Over the last decade the University of Toronto has been "raising our sights." Aiming first of all to become a "significant" presence among universities internationally, it has more recently declared its intention of becoming one of the world's best public research universities. This "green paper" steps back from that ambition, to ask what it is that the world's best public research universities do. It begins with a brief (and therefore self-confessedly "potted") summary [1] of the traditions from which the University has created itself over the last 175 years, and goes on to describe some of the characteristics that appear to be shared by the world's best public research universities.

From its beginnings, the University of Toronto has drawn on diverse traditions of the university–public and private, liberal arts and professionally oriented. In its early days, it attempted to recruit, often with great difficulty, "brilliant men" trained in the Oxbridge tradition of a college-based liberal arts education as the best preparation for civic leadership. But where Oxford and Cambridge aimed to train a social elite for government and civic leadership, Canada like other colonies rapidly addressed the question of training a professional class. It also drew on those trained in the more scientific and research oriented traditions of Edinburgh and took as its mission the education of not only the colony's gentlemen, but increasingly, of all those qualified to enter. Moreover, some of its finest early professors had studied in Berlin, and as the University embraced graduate education, it also embraced an idea of the university important in 19th century German universities, particularly the University of Berlin: that scientific research was the mission of the university. [2]

In 1862 the Morrill Act, which established land grant institutions in the United States, also introduced an important new set of aspirations and an important new discourse of responsibility into the research university. Two of the goals of the land grant model for universities have been highly influential in shaping the Canadian public's expectations of all their universities over the last century: that the university would educate all qualified students who wished to attend and that the university's research would be "useful" and would contribute to national prosperity and the realization of national agendas. [3]

After World War II, these trends strongly converged into a complex mandate for research universities in all the industrialized nations, and nowhere more so than in North America. The realization during the War that scientific research drove the United States' military capacities led directly to the establishment in the United States of the National Science Foundation and national research labs. At the same time, the concept of federal support of research in national labs and in universities took hold in Canada. Since the end of the War there has been an almost continuous growth of undergraduate numbers; first the influx of returning veterans, followed by the baby boom, followed now by the echo boom and by increasing participation in university education from all sectors of society, but particularly from first and second generation immigrant children. Most recently added to this already large teaching and research mandate are the imperatives of the "knowledge economy"–imperatives that stress growth in and professionalization of graduate degrees, continuing higher education for those seeking a lifetime of learning while they work, and undergraduate learning outcomes that yield a workforce that functions as sophisticated and effective thinkers, that communicate clearly, accurately and persuasively, and that can work collaboratively in complex environments and on complex problems in multi-ethnic, multi-racial and international contexts.

As public research universities have drawn on different traditions, they have not so much altered their mandates, as added to them. And so our best public universities are asked to educate large numbers of undergraduates to be culturally and historically informed and reflective, and to possess the qualities of character and ethical reflection that will make them good citizens of their nation and the world. We are asked to deliver up to the nation graduates who have the disciplinary or professional training that will allow them to participate effectively in the workforce, and who can address problems and communicate effectively.

We are asked to do the basic research on which the "applied" research so often depends and to do it at a level that will raise the prestige of the university among its peers. We are asked to make research a major mandate and to "translate" at least some of that research into economic or social policy for the nation or into "products" that improve our quality of life in health care, education etc.

We are asked to establish strong professional education at the postgraduate level. And we are asked to teach, in large graduate programs, the next generations of researchers and educators for industry, government and the universities themselves.

We are asked to do it all.

It's a big and a growing mandate which the University of Toronto has, with varying emphases, embraced since its founding and in which it has consistently led Canadian universities. We've drawn on traditions of British, German and American Universities. We've increased accessibility for the local population. We've played a leadership role in research and development nationally. In the last decade, however, the University's institutionally stated ambitions have moved beyond its leadership role in Canada. It now aims to become one of the world's best public research universities.

This "green paper" pauses a moment before this ambition in order to ask about the characteristics of the world's best public research universities. What aspects of their mandates do they share? What are the constraints within which they do their work? What do their publics and their nations expect of them? To what extent does the University of Toronto at present share these mandates, constraints, expectations?

