Global competency and the University

University means the Universal concept of things, thoughts, methods and scientific disciplines. In the Middle Ages University started to operate like a learning, cultural and even a political mechanism which supported the development of free curricula in order to allow the emergence of the Human capacity for radical social economical and cultural change.

The intellectual diversity that reflects the University system had established a new concept of production concerning ideas and techniques. The whole society needed the institution of University as a medium for inter-cultural discoveries.

The emergence of intergovernmental organisations, the development of a global urban era, the enhanced influence of market-oriented ideologies and the emergence of new private sector players contributed to the construction of a massive extention of academic curricula, research, teaching, cooperation and academic life.

Should we try to define global competency from an academic perspective related to Universities, we would divide this dynamic process into two sections: an internal dimension and an outward dimension.

a) Internal dimension: knowledge, skills, practices curricula and students b) Outward dimension: ability to transform the above elements into an

internationalisational level which is been defined as a multicultural world, where the ability to influence and even to lead is critical.

Global competency is defined by the appreciation of the existing diversion of the humans, the understanding that cultures can do things in different ways and the movement towards to extroversion. The extroversion of minds, practices and research methods.

Global competency is a dynamic extrovert process towards knowledge.The crucial elements of this procedure are connected with the categorisation of

the Universities’ structural schemas such as Individual Faculty Initiatives, Mobility Initiatives, Curricular Changes, Trasnational Engagements, Network Building and Campus Ethos.

Global competency is consisted of:1. Extroversion in Research2. Interaction between methods and ethos3. Willingness to adopt changes4. Communication in all levels5. Development of Initiatives for the Academic Community

Global competency refers to global understanding. This process is strongly connected to comprehensive internationalization of the Academia. We have a connection between these two processes. The latter has to do with the alignment and integration of international policies and initiatives towards a globalised concept of the University that reflects connection and networking in all levels.

Global Competency and Comprehensive Internationalisation are two different parties of the same project: the evolution of a radical perception of the University Institution. Social, economical, technical, organizational and cultural aspects of this can be found inside this connection.

This situation will change the University as we have seen it the last 500 years.