Asia-Pacific University - Community Engagement Network Summit, 21-23 September 2014 in Malaysia

USM - the University of Science Malaysia - is one of Malaysia's top-rated special 'research-led' universities under Malaysia's HE in development policy. USM fittingly hosted this week the second Summit this week of APUCEN, the Asia-Pacific University-Community Engagement Network: fittingly because of USM's long-standing commitment to local civil society as well as to industrial engagement.

APUCEN's logo features the entwining of the U and C, a central Summit theme; its mission is to promote culturally deep-rooted and sustainable partnership between HE institutions and the different elements of civil society in its broadest sense, and to use modern media to network regionally universities thus committed to enhancing their capacity to engage. The Summit was itself a network meeting of institutional heads and senior colleagues, facilitated and led by USM's own leadership and support staff. A new Council of 13, chosen to lead the Network in the coming triennium, began work after the Conference closed.

The wider global context is the approaching end of the MDG (Millennium Development Goal) era and the approach of a new planning cycle of Sustainable Development Goals.  Participants were given the just-published book, At the Sunset of the MDGs and EFA: Lifelong Learning, National Development and the Future (eds. Chris Duke and Heribert Hinzen, DVV Vientiane and Bonn 2014). The wider regional context is ASEAN's approaching regional agreement somewhat resembling that of the EU as it evolved earlier, with significant impact on higher education in the ASEAN and 'ASEAN-plus' region not unlike that of the Bologna Agreement in Europe. The value of collaborative exchange between these two world regions is the basis of ASEM, the ASEAN-European Education Ministers' meetings with its civil society underpinning the Asia Europe People's Forum (AEPF).  2015 and following years promise to be important years for global collaboration in crisis-solving, with a still wider role and duty falling to universities - and so for both APUCEN and ASEAN.

There were close links with PASCAL following the Pascal Hong Kong conference the previous November where APUCEN was a partner. Professors Bruce Wilson, Head of the Pascal regional office at EUC RMIT, and Heribert Hinzen of DVV International and a senior PASCAL Associate, led the regional exchange sessions. The Chair of the Pascal Advisory Council, Chris Duke gave the first of the two keynotes. Echoing the theme of the Summit, he spoke about The Future Direction of University-Community Engagement and Regional Partnerships, concluding with 'seven deadly sins' that beset university leaders overly focused on their own reputations and ambitions. Focusing on leadership, he suggested rather that the vital test was in the mobilisation and the resulting success followership - and in the direction that courageous leadership chooses. 

For more on the Summit and what follows contact [email protected].