This day long conference is based on a major study of higher education expansion and quality in the world's four largest developing economies-Brazil, Russia, India, and China-known as the BRIC countries. These four economies are already important players globally, but by mid-century, they are likely to be economic powerhouses. Whether they reach that level of development will depend partly on how successfully they create quality higher education that puts their labor forces at the cutting edge of the information society. It is difficult to imagine large economies reaching advanced stages of development in the 21st century without high levels of innovative, well-trained, socially oriented professionals.

The study places particular emphasis on how the BRICs are expanding engineering higher education and the quality and equity of that expansion. Evaluating the potential success of the BRIC countries in developing highly skilled professionals is not the only reason to study their higher education systems. We want to learn how these governments go about organizing higher education because this can tell us a lot about their implicit economic, social, and political goals, and their capacity to reach them. Although the BRICs are acutely aware of their new role in the global economy, their governments must negotiate complex political demands at home, including ensuring domestic economic growth, social mobility, and political participation. Because more and better higher education is positively associated with all these elements, BRIC governments' focus on their university systems has become an important part of their domestic economic and social policy.

The conference involves all the authors of the study from China, India, Russia, and the United States, as well as expert discussants from Brazil and the United States. The various panels of the day-long discussion will focus on various aspects of change in the higher education systems in the BRICs.

TRIUMPH OF THE BRICS?

Higher Education Expansion in the Global Economy

Bechtel Conference Center--FSI

April 28, 2012

Co-Sponsored by

Freeman Spogli Institute, U.S. Department of Education, Office of Post-Secondary Education, Stanford School of Education Lemann Center for Educational Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Brazil, Center for Latin American Studies at Stanford, State Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, China Institute for Educational Finance Research at Peking University, and National University of Educational Policy and Administration, Delhi

8:00 am Bagels and coffee

8:30 am Welcome

8:45 am Introduction to the Study
Presenter: Martin Carnoy, School of Education, Stanford
Discussants: Francisco Ramirez, School of Education, Stanford Gustavo Fischman*, Arizona State University

9:30 am Panel I: The Expansion of and Payoffs to Higher Education in the BRICs
Presenters: Isak Froumin and Maria Dobryakova, State Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Prashant Loyalka, China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University  Discussants: Eric Bettinger, School of Education, Stanford Rafiq Dossani, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford

10:45 am Coffee Break

11:00 am Panel II: Financing of Higher Education in the BRICs
Presenters: Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, National University of Educational Planning Administration (NUEPA)
Wang Rong, China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University
Discussants: Nick Hope, Stanford Center for International Development
Robert Verhine*, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

12:15 pm Lunch Break

1:00 pm: Panel III: Institutional Change In BRIC Universities
Presenters: Rafiq Dossani, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford
Katherine Kuhns, School of Education, Stanford
Discussants: Simon Schwartzman*, Instituto de Estudos do Trabalho e Sociedade, Rio de Janeiro
Wang Rong, China Institute for Educational Finance Research, Peking University

2:15 pm Panel IV: How Does the Quality of Engineering Education Compare?
Presenters: Prashant Loyalka, CIEFR, Peking University
Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, NUEPA, Delhi
Discussants: Sheri Sheppard, School of Engineering, Stanford
Anthony Antonio, School of Education, Stanford

3:30 pm Coffee break

3:45: pm Panel V: Implications for the Future
Presenters:  Martin Carnoy, School of Education, Stanford
Isak Froumin, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Discussant: Philip Altbach*, Center for International Higher Education, Boston College

5:00 pm Closing Remarks

*Will give their remarks via Webinar connection

About the topic: This talk will provide a current affairs assessment of the situation in Afghanistan. It will present the trajectory of the counterinsurgency campaign highlighting the security and governance challenges--including the building up of the Afghan National Security Forces, the economic sustainability of the state and private sector, as well as issues pertaining to minority and women's rights. The talk will also offer a range of likely endgames in light of the 2014 withdrawal.

About the Speaker: Fotini Christia joined the MIT faculty in the fall of 2008. She received her PhD in Public Policy at Harvard University, and has been a recipient of research fellowships from the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs among others. Her research interests deal with issues of ethnicity, conflict and cooperation in the Muslim world. Fotini has written opinion pieces on her experiences from Afghanistan, Iran, the West Bank and Gaza and Uzbekistan for Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe. She graduated magna cum laude with a joint BA in Economics-Operations Research from Columbia College and a Masters in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

