CGHE Webinar 84

The ecological university

Date: Thursday, 28 June 2018 12:10 pm - 2:00 pm

Location: Room 777, UCL Institute of Education

Speaker(s):

Simon Marginson, University of Oxford and University of Bristol
Ronald Barnett, UCL Institute of Education
Elisa Brewis, UCL Institute of Education

Presenter: Ronald Barnett
Commentary: Simon Marginson and Elisa Brewis

The seminar will discuss and reflect on Ronald Barnett’s book, The Ecological University: A Feasible Utopia. After a presentation by Ron there will be commentary from Elisa Brewis and Simon Marginson, followed by open discussion.

Ron introduces his ideas as follows: Now several major ecosystems of the world are having their effects on the university and, whether recognised or not, the university is influenced by them. Seven ecosystems deserve attention in particular, those of the economy, knowledge, social institutions, learning, persons, culture and the natural environment.

At present, attention is given primarily to the ecosystem of the economy. Some – advocates of entrepreneurialism – play it up; others – critics of neoliberalism and cognitive capitalism – sense that the university is ‘in ruins’. On both readings, there is a neglect of the other (six) ecosystems.

As a result, there is a general downplaying of the potential that the university possesses in the twenty-first century. Ron will explore this situation and make a pitch for the coming of the ecological university. This would be a university that is not only aware of its interconnections with those seven ecosystems but has a concern for those ecosystems and strives to advance them.

Phrases such as ‘civic engagement’, ‘the public good’ and ‘the student as global citizen’ are indications of an embryonic concern for the total world on the part of the university. This may be a utopia, but it is a feasible utopia.

Download the presentation

Professor Simon Marginson

Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education with emeritus status at the University of Oxford, and Professor of Higher Education at the University of Bristol in the UK. He is Honorary Professor at Tsinghua University in China and a Professorial Associate with the University of Melbourne in Australia, and also Joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal Higher Education. Simon was the founding Director of the ESRC/RE Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE), which he led between 2015 and 2024. Simon’s research is focused primarily on global and international higher education, the global science system, higher education in East Asia, the contributions of higher education, and higher education and social inequality. Simon led CGHE’s project 8 which investigated the public good role of higher education in ten countries. The project found that while a broad notion of public good has been largely emptied out of policy in the English-speaking countries, where economic definitions of individualised pecuniary value are dominant, recognition of the broader individual and collective outcomes of higher education continues in different ways in other jurisdictions including France, Finland, South Korea and China. The study in England discovered however that despite the narrow economic framing used by Westminster policy makers, both higher education practitioners and policy professionals believe that higher education makes a large and multiple contribution to both national and global public goods. With Lili Yang, Simon co-authored a 2022 paper ‘Individual and collective outcomes of higher education: a comparison of Anglo-American and Chinese approaches’ which found that if the Anglophone economic notion of a zero-sum trade-off between public goods and private goods is removed, then the full range of higher education’s contributions emerge and the two systemic approaches to the public good role are compatible despite differences in the respective political cultures. Simon’s most recent book, authored with CGHE researcher Vassiliki Papatsiba of Cardiff University, is Brexit, EU students and UK higher education: Broken bridges, published by Bloomsbury Academic in August 2025. Forthcoming, also from CGHE research, are The future of cross-border academic mobility and immobility: Power, knowledge and agency, edited by Aline Courtois, Simon Marginson, Catherine Montgomery and Ravinder Sidhu (Bloomsbury Academic, December 2025); and the sole authored Simon Marginson, Global higher education in times of upheaval: On common goods, geopolitics and decolonisation (Bloomsbury Academic, January 2026). All three of these books are available for free download on an Open Access basis with the support of UKRI. You can contact Simon at simon.marginson@bristol.ac.uk or simon.marginson@education.ox.ac.uk

Ronald Barnett

Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education at the UCL Institute of Education. He recently completed a trilogy on what it is to understand the university (with Being a University; Imagining the University; and Understanding the University). Recently published by Routledge is his idea of the university: The Ecological University: A Feasible Utopia. His books have been translated into several languages and several have won prizes. He has had an (earned) higher doctorate of the University of London conferred on him and is a visiting professor at several universities. He is the inaugural recipient of the EAIR Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Higher Education Research, Policy and Practice’ and has been an invited keynote speaker in 40 countries.

Elisa Brewis

Elisa Brewis is a doctoral researcher in higher education policy at the UCL Institute of Education. Her thesis examines the impact of accountability reforms on equity and teaching and learning quality in Indonesia. She has conducted research on inclusive development, social justice and pedagogical self-accountability in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.