Higher education contributing to local, national, and global development: new empirical and conceptual insights

Maia Chankseliani, Ikboljon Qoraboyev & Dilbar Gimranova lead us through this study to present new empirical and conceptual insights into the ways in which higher education can help to achieve and exceed the outcomes enshrined in the Sustainable Development Goals. Juxtaposing the national with the global development missions of universities, the paper raises questions on the possibility of delinking higher education from the immediate human capital and modernisation needs of the nation-state and becoming concerned with the global, on promoting freedom to cultivate intellectual curiosity through education and research, and stimulating a more holistic imaginary of the developmental purposes of higher education.