they are uninterested in doing so.  But it’s one of those two.

    Now some might argue otherwise because look!  Evan Solomon!  Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation!  How New Economy is that?  All I can say is: please try not to be that person.  Solomon is a Minster without a department with a mandate which is completely undefined.  Is it an internally-facing ministry meant to diffuse digital innovation and AI throughout government?  Or an externally-facing ministry meant to diffuse these things across the economy?  Two weeks after Solomon was named Minister, we still have no clue.   And the Liberal Manifesto and the cabinet’s One Big Mandate Letter give conflicting impressions about the extent to which the Government sees its AI/digital strategy is about skill expansion/diffusion vs. handing money to techbros (the mandate letter reads like the former, the manifesto the latter). One would be forgiven for suspecting the Carney government is making things up as it goes along.

    Anyways, the point here is still: despite Carney’s globe-trotting central banker/Goldman Sachs reputation, this government seems to be staying as far away from a Davos/future industry agenda as humanly possible.  The Liberal “new economy” is all pretty much all construction and primary industries.  This is not a world which requires a lot of higher education.

    Scared yet?  We’re just getting started.  Back on Thursday our new Prime Minister was seen to tweet:

    In other words, this government seems determined to continue in the tradition of both the former government – and the opposition parties for that matter – in framing the country’s ills as problems of costs to be solved by tax cuts and giveaways rather than problems of growth and the institutional investments required to generate it.  This way lies Peronism and perpetual stagnation. 

    And this is from our allegedly “serious” party.

    So, takeaway number one.  Universities need to throw away EVERYTHING in their playbooks for Government Relations.  Selling yourself as “the future” to a government that is desperately trying to reverse our economy into the 1960s is pointless.  This government and this Prime Minster Do. Not. Care.   Until they do, arguing for universities as “crucial” investments is a waste of time.  The real fight is over the shape of the Canadian economy.

    On to a more abstract point about budgeting.  One of the reasons we aren’t getting a budget before fall, despite the government just having been elected with a pretty detailed budget-ready manifesto and the Department of Finance being perfectly capable of putting together a set of Main Estimates for the House of Commons (as it showed on Thursday), is that Carney is trying to introduce a new set of rules with respect to public budgeting.  He spent part of this week insisting that he would balance the “operating budget” within three years, which sparked a lot of incredulity given that i) the economy is about to be in the tank and ii) the Liberals have ring-fenced most of the federal budget by saying they won’t touch transfers to provinces or transfers to institutions.  In theory, that means very significant cuts to program spending.  Like, say, research budgets.

    Except: there is currently no such thing as an “operating budget”.  What Carney wants to do is to exempt from the budget balance requirement anything that can be seen as “capital investment”, which means basically that the main game in Ottawa over the next few years is going to be how to get your favourite piece of spending classed as “capital” instead of “operating”.  And that’s a live issue because the definition the Liberals touted in the election campaign, to wit…

    …anything that builds an asset, held directly on the government’s own balance sheet, a company’s or another order of government’s.  This will include direct investments the government makes in machinery, equipment, land and buildings, as well as new incentives that support the formation of private capital (e.g. patents, plan and technology) or which meaningful raise private sector productivity.

    …is so loose you could drive a truck through it.  Will CFI spending count as capital?  Probably, but not necessarily since universities (in most provinces anyway) are neither a government nor a company.  Will tri-council spending?  Probably not, but that’s not going to stop folks claiming it supports capital formation/raises productivity, so who knows?  So, takeaway number two: get used to arguing distinctions between capital and operating because this might be the only place the sector gets traction in the next little while.

    A final point of importance is something that is not exactly new but has been given fresh salience by being in the Throne Speech, and that is the government’s commitment to limit temporary immigration – that is Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) plus international students – to below five percent of the population by 2027.  Or, to put it another way: every extra TFW is one international student less.  What the government has done here is set up a zero-sum game between institutions of higher education and people like the manager of the Kincardine Tim Horton’s whose business model simply cannot work if they are not allowed to employ foreign nationals at below-market rates. 

    This, my friends, is the fight post-secondary education needs to pick and needs to win.  It won’t be easy, because the captains of Canadian industry are largely clueless about competing on anything other than price, meaning low-wage labour is pretty dear to their hearts and they will fight hard for TFWs.  But it is the dilemma this country faces in a nutshell: should we use our scarce temporary immigration spots to make things cheaper in the short-term?  Or should we use them to develop a skilled workforce and build our scientific and technological talent base for the long term? 

