Maintaining ‘sustainability' and viability for higher education in today's environment is a worthy goal, but it is not enough. We must ask: Sustainability for what purpose? We and our students face rapid change, radical uncertainty, periodic disruption, and global shifts. We need to redesign higher education even as we keep it in the air, and this will not be easy. In times of crisis, fear drives policy and practice toward more rigorous control, tighter measurement and closer monitoring of performance. That may close down the very space needed to grow a new system -- one that supports 21st century competencies - that must take root within the culture of the old. Using examples from Europe, India, and his home in Scotland, Leicester will reflect on the themes of the conference and illustrate both the tightening grip of the existing system and the emerging conviction that something very different is urgently needed. Drawing on recent work on permissive policy and creative practice, he will suggest ways in which the US can pioneer the transition.

Graham Leicester is Director of the International Futures Forum. IFF was established in 2001 through a generous grant from BP with a mission to restore effectiveness in action in a world of boundless complexity, radical interconnectedness and rapid change. The Forum responds to critical issues facing business, education, government, and communities. Its work covers, among other things, the areas of health, learning, enterprise, and governance. Graham previously ran Scotland's leading think tank, the Scottish Council Foundation, founded in 1997. From 1984 to1995 he served as a diplomat in HM Diplomatic Service, specialising in China (he speaks Mandarin Chinese) and the EU. Between 1995 and 1997 he was senior research fellow with the Constitution Unit at University College London. He has also worked as a freelance professional cellist, including with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He has a strong interest in governance, innovation, and education; is a senior adviser to both the Scottish Government and the British Council on those issues; and has previously worked with OECD, the World Bank Institute, and other agencies on the themes of governance in a knowledge society and governance for the long term.

Email: graham [at] internationalfuturesforum [dot] com

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