Lemmens The Virtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education Bernd Wächter (ed.) Aca papers on International Cooperation in Education The V irtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education

Physical versus virtual mobility:
A paradigm change in international cooperation
1. It is unfair to complain about the title of my address “Physical versus vir-
tual mobility: a paradigm change in international cooperation”. But I do
want to ask some questions about the assumption that the two halves of
the title are linked – i.e. that the shift from physical to virtual mobility (if it
is not a contradiction in terms to talk about “virtual” mobility) and the shift
from an “old” to a “new” paradigm of international cooperation are the
same (or almost the same) thing. Certainly there have been many
changes in the way in which academic cooperation takes place. But are
we sure that advances in information and communication technologies
are the main driver? I am not convinced. Maybe a more important driver
is the rise of the so-called “knowledge society”, which has produced a
much tighter fit between knowledge creation and wealth generation. This
has encouraged nations (or groups of nations such as the European
Union) to see themselves increasingly as competitors within a global
knowledge economy. And it is this, maybe, that is the big difference.
2. For the moment all I want to do is to plant this thought in your minds, al-
though I will return to it in my conclusion. In my talk today I plan to cover
three topics:
I
To discuss, very briefly, the idea of globalisation – a highly complex
and even contradictory phenomenon (which, as I have just hinted, I
suspect is the real driver of change – not ICT and its capacity to pro-
duce “virtuality”);
II
To compare and contrast “old” and “new” paradigms of international
cooperation;
III To offer some, very tentative, conclusions about the implications of
this paradigm shift (in my view, largely the result of globalisation –
although I do not deny the potential of “virtuality”).