Overview
In this open access book, leading scholar Simon Marginson discusses the major trends, events, issues and dilemmas that have shaped and are still shaping global higher education. Higher education and research have grown rapidly, becoming more international and embroiled in the politics and economics of an increasingly conflicted world. The global research university has spread from the Euro-American West to the global East and South, becoming key to emerging multipolar and decolonial power. In the Anglosphere, however, the market model is failing. In highly unequal societies, education cannot universalise opportunity and employability. Neoliberal governments have defunded and emptied out the work of universities for the common good – and populist-conservatism is filling the vacuum with a backlash against cross-border students, against crucial East-West collaboration in research, and in the United States, where global research universities began, against university autonomy, climate science and academic freedom. In a tumultuous and unstable time in which old certainties are crumbling, Marginson makes an original and probing argument, supported by data-based review, theorising, and critical analysis, that pushes in a radically different direction to both neoliberalism and Trumpism. It is an ambitious call to sweep away the accumulative-competitive model of society and education, which positions us as sovereign individuals without collective responsibility, in nations likewise driven solely by self-interest (sovereign nationalism) in a war of all against all. The book pulls apart policies on student fees, human capital and employability, calling for negotiated education-work partnerships. It unpicks the neocolonial mindset in Western science and international education, suggesting that no single culture has all the answers; that respect for diversity and cooperation on shared problems are integral to the global common good. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.
Full Product Details
Author: Professor Simon Marginson (University of Oxford, UK)
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions:
Width: 15.80cm
, Height: 2.40cm
, Length: 23.60cm
Weight: 0.660kg
ISBN: 9781350540064
ISBN 10: 1350540064
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 05 February 2026
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
For more than three decades, Simon Marginson has been widely regarded as one of the most perceptive and insightful analysts of the shifting geopolitics of higher education. The breadth of his scholarship is truly remarkable, addressing issues that range from the political economy of internationalisation to global science and research collaborations. In this timely collection of essays, he turns his critical gaze upon the challenges systems of higher education now confront to reimagine their purposes and governance within the context of increasing levels of complexity, upheaval, and volatility. -- Fazal Rizvi, Emeritus Professor, Universities of Melbourne Australia and USA.
Author Information
Simon Marginson is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford, UK. He was Director of the UKRI Centre for Global Higher Education 2015-2024.
