OECD Home › Directorate for Education and Skills › Higher education and adult learning › CERI - University Futures: Future scenarios
Where are we going as regards higher education? Where should we go and why? How can we get to where we want to go? What will be the main challenges ahead? What are the possible ways to overcome these challenges? What would be the best ways?
Scenarios can be a useful way of drawing upon imagination in a structured manner to think creatively on matters we often take for granted. They allow us to look at issues in a holistic way rather than in isolation.
The University Futures project has developed Four Future Scenarios for Higher Education, presented and discussed at the Forum of the Meeting of OECD Education Ministers in Athens in 2006. These scenarios – Open Networking, Serving Local Communities, New Public Responsibility and Higher Education Inc. – are not meant to predict the future. Rather, they are tools for thinking about the future, which will be shaped partly through deliberate strategies and actions, partly by factors beyond the control of decision-makers.
Scenarios are aimed to help us to think, for example, where are we going, where should we go and how can we get there. These questions are also reflected from different personal viewpoints in the background document with forward-looking perspectives on higher education, prepared for the final international conference.
Related project documentation
Related events
Related OECD work on Education
Go to
Follow us
E-mail Alerts Blogs