What follows is descriptive, rather than prescriptive. In the spirit of academic debate, we could discuss at length and no doubt with many disagreements the question of which are the world's best public universities. For the purposes of description we suggest that the best public universities will share a significant number of characteristics with a select group of universities in the United States that are consistently at the top of any set of rankings, [4] including the University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison; in Great Britain the University of London, the University of Edinburgh, and Oxford and Cambridge (which now rely significantly on state support); Tokyo University in Asia, and in the sciences ETH Zurich in Switzerland.

It will come as no surprise that the best public research universities share a significant number of characteristics with the best research universities, whether public or private. But the public universities also work within expectations and constraints that are particular to them.

1.  ACADEMIC FREEDOM

The best research universities, both public and private, fully support, in all parts of the institution, the principle of freedom of academic inquiry. This freedom allows faculty, students and staff, without fear of reprisal, to pursue questions and disseminate conclusions that may be contentious or controversial. It fosters open debate of all sides of an issue or question.

The University of Toronto includes in its Statement of Institutional Purpose a strong statement of the principle of academic freedom. In the face of controversy, its faculty, students, and administration are obligated by the Statement to support the right of members of the University community to voice controversial views.

2.  ACADEMIC RESPONSIBILITY

By virtue of the quality of scholars they hire, formal and informal peer review, and university policy, the best research universities tightly couple academic freedom to academic responsibility. In the classroom and in academic conversation and publication, academically responsible faculty present findings and theories based on informed scholarship that is methodologically and theoretically rigorous. They view themselves as members of a university community which collectively sets goals for its academic programs and they accept responsibility for helping to achieve those goals in their teaching and research and through their contributions to university governance at many levels in the institution.

3.  THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

The best research universities, public or private, offer outstanding undergraduate experiences to their students. They offer highly integrated and effective student services. They ensure a campus "climate" that welcomes diversity and difference and guarantees equal access to campus opportunities to all qualified students. They offer intellectually challenging and adventurous academic programs that enable students to achieve a set of commonly shared learning outcomes as well as expertise in a particular area of study. They don't only teach students about the subject matter of a discipline, they teach students how to do the discipline (to think like a philosopher, an economist, an engineer). They involve their students in real research. They are deeply committed to engaged, stimulating, and challenging undergraduate teaching. They offer students a personally and intellectually rewarding experience of the university "beyond the classroom" and they involve their students in the lives of their cities. They foster in their students a lifelong dedication to their alma mater.

4.  GRADUATE EDUCATION

The best research universities, public or private, educate in their graduate programs the next generation of researchers and leaders in the professions, the public sector, the cultural sector, industry, and business and the next generation of the professoriate. They offer graduate programs only where the number, quality, and research support of the faculty can guarantee a first-rate program and where the resources available to the students can guarantee a "critical mass" of admissions. They pro-actively recruit, financially support, and carefully supervise the most highly qualified students. Their standards are rigorous and their aim is to enable students to succeed in meeting those standards. They actively benchmark the quality of their programs and their students against peer institutions nationally and internationally. They place their emphasis on the Ph.D. rather than the Master's degree (many offer direct entry from the Bachelor's degree to the Ph.D.; U of T now offers direct-entry into 37 doctoral programs), and they increasingly offer selective professional Master's degrees. Their graduate students are an integral and important part of undergraduate teaching and are taught how to be effective teachers.

5.  STUDENT DIVERSITY

The best research universities, public or private, recognize that the education of all students is enhanced when it is undertaken in the midst of a diverse student, faculty and staff body. They take pro-active steps to recruit a diverse group students. They strive for an ethnic, racial, socioeconomic and gender balance which reflects their communities and their nation.

