U.S. launches cooperative education program in APEC
The United States has launched a new program under the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) umbrella with the goal of expanding cooperation in higher education within the Asia-Pacific Region.
The APEC Study Centers Consortium developed from a proposal made by the U.S. at the APEC Summit held in Seattle, Washington, in 1993. The charter for the consortium was signed at the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. in August of this year.
Indonesia, along with Australia, Canada, China, New Zealand, and Thailand, has indicated it will pursue the study center consortium, according to Desaix Anderson, the APEC coordinator at the State Department.
The U.S. initiative called for "an investment in our future generations by establishing an APEC education program to develop regional cooperation, study key regional economic issues, improve worker skills, facilitate cultural and intellectual exchanges, enhance labor mobility and foster understanding of the diversity of our region".
The APEC study centers will be interdisciplinary, policy- oriented centers for research at the advanced or graduate level, with scholars from several APEC member economies jointly examining such issues as trade and investment liberalization, environmental pollution, energy requirements and APEC's infrastructure. The U.S. response also includes scholar exchanges under the Fulbright program.
Solutions
The original proposal noted that because over two billion people make up the Asia-Pacific market, the founding of the consortium will establish a center to discuss "cooperative solutions to the challenges of our rapidly changing regional and global economy".
It is also hoped that the consortium will heighten American understanding of the Asia-Pacific region, both from the point of view of its cultural aspects and the business opportunities to be had in APEC.
Most of the founding members of the consortium have extensive connections with Asian universities, as well as Asian study centers and Asian regional studies.
The universities in the consortium are the East-West Center in Hawaii; the University of Hawaii; the State University of New York, Buffalo; Michigan State University; North Carolina State University; University of California, San Diego; Washington State University; Washington University; Rutgers University, New Jersey; New Jersey Institute of Technology; Columbia University; and Texas A and M.
Each university grouped in the consortium will have its own focus of study. At Washington State University, natural resources, environmental studies, food safety and food production will be at the top of the agenda.
The University of Hawaii and the East West Center are studying the prospects of establishing early career and mid-career executive training programs.
Other APEC members will have their own versions of the APEC Study Center concept. "Our hope is that each member study center will be very much in touch with the other study centers around the Asia-Pacific and that their research projects will involve several numbers; that's the goal," says Anderson. "And the goal is also that they will work together on key policy issues, and that they will continue to work together ... to develop common policies."