Description
Book SynopsisProviding an in-depth and cutting-edge investigation into the rise of Asian research practices and paradigms, Mats Benner examines how this rise has been accomplished, what effects it has had, and how it has shaped universities across seven Asian countries.
Broad and comprehensive, chapters analyse the research and education systems of China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Macau, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, considering how their universities operate, their models and policy priorities. Benner studies the historical, social and political causes behind the variations between these countries, before highlighting the effects of globalization on education, research and innovation. Assessing whether we are witnessing a tectonic shift in how and where education and research are carried out, the book ultimately concludes that regional disparities will remain, but that practices and priorities are becoming increasingly similar in the process of globalization.
With Asia showing an increasingly marked presence in research and in scientific and technological capability, this timely book will be invaluable to university policy makers looking to innovate their education and research models, alongside students and scholars interested in Asian development, innovation and technology.
Trade Review‘Mats Benner’s new book provides an expansive and much needed analysis on the campaign by Asian universities, and their governments, to be among the world’s most productive in research, with a laser focus on building nation-state economies. What sets Asia’s Rising Research Dominance
apart is the nuance provided in the distinct national case studies – China, Hong Kong and Macau, Taiwan, India, Japan, South Korea. Here is a story of a dramatic trajectory, where the goal at first was simply quantity in research productivity, and now increasingly quality and economic impact.’ -- John Aubrey Douglass, University of California, Berkeley, US
‘If you want to understand how the global balance of research power is rapidly shifting, then this is the book. Moving authoritatively across Asian “knowledge nations”, the emerging research landscape is expertly navigated, probed and explored. One is left convinced that research policy is crucially bound up with processes of nation-building, globalization and international power. Asia is ascending. And Mats Benner is the perfect analyst and guide. Highly recommended for anyone curious to learn more about the scientific rise of Asia – and to ponder what this will mean for universities, researchers and states across the world.’ -- Alan Irwin, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Table of ContentsContents: 1. Overture: A new academic landscape? 2. China: a global academic hegemon in the making? 3. India: the perils of institutional churn 4. Japan: resilient stagnation? 5. ‘Hospitality, not a country’: the anatomy of academic prominence in Singapore 6. South Korea: straddling tradition and modernity 7. Taiwan: resilient exceptionalism 8. Hong Kong and Macau: straddling and thriving in the shadow of hierarchy 9. Reprise: universities, state-building and globalization Index
