The strategic positioning of Australian research universities in the East Asian region

Regional tendencies in higher education are increasingly important, for example the common rise of North-East Asian universities in China, Hong Kong SAR, Taiwan and South Korea, and Singapore in South-East Asia, to a major global role, following the prior trajectory of Japan. Though the rapidly modernizing Post-Confucian countries do not constitute a formal region, they share a common political and cultural dynamism, entailing rapid improvement of quantity and quality in education and research. This poses challenges and opportunities for Australia, a British/European heritage nation located at the edge of Asia, with extensive trade into East Asia, and an Asian-influenced demography, providing that it can (1) further develop its research capacity, given that research provides the main medium of deep collaboration in higher education, and (2) lift its cultural capacity to interface with systems in the region.