(or two) civilizations without a clearly identified flagship country. Lastly, this overview would be incomplete if we omitted the Orthodox civilization and its flagship country, Russia.
The previous paragraph describes the complexity of dealing with the question “how?”, for all civilizations and their flagship countries. Rather than doing nothing, given the magnitude of the task, we have chosen to do what we can. We are starting this vast program today with Russia31, the flagship country of Orthodox civilization.
Two reasons guide our choice of analysis of the “how?” for the Russian version: the calendar32, temporal by definition, and the immersion, spatial33 in this case.
Firstly, Russia launched the ambitious 5-100 project in 2012, aimed at propelling five Russian universities into the top 100 in the world by 2020. By the time we write the final lines of this book, this will be on the horizon.
Secondly, our analysis is based on an in vivo experience of almost nine months during the year 2016, in one of the first universities selected by the 5-100/2020 project, and on the expertise and consulting activities that several of these Russian universities have requested since then.
In the fourth chapter of the present work, we satisfy the diktat of the Russian emergency, by dealing with the third part of the triptych – the “how?” – in the context of the flagship country of Orthodox civilization, Russia. We analyze the chances of success and the obstacles encountered by Russian institutions in their conquest of international academic summits. Lastly, we propose options for strategic choices to be made at the governmental level.
Let us now continue the description of the contents of the other parts of this book.
Practically every page of this study is filled with numbered notes. They are grouped together in the “Notes, Insertions and Tangents” section of this book. The title reflects the fact that these notes often contain much more than details. Some give a historical or literary perspective (or both); several initiate possible avenues of development (some of which are mentioned in the foreword); and others address subjects that may seem more distant from the heart of the book’s subject but which, in our minds, are nevertheless linked to it in one form or another. A mathematician would say that they are related to, and positively correlated with, our concerns at the moment.
The “Appendices” section contains a certain amount of information, tables and graphs on which the different chapters are based. A “Reference” brings together the main sources used in this book.
We try to bring together the main points of emphasis of the previous chapters in Chapter 5, under the heading “Conclusion: Analysis and Perspectives”. Here, we identify the main trends of our study regarding the winners of the race for global intellectual leadership, as measured by the rankings. We even risk drawing trajectories that seem probable to us. Since the universities were born in Europe, we take advantage of this section to outline the situation of continental European universities within Western civilization. They confirm – without necessarily comforting – a prophecy by Paul Valéry from a hundred years ago, recalled in this same chapter. Beyond divisions and competitions, elite universities have important responsibilities, especially in tackling difficult problems. If the question of “why?” initiates the triptych, we mutate it in this chapter into “for what?”. We are indeed questioning the very mission of universities, wherever and whoever they are, and the responsibility of elite universities in particular, in the unprecedented context of population explosion, advances in robotic automation, and migrations of both technology and people.
This work does not have all the answers. It gives an angle, and identifies the dynamics of positions among the world’s elite in higher education and research. We believe in the sustainability of these dynamics. We hope that this book will provide some hindsight when it comes to influencing public policy and university reforms. This hindsight is necessary so that the short time for action does not obstruct the long time for strategic thinking in this competitive sector that is crucial to the sovereignty of nations, at a time when important forces are at work and when civilizational balances that were thought to be stable are faltering.
Throughout this book, we aim to contribute to the task that Albert Camus spoke of in his speech at the reception of the Nobel Prize in 1957:
Every generation, no doubt, believes it is destined to remake the world. Mine, however, knows it will not. Its task may be greater. It is to keep the world from falling apart. (Camus 1957, pp. 18–19)
At least, we try to do so by naming things as we see them, with all the lucidity and intellectual honesty we are capable of.
This study does not solely rely on lectures, graphs and scholarly analysis. It also draws34 on stories, novels, plays, films, songs and pictorial works. It was not conceived in a theoretical, abstract and dry manner in the reassuring environment of an immovable office. Nomadism, quarrelling35 and leaving the sphere of comfort are the main determining factors.
Let us begin this journey.
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