Typically, they develop a range of recruitment initiatives to create an ethnically diverse student body. The nature of these initiatives is dictated by the legal and cultural frameworks in which they take place. One finds little by way of diversity initiatives, for example, at the University of Tokyo, while, under the Bakke ruling in the United States, such initiatives may extend to a consideration of "merit" that goes well beyond grade point averages and that can include diversity itself as a "merit" in admission. Some universities explicitly state that they admit to achieve a balance of many kinds among their students, and not only to create a class of high achievers. Their admission policies are premised on the fact that students learn from other students as well as from faculty, that one does not need to come to university to be with people like oneself, and that a class rich in many kinds of diversity will be class in which students have a richer educational experience.

Such universities understand diversity as not only an educational benefit, but as a social good. They recognize that society as a whole is the stronger when all those qualified are educated to achieve their full potential. They heed recent research that demonstrates that members of historically disadvantaged groups participate more in civic life than do their more advantaged peers [5] and that this is a social benefit.

6.  ACCESSIBILITY

In societies such as those in Canada and the United States, a proportion of those who qualify for admission to university are at a socioeconomic disadvantage. This means that high levels of financial aid prove critical in many jurisdictions to enabling a socioeconomically diverse student body to attend university. In the best universities, such programs aim not only to increase representation, but also to ensure retention, graduate and career success of diverse students.

The best public research universities offer a standard of undergraduate education equal to that offered by the best private research universities, and they offer it on a publicly subsidized basis to students from their "local" populations–defined nationally or sub-nationally depending on the level of government finance. This is reflected in the low or non-existent levels of tuition for domestic students at public research universities in Europe, in differential tuition between in-state and out-of-state students in the United States (and in Quebec) and between international students and citizens at most Canadian and U.S. universities. While the best private universities provide full support for the most economically deprived students they admit, public subsidy makes research universities more accessible to a broad band of middle class students from their local regions. In the case of second entry professional programs, and doctoral programs, both public and private research universities tend to offer less subsidy to professional program students, and to subsidize doctoral study to a high level.

In the best universities, however, "access" is not only a question of admitting economically disadvantaged middle class students to programs of study. It is also a question of the opportunities that become available to the holder of the university's degree. Graduates of the best universities have access to exceptional opportunities in part because of the value of their degree. Some of these universities design at least some of their programs to improve upon these opportunities through civic participation, internships, work co-operative and other. Their alumni look to their alma mater for student interns and employees.

7.  RECRUITING TENURE-TRACK FACULTY

Research universities, public or private, that are international leaders in a field pro-actively recruit faculty who maintain an active research career that yields results recognized by peers as important, and who are deeply committed to effective undergraduate and graduate teaching that brings their research into the classroom. In the best research universities, faculty, students, administrators and governors understand that undergraduate and graduate teaching is the stronger for having a significant portion of such teaching undertaken by top researchers. They understand that not only do such researchers bring a highly current understanding of their discipline into the classroom, but that they also effectively model for students the process of discovery in the field. Studying with a faculty member who is shaping a discipline as he or she speaks, a student learns not only the most current thinking about the field, but lives with the teacher the process of thinking as a philosopher, an economist, a medical scientist, etc.

8.  TENURE REVIEW

Those among the best research universities, public and private, that tenure faculty conduct highly rigorous tenure reviews. In most such universities, the time to tenure is seven years or longer, assessments of candidates' research are sought from the best scholars in peer or better departments, and tenure review is an iterative, layered process, in which the applicant's suitability for tenure is considered by committees at two or more levels within the university.

The best public research universities also have various forms of post-tenure performance review. In North America, this generally takes the form of a highly competitive and significant "merit" component to faculty salary increases and discreet "buy-outs" or inducements to early retirement for markedly underperforming faculty members. Most importantly, the best research universities establish early in a faculty member's career an expectation of high quality teaching and research.

Increasingly, governments are calling on universities to abolish tenure or to conduct more formal "post-tenure" performance reviews. British faculty members are appointed with renewable contracts rather than with tenure. In the United States, many state governments have required formal post-tenure review processes. These have been met with resistance and skepticism among some faculty; others report having found them helpful. [6] The American public research universities we have defined as our peers for the purpose of this "green" paper have largely resisted this form of post-tenure review. Instead, they have rigorous, layered tenure review and they have introduced "best practices" for mentoring young faculty, through to promotion to full professor. Such "best practices" serve to set clear expectations for performance, provide advice and encouragement, and direct faculty to resources which will enable them to improve their work.

