Tsinghua University Appoints Oxford Professor Simon Marginson as Honorary Professor
On the afternoon of June 23, Simon Marginson, Professor of the Department of Education at the University of Oxford and Founding Director of the Global Higher Education Research Center, visited Tsinghua University. Yang Bin, Vice President of Tsinghua University, held talks with Simon Marginson in the main building. Simon Marginson was appointed as an honorary professor of Tsinghua University on the same day, and was a guest at the 31st “Academic Salon of Higher Education Research”, delivering a keynote speech entitled “The Turn of Higher Education Ontology: Power, Space and Technology”.
Yang Bin introduced Simon Marginson’s academic achievements in the field of higher education research and expressed his gratitude for his long-term concern and support for the development of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Education and higher education disciplines. Yang Bin introduced Tsinghua University’s more open, more integrated and more resilient school-running orientation, as well as the school’s series of initiatives in promoting its global strategy. He hoped that through academic cooperation with Simon Marginson, they could jointly explore new areas of higher education research and promote Tsinghua’s higher education disciplines to have greater international influence.
The appointment ceremony was hosted by Shi Zhongying, Dean of the Institute of Education at Tsinghua University.
After the appointment ceremony, Simon Marginson gave a keynote speech entitled “The Ontological Turn of Higher Education: Power, Space and Technology” to teachers and students. He said that in the face of the current challenges of geopolitics and technological revolution, countries urgently need to work together to enhance dialogue and cooperation between universities and individual scientists, and jointly design a scientific and technological development agenda that conforms to the principles of openness, cooperation, mutual trust and solidarity.
Eight young and middle-aged higher education scholars, including Wen Wen, Director of the Institute of Higher Education, Institute of Education, Tsinghua University, Shen Wenqin, Director of the Department of Education and Human Development, School of Education, Peking University, Zhang Yu, Vice Dean of the Institute of Education, Tsinghua University, Wu Hantian, Vice Director of the Department of Education, School of Education, Zhejiang University, Wang Shiyue, Deputy Director of the Institute of Higher Education, Nanjing University, Ma Jiani, Director of the Institute of Higher Education, School of Education, Beijing Normal University, Liu Jin, Director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, and Gao Yuan, Director of the Center for Higher Education Research, Southern University of Science and Technology, conducted a wonderful discussion on the theme of the speech.
Shi Jinghuan, vice chairman of the Academic Degrees Evaluation Committee of Tsinghua University, summarized that future breakthroughs in higher education research lie in interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and rigorous methodology. He hopes that young and middle-aged scholars engaged in higher education research can take the “spatial turn in higher education research” as a starting point and continue to carry out more innovative theoretical thinking.
Simon Marginson is an internationally renowned educator, currently a professor at the Department of Education at the University of Oxford and the founding director of the Center for Global Higher Education Research. He has taught at famous universities such as the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and University College London. His main research areas are international higher education, educational sociology, educational political economy, and comparative education. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences, a member of the British Academy, the editor-in-chief of Higher Education magazine, and an editorial board member of nearly 20 international journals.