The round table, held during the World Conference on Higher Education, explored the ways in which higher education could capitalise on its role as social developer to promote peace, freedom of expression and sustainable development.

In his opening address Pierre Sané, UNESCO Assistant-Director General for Social and Human Sciences, said it was essential to see higher education in the context of the twin crises of the 21st century: severe poverty and political repression on the one hand, affecting millions of people and environmental catastrophes of historic proportions on the other.

“It is the job of the university to provide human capital for society and protect freedom of thought, opinion and expression,” he said.

He believed the other function of academia was to “speak truth to power.” Academics were often absent from public debate when in reality they were crucial for social transformation.

“It is good to remember that universities are already agents of social responsibility but can do more,” Professor Janyne Hodder said. “Universities are not ivory towers or the only experts or the handmaidens of other agencies but must remain in interactive dialogue with society.”

Her concrete proposals included creating awards and a new ranking for socially responsible universities, increased and more relevant student exchanges so that, for example, someone studying global warming could witness its effects firsthand on an island like the Bahamas, and support networks for staff.

Speakers also drew attention to persistent inequalities of access. In Australia the higher education system had been reformed in 2007 but still had not reached poorer, indigenous and rural people, said Denise Bradley, Emeritus Professor and former vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Australia.

She said it was the job of universities to be both competitive and fair and to intervene in the cycle of social disadvantage.

Axel Didriksson, Mexican Secretary of Education, said that in order to improve access and relevance universities needed to make drastic changes in curricula and teaching and learning processes and be open to introducing more cross-cutting study subjects.

Countries emerging from years of conflict had lost faith in the power of academia, said David Francis, Director of the Africa Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Bradford

“In my country, Sierra Leone, a market woman said to me ‘If university is so important how come we have this terrible and bloody civil war?’ Peace is the most important currency in post conflict situations. Without peace there is no security, no sustainable development, no change.”

He said people were clamouring for universities for have a more visible, long-term engagement with the community but so far in Africa they had not invested sufficiently in peace education.

Fadia Kiwan, Professor at St Joseph’s University, Beirut, Lebanon, said market forces and the mission to meet social expectations need not be in opposition.

“Intellectuals must be the conscience of a society,” she said. “They must be a fifth estate which helps to civilise our times.”

However, universalizing access was not a guarantee of quality. She said there was an equal danger in creating false hopes through low quality education and training which could lead to disappointment and radicalization.

Rounding up the event, Ramu Damodaran from UNDP highlighted an existing initiative working in the field of social responsibility. The UN’s Academic Impact initiative aligns higher education institutes with the UN under ten universally accepted principles.

He said the academic community had the potential to become a fourth UN after  governments, the secretariat and NGOs.

“There is no academic discipline which is so esoteric or abstruse that it cannot have a larger sense of global purpose,” he said.