After serving 14 years as president of the Republic of Ireland, one could be excused for wishing to take a step back from public life. However, just a year after stepping down as head of state, Mary McAleese has returned to public service as the chair of a new European Commission inquiry into higher education. Over the next three years, McAleese, who has been a law professor, journalist as well as Ireland’s president, will, as part of the High Level Group on the Modernisation of Higher Education, examine three areas of the academy.

First, the group will explore how to improve university teaching. Next it will study digital learning, and in the third year it is likely to look at lifelong learning, creativity in universities and student entrepreneurialism. McAleese will convene forums in Brussels and in Rome, where she is now based, to hear evidence of good practices in universities that could be adopted in higher education institutions across Europe.

Having served as pro vice chancellor with responsibility for teaching and quality assurance at Queen’s University Belfast, McAleese will understand exactly how difficult it is to tell academics to change their teaching methods — let alone entire universities or national higher education systems.

Nonetheless, she believes that her inquiry role, which is unpaid, can make a difference by championing the innovative and exciting teaching methods found across the European Union’s 27 member states. “It is not about scolding each other or saying, ‘You aren’t doing things right’,” says McAleese. “Neither is it about producing a prescriptive set of ordinances or commands… What we hope is to present a story about the importance of good teaching practices that is so compelling that universities will not be able to ignore it.”

McAleese is also keen to see how the EU’s own education spending — which could be about £1.8 billion (Rs.15,840 crore) a year from 2014 depending on the outcome of budget talks under way now — could encourage teaching innovation. “We will be looking at where money is currently spent and how it could be used to incentivise good teaching,” she says.

(Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)