What Counts As Global and Regional Excellence: The Expansion and Organization of Higher Education Strategic Plans in Asia, 1990-Present

The paper examines a global process through which nations or semi-autonomous regions incorporate prevalent educational protocols in the world to their local higher education organizations. Global and regional rankings are useful to higher education organizations in making statements of the rise and decline of knowledge specialties in global comparisons (Hazelkorn 2015; Marginson 2006). Drawing on strategic plans of higher education organizations in Asia, key actors formulate goals to inform diversified audiences in global, regional, and local settings. Expansion and organization of goals in these plans are themselves active responses to external classifications (Ramirez and Meyer 2013; Schofer and Meyer 2005). The main question of global and regional excellence addresses in what ways the organization of higher education goals as a competing effect of an intensely competitive platform responsive to local patrons or an integrating effect of a highly institutionalized protocol agreeable to global auditors. To examine the extent that higher education as a powerhouse or as an institution, formal documents of mission statements and strategic plans are to be collected for data analysis. The findings shall explicate that local actors in Asia incorporate new sets of goals with keywords from prevalent protocols such to target impacts contributing to global comparisons. At the same time, detaching actual operations and creating new emphasis on regional and disciplinary comparisons have been identified from formal documents on higher education goals showcased by local players in Asia across two time periods. The expansion and organization of higher education goals imply an active and participatory project of global citizenship has begun to emerge and take shape in Asia.