    So, I know this won’t come easy to institutions but: screw Bay Street.  Light the torches.  Find the pitchforks.  Pick up anything you have handy and smash the windows of your local Tim Horton’s.  Fight for international students and against TFWs.  This is an existential contest: it decides whether Canada is going to be a country that gets wealthier based on investments in skills, education and science, or a country that bathes in mediocrity because we go mental if the price of a cruller goes up twenty-five cents. 

    And if the sector ducks this fight because direct confrontation with business is icky and makes some Board members uncomfortable?  Well, then the sector deserves everything it gets.  That’s the third, and most important takeaway of the last week.

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  • Between Excellence and Relevance: The Regional University Dilemma

    Between Excellence and Relevance: The Regional University Dilemma

    Hi everyone.  I’m Alex Usher and this is The World of Higher Education podcast.

    Over the past few decades, Higher Education had taken on a number of new roles.  As we discussed with Ethan Schrum on this podcast over two years, in the years after World War II, universities became obsessed with showing how essential they were with solving society’s problems.  One of these problems – particularly as universities proliferated and started showing up in more and more distant locales – was regional economic development. 

    This was a tough problem to solve.  Universities are about the knowledge economy, and by and large the knowledge economy runs most smoothly in places with significant population density.  By definition, “regional” or “peripheral” institutions are in places that lack this essential quality.  So with whom can universities in this situation partner?  It takes two to tango – a university .  And more generally, what kinds of things can universities in peripheral regions that can do to improve the economic fortunes of the places they serve?

    Today my guest is Dr. Romulo Pinheiro.  He is a professor of public policy and administration at the University of Agder in Norway.  For years now, Romulo has been writing about how universities in different parts of Europe tackle this question.  In our interview today, we go back and forth a bit about how peripheral institutions differ from metropolitan ones, how regional and global ambitions get intertwined at these institutions and how institutional and disciplinary structures do and do not affect how a peripheral universities accomplish their mission.  As a wannabe-geographer, I found this discussion fascinating – pay attention to the bits where Romulo starts diving into the intricacies of how institutions and academics weave their global and local networks together into complicated webs, and – let me underline this bit – how these webs depend crucially on something pretty simple: trust. 

    But enough from me – let’s turn it over to Romulo.

    The World of Higher Education Podcast
    Episode 3.31 | Between Excellence and Relevance: The Regional University Dilemma

    Transcript

    Alex Usher (AU): Romulo, your work often centers around issues of universities and regional development. And I guess it’s been 40 or 50 years now that regional development has been seen as a role that higher education is supposed to play. But how does that development role differ between universities in dense urban areas and, you know, less dense rural areas? What’s the difference in the role they have to play?

    Rómulo Pinheiro (RP): Alex, for universities to be able to engage with different types of regional actors, there have to be competencies on the other side. Universities differ in terms of their competencies and skills—in terms of the depth and breadth of the types of programs they offer, the research groups, as well as the traditions of regional engagement. But they also differ in their localities, right?

    Usually, you have a situation where universities in peripheral regions are thinner institutions, and they’re located in thinner institutional environments. Meaning, they don’t have a lot of interlocutors with the same level of knowledge and skills. That already creates a disadvantage.

    So, should we see the symbiosis between universities and their regional settings? By and large, we see that strong institutions tend to be located in strong regional surroundings as well. Now, that’s not to say there aren’t cases of strong institutions in more peripheral settings. What the literature tells us is that, for the most part, these regions don’t have the absorptive capacity to absorb both the graduates and the knowledge that comes from these “thick” institutions.

    Johns Hopkins is a case in point in Baltimore. And in Europe, we have, for example, the University of Lund. There have been a few studies as well. So the knowledge generated by these institutions tends to go away from the region because there’s no regional capacity to absorb what comes out of the university.

    So, very different roles.

    AU: It seems to me there are two types of rural or peripheral institutions. Let me talk about one of them first, right? So, smaller peripheral institutions—I’m thinking, you know, universities maybe in northern Norway, right? A couple thousand students. They face tight budgets, limited research capacity, and more difficulty, I imagine, in attracting top talent. Maybe not in Norway, but in some countries that would be an issue. And yet, they’re often expected to play an outsized role in regional development. How do they manage that tension?

    RP:  That’s a great question—and indeed, many don’t, right? You’re absolutely right that we should move away from the idea of just “centers” and “periphery,” because there are also centers within the periphery. There are strong institutions in peripheral settings. In northern Norway, for example, we have the University of Tromsø, which is a comprehensive, research-intensive institution. And there are many smaller regional colleges across the Nordic region that don’t have that capacity.