9.  THE ROLE OF NON-TENURED TEACHING FACULTY

While faculty in the best public research universities teach undergraduate as well as graduate students, and while research and teaching are held to be interlinked activities in such universities, enrolment growth, economic constraints, and evolving pedagogical models involving teams of tenure-stream research faculty and teaching faculty, have led to increasing reliance on lecturers or teaching stream faculty in these universities. At the same time, medical and related health profession schools are relying increasingly on clinical and adjunct faculty to teach their undergraduate and professional master's degrees. And in some professional schools in some jurisdictions, the notion of a "professor of practice" is emerging. Whatever the category of appointment of these non-tenured teaching faculty, public universities are slowly beginning to come to terms with the need to integrate these colleagues fully into our scholarly communities. Everywhere, much remains to be done to create a truly welcoming environment for them, to enable them to maintain a current knowledge of their field so that they teach to the standards of the research university, to recognize the often considerable contributions they make to course design and to research on pedagogy, and to create rewarding careers for them within the academy. This is also the case at the University of Toronto.

10.  STAFF

The best research universities, public or private, recruit and train high calibre administrative, technical, and service staff members who provide timely, high quality services in a cost-efficient manner. These universities recognize that these staff members add significant value to the research, teaching, and administration of the university and to the quality of campus life. They support and encourage staff members' work by providing the proper resources and tools, meaningful performance evaluation, and training opportunities that qualify staff members to assume positions of greater responsibility and remuneration within the university during the course of their careers.

11.  FACULTY AND STAFF DIVERSITY

The best public research universities also pro-actively recruit faculty and staff from designated groups to areas of the university's endeavours in which they are under-represented. In some U.S. universities, financial instruments are used to make such recruitment attractive or possible for departments (e.g. variations of "Target of Opportunity" funding). Within the Canadian context, and in some disciplines, such instruments are not always well received and we have tended to rely–with variable success–on exhortation, good will, and the determined interventions of a highly committed few. At the University of Toronto, 25% of our staff are from groups designated as "visible minority"; this is a higher ratio than in the labour force as a whole. Only about 10% of our faculty come from "visible minority" groups although recent hiring has seen between 20% and 30% of positions in any given year filled by "visible minority" candidates.

The best public universities, at least in North America, constantly benchmark and otherwise monitor their recruitment in relation to "visible minorities" and women among faculty and staff. They continually raise their aspirations for success with regard to such recruitment. They back up exhortation with specific pro-active strategies for recruiting under-represented groups to campus.

12.  COMPREHENSIVE STRENGTH IN BASIC DISCIPLINES

The best research universities, public and private, by virtue of size and scholarly strength, have a nearly comprehensive set of top-ranked departments in the core disciplines in liberal arts and sciences. In most of these universities, a high proportion of the Departments of Classical Studies, English Literature, History, Philosophy, the Departments of Economics, Political Science, and Psychology, and the Departments of Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics and Physics will be among those that, nationally and internationally, have top reputations.

13.  STRENGTH IN PROFESSIONAL PROGRAMS

The best public research universities, and some private research universities, maintain exceptional scholarly and teaching strength in selected professional programs. This strength tends to be of greater breadth and consistency in the public universities. While only some of the top private schools, for example, have medical or engineering schools, the top public research universities have a first-rate medical school linked with a network of excellent teaching hospitals. They generally have one or more other health professional schools. Many have a first-rate engineering school; indeed, engineering is markedly stronger in public than in private research universities. In most the law school is distinguished. Almost all have top business schools. [7]

The University of Toronto has over the last several years come close to this profile in most areas. It has one of the finest health sciences complexes in the world. Its law school has improved rapidly over recent years and is now one of the best in North America. The Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering has seen very significant hiring, both from faculty turnover and from ATOP funding. It is now the best in Canada and is approaching the calibre of engineering in the best public university faculties in North America. The Rotman School of Management has made rapid and important improvements over the last five years, and is now well within reach of the top in reputational rankings.