There are currently 60 nuclear reactors under construction worldwide with nearly half of these projects being built in China. There is no doubt that East Asia is emerging as a leader in the international nuclear community where China and the Republic of Korea (ROK) are playing major roles as a result of their aggressive new plant build programs. Both China and South Korea present very interesting case studies where the former is rapidly building up domestic expertise in nuclear construction while the latter has gone one step further in capitalizing successfully on a nuclear export business. Both countries have relied heavily on external commercial support in building up this expertise. In the case of South Korea, the “Koreanization” of nuclear power took place in the 1980’s and 1990’s, first with a large number of Western builds and ultimately a complete indigenization of pressurized water reactor technology through a technology transfer with Combustion Engineering. The Chinese domestic nuclear program has been largely influenced by Western vendors as well; however, there has been significantly less emphasis on exporting the technology up to now as they master the imported technologies for their domestic program. The recent AP1000 technology transfer between Westinghouse Electric Company and China has opened up unique transnational learning opportunities between the United States and China where the lessons learned building the first AP1000 plants in China will be shared with the two U.S. utilities now embarking on new plant construction at the Vogtle and V.C. Summer sites, in Georgia and South Carolina, respectively. This talk will review both the historical experiences of exporting nuclear technology to the ROK and China, as well as the progress being made by these countries in absorbing the technology. Further, the AP1000 passive plant technology will be summarized as an example of the general trend for future designs in response to the reactor accidents at Fukushima Dai-ichi in March 2011. Finally, the advanced construction techniques being used to build AP1000 plants in both the U.S. and China will be highlighted along with their benefits in delivering new plants on schedule.

About the speaker: Dr Matzie is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Westinghouse Electric Company and was responsible for all Westinghouse research and development undertakings and advanced nuclear plant development. He is also on the Board of PBMR Pty Ltd. and Chairman of the Board Technical Committee. In that role, he assures proper oversight of the design, safety, licensing, research and development, and quality aspects of the PBMR enterprise.

Previously, Dr Matzie was responsible for the development, licensing, detailed engineering, project management, and component manufacturing of new Westinghouse light water reactors and was also the Executive in charge of Westinghouse replacement steam generator projects and dry spent-fuel-canister fabrication projects. He became a Senior Vice President in 2000, when Westinghouse purchased the nuclear businesses of ABB. His career has been devoted primarily to the development of advanced nuclear systems and advanced fuel cycles, and he is the author of more than 120 technical papers and reports on these subjects.

The book The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History by Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas is scheduled to be published on May 14, 2012 by Harvard University Press. This book describes and analyzes in detail the Soviet biological warfare (BW) program, from its inception in 1928 to likely termination in 1992. The two most vexing questions that the authors attempt to answer are; in the final analysis, what were the Soviet BW program’s accomplishments? Second, might Soviet accomplishments related to enhancing biological weaponry be made available to future national or terrorist BW programs? This presentation will explain why these questions are difficult to answer but nevertheless will propose answers to them. The authors have a basis for doing so because they have been able to collect and analyze information from primary resources in archives and special collections, as well as in the course of hundreds of hours spent on interviewing scientists who operated the Soviet BW program. During his presentation, Zilinskas will discuss tentative findings that encompass subjects such as whether the application of genetic engineering, which resulted in among other accomplishments the development of multiantibiotic resistant Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, and Yersinia pestis, actually resulted in improved weaponry and whether genetically engineered strains remain in Russian cell culture collections and from there might escape or be made available to those who seek to acquire biological weapons.

About the speaker: Raymond A. Zilinskas, formerly a clinical microbiologist, is the director of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. He is the editor of Biological Warfare: Modern Offense and Defense (Lynne Rienner, 1999) and co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense (Wiley, 2005). He received a PhD from the University of Southern California and a BA in Biology from the University of Stockholm.

The U.S.-North Korean “Leap Day” deal of February 29 was thrown into question by the North’s recent announcement of a satellite launch between April 12 and 16 to celebrate the centenary of Kim il Sung’s birth. As the opening of the launch window nears, an intense international brouunfolds with, amazingly, the US, Russia, China, Japan, and South Korea on the same page, dead set against a launch; and an isolated North Korea defiantly planning to celebrate the centenary with a satellite launch on or by April 15. In this presentation, the three speakers will provide a brief background of the successes and failures of North Korea’s previous satellite launches (score: 0 for 3 by Western count, 2 for 2 by DPRK count) and what has been learned from these; an expected timeline of activities of the countdown; and a guide and comparison of the new Sohae Western launch complex to the older Tonghae Eastern launch complex.

About the speakers:

Lewis Franklin is a long-time CISAC Affiliate, joining CISAC in 1992 as a Visiting Scholar after retiring as a TRW vice president, and previously vice president and co-founder of ESL, a defense intelligence company. Upon retirement he was awarded the CIA's Gold Medal for career-long contributions to foreign weapons assessment and national technical means capabilities. At CISAC his work focused on technical intelligence related problems, including wmd proliferation, export controls, defense conversion, and especially conversion of retired ICBMs for low-cost space launches.

Nick Hansen is a CISAC Affiliate. He graduated with a BA in Geography from Syracuse University in 1964.  His career in national intelligence spans 43 years first as an Army imagery analyst, and then in industry with GTE-EDL, ESL/TRW, Tera Research as a cofounder Vice Pres. and then again at ESL (now TRW/Northrop-Grumman) as a Director. He has also served in an SES position at the Navy's NIOC-Suitland, MD, as an image technology expert associated with Pennsylvania State University.  He has been twice nominated for the NRO's Pioneer award for innovative imagery uses and techniques development and is an expert in foreign weapons systems and test ranges. 

Allison Puccioni is an expert in remotely-sensed imagery and geospatial intelligence at IHS Janes. She was honored for her innovative intelligence in response to Sept. 11, and has been recognized by the Department of Defense and international armed forces for her outstanding strategic and tactical analysis.