    Traditionally, these institutions have catered more to the applied needs of regional actors. They didn’t have the research infrastructures, so they got involved in what we call “projects,” right? Smaller projects. And that, of course, has limitations.

    Other, bolder institutions try to collaborate—develop networks. What we see, for example, in Northern Europe is a situation where, due to mergers, the smaller institutions are becoming amalgamated into larger institutions. And that, of course, creates new possibilities and new conditions, but also new tensions and dilemmas.

    Because as institutions grow—and as you know, the larger the institution, the more globally oriented scientists you have—the less likely they are to be involved with regional issues, all things being equal, as economists like to say.

    But in the end, it also goes back to the idea of engagement at the academic level—the bottom-up, right? So this combination between… well, you can have all these great strategic plans and funding in place, but if academics themselves—what Burton Clark calls the academic heartland—don’t feel keen to be engaged with regional actors, you can’t pressure them.

    AU: I’m going to come back to that global dimension in a second. But let me counter with something here. I’m not convinced that the larger institutions are necessarily more global, but they are probably more oriented towards basic research, right? As you get bigger and bigger departments, they get deeper into basic research.

    And what’s the uptake of basic research in peripheral areas? I mean, it just seems to me that when you get past a certain institutional size or complexity, it gets very hard to actually even talk with local communities—because the capacity for generating research is much bigger than the receptor capacity for it.

    I remember one example, when we were doing some work in Africa. There was a small private university outside Lagos, and they had sequenced the Ebola virus. I asked, “Can you work with local industries?” And they said, “We can’t work with the local pharmaceutical industry, because in Africa the pharmaceutical industry is packaging and marketing.” Right? Those are the only two functions.

    So what happens when the science at a small regional institution outruns the receptor capacity of the local environment? Are there any good ways to manage that?

    RP: It goes back to the example I gave earlier. For the most part, that knowledge tends to go away—to other regions or other localities. This is the global dimension. But this goes back to the point you raised about the brokering role of universities. Universities—or university actors—have to engage in a process of translating those basic research findings into something that can be applied at the local level.

    So how do they do that? There are different mechanisms. You need professors who are engaged and able to facilitate the translation of more theoretical discussions into something more concrete.

    The role of students is fundamental here—an aspect that has been somewhat neglected in the literature. In the end, the most important boundary spanners are actually students who spend time back and forth between the university and the community. And then there’s the role of graduates—former students. They maintain networks with professors and others, so they play a very important role.

    But in the end, if the companies—public or private—don’t have a need for that knowledge, or if that knowledge is not relevant to them, then they won’t use it. There’s that tendency.

    So it’s also up to the universities to try to make that basic knowledge—if they are so inclined—relevant to local actors. In northern Norway, we have the case of Tromsø, which has been able to do this: bring excellence and relevance together. They focus, for example, on the Sámi dimension, Arctic fauna and flora, or cardiovascular diseases—taking aspects that are relevant to the region and developing excellence around those areas.

    And in the process, they develop institutional capacity, which helps them with strategic profiling in a globally competitive world.

    AU: You’re raising again that issue of global excellence versus regional relevance. I’m interested in that from the perspective of university strategy. What avenues do you have to make sure that your institution is actually balancing those two properly? You used Tromsø as an example—can you think of some others? And are there any commonalities between them?

    RP: Yeah. I mean, university leaders do have some tools at their disposal. As we know, most universities—particularly large ones—are very bottom-heavy institutions. Academics tend to have a lot of autonomy and are relatively independent in what they pursue.

    That being said, they also follow incentives, as rational actors. So there are things that strategic or university leaders can do to align those incentives—whether that’s through PhD student opportunities, sabbaticals, or other types of incentives to collaborate with regional actors.

    Beyond Tromsø, there are other examples I’ve worked on. Oulu is another case in point—in Finland. There’s a very interesting anecdote, going back to the importance of networks. One study asked actors in Oulu, in Northern Finland, “Who are your most important collaborators?” People at the university mentioned individuals from industry and local government.

    Then the same question was asked in another region—northern Sweden, in a place called Luleå—which wasn’t as regionally engaged. They asked, “Who are your most important collaborators?” Regional actors in the private sector mentioned other actors in the private sector. University academics mentioned other academics.

