On the fertility of errors: imitation and innovation in higher education

Event: Roundtable (in Romanian)

Location: NEC conference hall

25 February 2019, 15:00 – 17:00

Participants: Ligia DECA, Adrian MIROIU, Bogdan MURGESCU, Robert D. REISZ

A roundtable on the recently published book with the same title by Robert REISZ, Professor, Department of Political Science, West University of Timișoara.

Universities have lately become fundamental organizations of modernity. We will discuss a book that looks for explanations for the way universities have developed. Where and how do the organizational models of today’s higher education institutions come from? Through historical and sometimes philosophical incursions, this exciting book leads us through different types of universities, crosses Europe and America, passes through Japan while glancing over Qatar to help us understand why the universities in Romania are the way they are. We meet fascinating characters along the way: spies and philosophers, topographers and philanthropists, kabbalists and soldiers. Besides all this, we see how models are adopted in public policies, how imitation really looks like and how much innovation it truly contains.