Quality in Higher Education

Quality in higher education requires an environment of academic freedom and well equipped institutions capable of developing knowledge and enriching the minds of students.

 Quality for universities and academic communities means the pursuit of excellence, by attracting the best scholars and students and achieving better outcomes than other institutions, in other words to be the best or one of the best. 

 Such success must be based on fair intellectual competition, honesty and integrity.

 Independence from political influence and economic pressure is crucial. Dogmatism and fundamentalism in the occident and the orient were hindering intellectual independence, free dialogue and publication of new findings centuries ago (Galileo, Averroes).  Still today freedom of teaching and research is not guaranteed everywhere, especially in totalitarian systems and ideological areas.

 Stanford University's motto "Die Luft der Freiheit weht" (The wind of freedom blows) illuminates this precondition of quality and excellence. But what about other conditions? What is the general framework of excellence? What constitutes top quality? What leads to a world class university? Are instruments like peer review, management of quality improvement, quality assurance systems, rankings etc. suitable tools?

 A number of distinguished educators have accepted our invitation to speak.  The Conference program is now available.