    Those are examples of disconnected networks—networks that are operating within their own silos. So, there has to be a sort of synergy effect, and the most successful regional institutions are able to achieve that.

    One interesting caveat: when you ask these institutions whether they see themselves as regional universities, most of them don’t like that label. They say, “We are, first and foremost, a university in the region—not a regional university.” There are some negative connotations associated with being too closely tied to locality.

    AU: What I’m hearing you say is that we have to pay attention to the incentives for professors within the university to engage locally and form those local partnerships. Are there specific institutional reforms that can achieve that? And presumably, disciplinary mix matters, right? There are different incentives and different possibilities for collaboration across disciplines. So how do you manage that engagement? How do you incentivize it effectively?

    RP: There’s been a long discussion within the field about what types of incentives work. And again, there’s no one-size-fits-all—this has to be tailored. Academics are incentivized in very different ways. But we do know that, for the most part, monetary incentives have a limited effect when compared to other professions.

    So it’s more about things like whether you can gain more autonomy, develop your research group, or set up a center. What we’re seeing now, for example, in the Nordic countries is an orchestrated effort by national and regional funding agencies to ensure that research applications require buy-in from regional actors.

    I can’t submit an application to the Norwegian Research Council or to Business Finland, for example, without having partners from the region or the nation—whether from the public or private sector. Those are structural mechanisms designed to ensure that, if academics want access to significant research funding and to grow their research teams, they need to bring on board those key external actors.

    The second aspect is the very strong emphasis over the past, say, seven to ten years—especially post-COVID—on co-creation and co-production of knowledge. Rather than involving regional actors only at the end of a research project, now there’s an effort to bring them in at the design stage.

    So, researchers will go into a project already with input from those actors, understanding key questions and issues of relevance. And then, throughout the project, they involve these actors through various mechanisms—workshops, feedback exercises, and so on—to ensure there’s a loop of engagement and input.

    It’s a much more egalitarian sort of ecosystem. Whether or not this is working is still an empirical question—we don’t yet know the full results. But at least those are the intentions.

    AU: Romulo, you talked about this interface between the global and the local, right? And the global part of that is usually about relations between academics in one part of the world and academics in another. That helps a local university—a university in a region—act as kind of a window on the world for that region. It brings them into contact with these global networks.

    What’s the right way to think about developing those networks effectively? I mean, I know in Europe right now we’ve got the European Universities Initiative. And I think a number of those alliances are meant to unite institutions with similar missions. A number of them look like alliances of universities and regions. Is this promising? Is this the right way forward? Or are these initiatives missing something?

    RP: Let me touch first on the issue of networks. Most of these networks emerge organically, and they’re very much linked to the relationships that academics have with other academics—or academics have with regional actors. Students can also play a role here—if they get employment locally, and of course, former students may become part of regional government or industry.

    The key element here is trust. This is not new—trust takes time to generate. I think it’s not easy, if you’re sitting in the director’s chair at a university, to articulate a clear strategy for how to develop trust among all these actors. You have to create the conditions.

    That might mean freeing up some resources, or identifying your most engaged academics—those most likely to involve students or work regionally—and then creating a kind of ecosystem to bring these people together. We used to say that the most important thing in regional engagement is having money for lunches and dinners—that’s where people get to know each other.

    When it comes to the second part of your question—strategic alliances—I’m a bit skeptical about the extent to which these will benefit the regional engagement agenda, to be honest. Even those alliances, like the one my own institution is part of—with a regional name and focus—tend to become very inward-oriented.

    I’ve got a number of publications coming out now with a colleague, where we argue that these alliances are primarily collaborative exercises meant to enable institutions to compete globally. And there’s a tendency—despite some efforts, like policy labs for students involving regional actors and regional questions—for other strategic imperatives, outside of the region and locality, to end up dictating institutional priorities.

    That’s my sense. But again, it’s an important empirical question. We’ll have to see in the future what the results actually are.

    AU: So, there’s been a tendency in North America—probably going back to World War II or maybe even a little before—to think about universities as fixers of social or economic problems. And you’ve cautioned against assuming that universities can act as fixers of regional challenges, especially in peripheral contexts in Europe.

    I guess this is a more recent assumption about institutions—maybe 30 or 40 years old instead of 60 or 70. Where do you think that expectation comes from? And what are the risks of leaning too heavily on it?

    RP: That caution also comes from my fieldwork. I remember when I was doing my PhD many years ago, I was in South Africa at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, speaking with the vice-chancellor there. And he told me:

    “Look, we are keen to play an active regional role, but we are not going to clean the streets just because the local government is failing to clean the streets. We don’t have the capacity to tackle crime just because the police lack the resources to do so.”

