Institute of Education London

Professor Ron Barnett

• • AcSocSc, DLit, PhD, MPhil, BA, PGCE, DipEd, FSRHE, FHEA
  • Emeritus Professor of Higher Education
  • Consultant
• Faculty:
  • Faculty of Policy and Society
• Department:
  • Lifelong and Comparative Education
• Centre:
  • Centre for Higher Education Studies
• Summary:
  • I have a particular interest in the theory and conceptualisation of higher education and for the last thirty years, I have been trying to develop a social philosophy of the university. I have also been trying to offer conceptual resources that might help universities to realise their potential for personal and social wellbeing.
    
    Issues that I have tackled include:
    
    • The idea of higher education in the twenty-first century
    • Knowledge and the university
    • Professional education
    • Quality matters
    • Being a student
    • Reshaping the curriculum
    • The relationship between research and teaching
    • Academic identity
    • Being a university
    
    Currently, I am working on a book that is examining the place of the imagination in developing our ideas of the university.
    
    I also work as a consultant, and my work in that capacity has recently taken me to India and to Austria, conducting evaluations of university activities.
• Teaching:
  • MBA Higher Education Management – member of course team, teaching especially on modules on institutional strategy and on the management of teaching and learning
• Research:
  • What forms has the idea of the university taken and what feasible, if utopian, ideas are available for the university of the twenty-first century?
• Professional Activities:
  • My other activities include:
    • Senior Fellow, Department of Education, University of Oxford
    • External examining of doctorate theses
    • Evaluations for publishers of book proposals
    
    I am also currently a member of:
    • Audit and Quality Standards Committee, Institute of Advanced Study, University of London
    • Research and Scholarship Committee, St Mary's University College, Twickenham
• Conferences/presentations:
  • 2010
    Australia:
    • Charles Sturt University, Keynote lecture, 'Towards an Ecological Curriculum', annual teaching and learning conference
    • University of Queensland, Brisbane, 'Being a University: Future Possibilities', guest lecture.
    
    2011
    University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada:
    • 'Imagining the University'
    • 'Being a Graduate in the Twenty-first Century'
    
    2012
    Mexico City, Mexico:
    • 'Being a Student in an Age of Uncertainty: managing, developing and educating horizons of learning', International Conference on Youth, Generational Change and Social Networking, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
    
    University of Valparaiso, Chile:
    • Invited talk: 'Marketised Universities in the Twenty-First Century: Are Feasible Utopias Still Possible?'
      Invited workshop: 'Horizons of Learning'
      
      
  • Personal Country Knowledge:
    • I have been a guest speaker in over 30 countries across the world, and have visited some countries several times (including China, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden and Japan)
  • Media Appearances:
    • I am happy to talk to the media.
  • Courses:
    • MBA in Higher Education Management
      Doctoral supervision
  • CV:
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