Centres of Excellence and Relevance: The Contextualisation of Global Models

This article analyses how the global model of centres of excellence and relevance (CERs) is adopted and adapted in three countries, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Netherlands. Each of these three countries have to some extent embraced the discourse of the knowledge society and knowledge economy in their higher education and science policies, and have-in their own ways-promoted the development of strategic research and the establishment of centres of excellence and relevance. It is the objective of this article to explore how these global models become embedded in the national institutional context, and factors that explain the different paths in which the three centres of excellence and relevance have evolved.