"Academic inbreeding"--involving the appointment of faculty members who graduated from the institution employing them--is considered a small and peripheral aspect of the academic profession but is quite widespread globally. This paper analyzes the nature of inbreeding and its impact on universities. Data from eight countries where…

India, with the world's second largest higher education system and a rapidly growing economy as one of the BRIC nations, faces significant challenges in building both capacity and excellence in higher education. India's higher education system is characterized by "islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity." The mainstream universities…

The research university is a central institution of the twenty-first century--providing access to global science, producing basic and applied research, and educating leaders of the academe and society. Worldwide, there are very few research universities--they are expensive to develop and support, and the pressures of massification have placed…