A less clear question for public research universities until recently has been the role of Faculties of Education. Divided between a pre-service teacher education program and a strong research mandate, Faculties of Education have often failed to achieve one or the other, or sometimes either, mandate well. Several public universities over the last decade–the University of Michigan and the University of California at Berkeley chief among them–have significantly improved the quality of their Schools of Education by a combination of down-sizing with a renewed emphasis on research and the creation of teacher-leaders. Others have revitalized their Faculties of Education by establishing strong linkages with disciplinary units in arts and science. An argument can be made that a public research university has, as part of its public educational trust, the responsibility to conduct leading research and teaching in the field of education itself. The merger of OISE/UT is the beginning of the realization of that argument at the University of Toronto.

14.  INTERDISCIPLINARY TEACHING AND RESEARCH

The best research universities, public and private, build on disciplinary strength to create and support a rich environment for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning and research for both students and faculty. They actively seek to remove barriers to interdisciplinary teaching both within and across faculties and to introduce incentives for it. They recognize that the rich and various expertise scholars from different disciplines can bring to a question offers exceptional promise for addressing many of the most intractable and complex issues in science and policy. They maintain disciplinary breadth, and they plan appointments, including "cross-appointments" to two or more departments or faculties, in order to ensure this range of expertise. In the best research universities, interdisciplinary approaches permeate the institution and are fostered by energetic and thoughtful leadership at the program and department level as well as at the faculty level and in the senior administration.

15.  INTERNATIONAL AND INTERCULTURAL CONNECTIONS AND COMPETENCE

In the best research universities, both public and private, faculty are, by virtue of the importance and merit of their work, connected with an international network of scholars, some of whom they may collaborate with in small or large teams. Such universities also articulate the inter-connectedness of the "globalized" world across their undergraduate and graduate curricula at many levels and in many ways. They include international and multinational perspectives in a great many courses of study, and they develop selected and selective research and teaching programs that address topics of international import or that study other areas of the world. They enable their students to have a range of meaningful international experiences as part of their program of study and they actively recruit international students and draw on the cultural knowledge of their students. The development of intercultural competence becomes a learning outcome to be achieved by all their graduates.

16.  SELECTIVITY

The best research universities, public and private, invest in academic and research programs when most (and ideally all) of the following criteria are met:

• The area is demonstrably of major significance in terms of scholarship and/or public need.
• There is visionary and committed leadership for the program and a core group of strong and effective "champions" who are prepared to work hard to realize major resources and intellectual achievements for the program.
• There are significant numbers of students who are excited by the program and wishing to engage in it.
• Procedures for rigorous review and benchmarking are in place, are followed, and have consequences for the program.
• A realistic business plan accurately identifying program expenditure needs and sources of revenue is in place.

The best universities also allow for risk-taking and occasional failure in order to support very promising new research and pedagogical developments. And the best universities disengage from academic and research programs when these are no longer vital or no longer central to the field or the university's goals. They also make hard choices between what must be done to fulfill their public mandate or to discharge their social responsibilities and what must be done to maintain leadership in highly competitive scholarly spheres. On the whole, private universities are more apt to disengage from an endeavour than are public universities. The University of Toronto has tended not to disengage from activities even when they have lost vitality.

17.  PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY

The best public research universities have a regional and a national mandate and accountability. Because they are publicly subsidized, they are expected, through their academic programs and research, to assist in addressing the most pressing cultural, social, economic, and policy issues of their immediate region and of the nation. Whether public or private, they are an important cultural, social and economic presence in their city, region and country and are a major driver of the prosperity and quality of life in the region. Their faculty, staff and students create vital areas of collaborative activity and important synergies with other players in their cities, provinces, and country and with institutions elsewhere. Some U.S. jurisdictions suggest that public research universities best fulfill their mandate when governments recognize and fund that mandate differently than they do other kinds of higher-education institutions.

