“Research and scholarship have been inexorably altered and revolutionised by technology but academics have paid insufficient attention to upgrading their skills,” said Brenda Gourley, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University in the UK and President of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, speaking on the panel, Beyond Talk: What Action for Higher Education and Research at the World Conference on Higher Education.

She said as learning methods changed untold research opportunities were unfolding but that greater investment was needed to diversify the staff base, upgrade technology and ensure quality assurance systems were in place.

Alice Dautry, President of the Institut Pasteur in Paris emphasised the need for research to be home grown.

“Louis Pasteur’s vision was that scientists, particularly in the field of health and disease, had to be in the countries where people were suffering and we maintain that vision,” she said.

“It is extremely important that research is performed in the countries where it is most needed and in the poorest developing countries this is key to building capacities for sustainability and empowerment".

She said developing countries now had sufficient numbers of people who had been well educated, often abroad, but that they needed to be enticed to return and stay by having proper research facilities and funding.

“Research is not only for rich countries. Developing countries need to build labs and equip them and have staff who can make diagnosis tests on the spot. I make a plea to international organizations and ministers to put some effort into supporting home grown research.”

Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource Development for India, said that by 2020 his country would have millions of trained young people who would have to be absorbed into some economy.

“As manufacturing processes are now outsourced, as services are now outsourced why shouldn’t education also be outsourced? It is time for institutes to reach out to students rather than the other way round. Why can’t top universities like Harvard, Yale, and Oxford set up centres in those places where there are surplus workforces so that young people can receive low cost education at global standards?”

Lutz Ziob, General Manager of Microsoft Learning, said his company’s vision was that every single school should have access to technology, connectivity and high speed broadband.

“Educational institutes need to be equipped with the same state of the art technology as the business world and be supported in its use,” he said.

The online University of South Africa (UNISA) was a good example of what could be done as was another interesting initiative, the French IT university, SUPINFO which had campuses worldwide and was closely linked to industry so that graduates were able to be placed in work within a month of finishing their studies.