    He was very clear in saying that part of their job was to go into the community and educate people—not just about the possibilities, but also about the limitations that universities and academics face. It is not their role to solve the failures of market forces or government systems.

    There’s a tendency among some local officials to scapegoat the university—to say, “You’re not delivering,” because they’re not helping to tackle poverty or similar issues. That’s not to say universities don’t have an important role. But most of us in the field believe universities have primarily a facilitating role—a generative role—rather than acting as engines of regional development.

    Of course, in those peripheral regions where the university is the largest employer or the only knowledge institution, expectations tend to be that the university must play a disproportionate role. Often, it tries to do so—and in many cases, it succeeds. But in the majority of cases, the university is just one of many knowledge actors in a very complex ecosystem.

    AU: Your work has obvious ramifications for higher education leaders—but also for politicians, right? The ones who are funding these institutions. If there’s one concept or one conceptual insight from your work that you think those groups should take seriously—higher education leaders and politicians—what would it be? It might not be the same for both. They could be different for the different audiences.

    RP: As a traditional academic, let me give you two instead of one.

    The first one—and I’m not the only one saying this, but I think my work reinforces it—is that both universities and regions are complex entities. They are not monolithic, but they tend to be approached by both politicians and university managers as if they are simple, strategic actors. In reality, they have deep histories and institutionalized traditions, which are very difficult to change. So, any attempt to use strategic agency to move universities or regions in a particular direction should take that into account.

    The second aspect links to my recent work on resilience. Over time, we’ve seen that universities have an innate capacity to adapt to social change and play very different roles. The “third mission” of the university—regional development or societal impact—looked very different in the early 20th century than it does today. Yet, universities have managed to withstand and adjust to adversity while retaining a degree of function and identity.

    To do that, they need two important ingredients. One is autonomy—which is currently under threat, both in terms of procedural and substantive autonomy. The second is diversity. From resilience studies, we know that resilient institutions are diverse institutions. So when politicians or managers promote a “lean” approach—saying, “we have two research groups working on similar areas, let’s kill one or merge them”—they’re actually reducing diversity. And reducing diversity reduces an institution’s ability to withstand future adversity—whether it’s a pandemic, geopolitical conflict, or other disruptions. That may seem efficient in the short term, but it’s dangerous in the long term.

    That’s why universities have historically been able to adapt to changing societal conditions—they’ve had those two ingredients, which are now at risk.

    AU: So given that, what’s the future of university–community engagement in peripheral regions? Is there a trend we can expect over the next 10 years? Are institutions going to be able to deliver more fully on the needs of their regions—or will they find it more difficult?

    RP: Well, as you know, Alex, academics are very bad at predicting the future! But we can look to history to see how things have evolved.

    What we’ve seen is that the university’s “third mission”—whether framed as regional development, social impact, or engagement—has increasingly moved closer to the university’s core activities. Today, you could argue that social impact is central to the mission of any university. That might not be new in the U.S., but at least in Europe, it’s a more recent shift over the last 10 to 15 years.

    What I think is important—and colleagues like David Charles in the UK have also emphasized—is that we need to look at the challenges facing our societies: rising polarization, the spread of illiberal democracies, the post-truth society. We should be asking: what role can universities—particularly in peripheral regions—play in helping societies navigate this turbulent environment?

    As the quintessential knowledge institutions, universities have a very important role to play. They should perhaps be more active and assertive in defending the importance of knowledge, of truth. I’m currently involved in projects on regional green transitions, and there’s a broad consensus that universities play a vital role mediating relationships among regional actors with very different agendas.

    They still retain legitimacy. They haven’t been politicized to the extent that other institutions have. So they’re uniquely positioned to bring political and community actors together and help orchestrate collective agendas.

    But that takes time. It doesn’t always yield short-term results. So university leaders need to be willing to take risks. They need to allow academics to play roles that go beyond the traditional functions of teaching and research.

    So I think what we’re seeing is a rediscovery of the civic role of universities—at an important historical moment. A shift from discussions about interests and money to discussions about values and norms.

    AU: Romulo, thank you very much for joining us today.

    RP: Thank you very much, Alex.

    *This podcast transcript was generated using an AI transcription service with limited editing. Please forgive any errors made through this service. Please note, the views and opinions expressed in each episode are those of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the podcast host and team, or our sponsors.

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