A very large part of a public university's accountability is to its students and to the society which its graduates enter as citizens and members of the workforce.

18.  GOVERNANCE

Governance of public research universities includes representation from a broad range of constituencies. This can lead to volatility in governance as a consequence of the competing agendas of different stake-holders. Public universities are generally held to a higher level of accountability and they are certainly held to a higher level of public transparency than are most private universities. Accountability to public-sector funders in most countries means accountability to elected politicians; the resulting emphasis on short-term "value for money" co-exists in tension with the long-term perspective of the university's mission. The best public research universities are those in which government and other funders understand the value of the research university, its contributions to undergraduate and graduate education, and the long-term benefits that accrue from supporting research universities.

19.  ACADEMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

The best research universities maintain the up-to-date infrastructure that enables faculty, staff and students to do first-rate work. They recognize the importance of a high level of support for their libraries and laboratories, and for information technology. They provide residences, classrooms, and offices that are modest, but technologically "smart" and efficient. And they provide a range of campus facilities and study spaces for students, including spaces allowing for high degrees of interactivity.

The best research universities, public and private, have a diversified resource base and allocate their revenues according to institutional priorities and the results of benchmarking. Their diversified resource base is a direct result of the quality of the work they do in the first instance. It is also a direct result of the broad range of meaningful relationships they establish with government, business, alumni and their communities, and of the extent to which they establish "brand" recognition. Their alumni are connected and engaged with the University's vision and aspirations and recognize that the University cannot realize its goals without exceptional support from them.

20.  GENERATING RESOURCES

The best research universities tell the world what they do and what their priorities are in order to realize resources. They market themselves in ways that address particular constituencies. They recruit the best students through telling descriptions of their programs; they recruit the best faculty by the level and importance of the activity they are known to be conducting by the larger intellectual community. They attract funding by informing citizens, donors and governments what they do and why it is important and by engendering pride in the university.

21.  BUZZ

The best universities expect their faculty to become international leaders in scholarship and teaching, and faculty expect this of each other and of themselves. In the best research universities, that expectation, joined to nearly all the characteristics listed above creates the intellectual vitality–the "hum" or "buzz"–that tells those on campus and the rest of the world that their university is an exciting and important place to be.

[1] For much more extended treatments of the history of the University, see A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario 1791-1951 (Toronto: UTP, 1994) and Martin L. Friedland, The University of Toronto: A History (Toronto: UTP, 2002).

[2] This "Berlin model" for the research university powerfully influenced Johns Hopkins University, which in turn became an important influence on the direction of the University of Toronto. See Friedland for a history of the ideas shaping the development of the University.

[3] Because of the high degree of identification between the land grant model and public universities in the United States and many parts of Canada, and because Canada did not develop a vigorous system of private universities with a somewhat different mission as did the United States, these goals have become particularly dominant in the Canadian higher education system.

[4] E.g., in the United States: NSF rankings of the best research doctoral programs, the rankings of John V. Lombardi, Diane D. Craig, Elizabeth D. Capaldi, Denise S. Gater, Sarah L. Medonça, The Top American Research Universities (Miami: The Center, The University of Florida), 2001; classification grounded on "faculty research achievement" in Chapter 6 of Hugh Davis Graham and Nancy Diamond, The Rise of American Research Universities: The Elites and the Challengers (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1997) and the annual, and more controversial, U.S. News & World Report rankings. In Britain: the rankings that are the result of government research assessment exercises.

[5] See Chapter 6 of William C. Bower and Derek Bok, The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998).

[6] See Gabriela Monell, "The Fallout From Post-Tenure Review", The Chronicle of Higher Education (October 17, 2002).

[7] Business schools pose an interesting "chicken or egg" problem with regard to scholarly reputation. Do top universities so consistently have strong business schools because these make especially noteworthy contributions to the scholarly and teaching life of the campus? Or do strong business schools that generate grateful donors with capacity help create strong universities by pulling in extramural resources? Either way, the correlation between a strong business school and a strong research university is there.