This conference, co-organized by the OECD and the Copenhagen Business School, will present a broad picture of the crisis and its impact on higher education. Participants will debate questions of supply and demand, costs and income in higher education and will analyse the role and responsibility of higher education institutions and how to transform these challenges into opportunities.

The World Bank will participate in this public debate and contribute their expertise in this field.

More information on the World Bank and Higher Education.

Overview

The world is facing a serious and global economic crisis. The global economy is contracting, which is dragging down economic activity.

This crisis affects higher education bringing challenges and opportunities:

• Government budgets are under considerable pressure and are likely to put a squeeze on public spending available to education. Higher education institutions will also be affected. Funding, quality of learning environments, and links with the local economy and employment might be under pressure
• At the same time stimulus packages are bringing funds to knowledge infrastructure and the crisis will also impact upon the availability of staff with fresh industry and business experience
• Overall demand for tertiary programmes seems likely to rise, although international student flows may be affected
• Universities, colleges and business schools have a responsibility to examine how they can help society cope with the effects of the crisis and to reflect on the extent to which they may have been able to do more to foresee and prevent it. This conference aims to present a broad picture of the crisis and its impact on higher education in a transparent and interactive way: trends will be highlighted; case studies will allow in-depth analysis; strategies will be shared and opportunities will be discussed.

At the end of the Conference, each participant should have:

• A global vision of the situation
• Possible strategies that could be applied to his/her situation
• Networked with interesting participants/speakers