Breaking News
AUSTRALIA
Shadi Khan Saif
Alarmed by the impact the Trump administration’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, agenda is having on research collaborations across the Pacific, Australia’s leading universities and the Australian Academy of Science are pressing for greater collaboration with Europe and seeking deeper bilateral ties in Asia.
|
|
|
|
INDIA
Shuriah Niazi and Yojana Sharma
|
SOUTH AFRICA-UNITED STATES
Mia Malan
|
NORWAY
Jan Petter Myklebust
|
SWEDEN-NORDIC COUNTRIES
Jan Petter Myklebust
|
GLOBAL
Nathan M Greenfield
|
CHINA-SOUTH AFRICA
Desmond Thompson
|
CHINA-UNITED STATES
Denis Simon
|
Top Stories
AUSTRALIA
|
Research partners asked to confirm no DEI element
Brendan Walker-Munro
The Trump administration’s requirement that Australian researchers who collaborate with United States federal agencies must declare any links to China and comply with the government’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion, America First agenda suggests that diversifying Australia’s research partners is now a national priority.
|
|
|
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
|
INDIA-GLOBAL
Shuriah Niazi
|
UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
|
News
GLOBAL
UWN Reporter
The latest QS subject rankings show that the countries that have traditionally led international university rankings continue to dominate the top places but are beginning to be challenged by developing higher education markets, notably by those in Asia and the Middle East.
|
|
|
|
SWEDEN
Jan Petter Myklebust
|
CAMEROON
Elias Ngalame
The National Union of Researchers in Cameroon has urged the government to introduce measures to safeguard academic field workers following the murders of two researchers and their guide by villagers in the Far North of the country, who allegedly believed the group were Boko Haram members.
|
PAKISTAN
Ameen Amjad Khan
Universities in Pakistan’s volatile Balochistan province have reportedly been ordered to close on-campus academic activities and shift to online classes for an indefinite period of time due to the worsening security situation amid armed attacks on security forces by Baloch separatist groups.
|
IRELAND
John Walshe
Applications for universities and other higher education institutions in Ireland have surged this year by 8.5% to a record 83,424, driven largely by rising numbers of secondary school leavers and a 15% increase in applications from students over the age of 23.
|
Lifelong Learning Webinar
GLOBAL
Three internationally respected experts are speaking at the University World News-ABET free webinar on “Lifelong learning for the new world” on 25 March – Jonathan Michie OBE of the University of Oxford, Maria Slowey of Dublin City University, and Hanne Smidt of the European University Association.
|
|
|
Widening Access in HE
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
The Lumina Foundation, a non-governmental organisation with a solid track record, has committed to working towards increasing to 75% the proportion of adults in the United States labour force with a higher education. Its vice-president says giving people the education they need and want is a moral imperative.
|
|
|
UNITED KINGDOM
Dorothy Lepkowska
|
SOUTH AFRICA
Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis
|
FRANCE-GLOBAL
Ioana Galleron and Ivan Botte
|
World Blog
GLOBAL
Ylva Rodny-Gumede
Higher education is going through a soul-searching exercise. This is happening as its role and value are being questioned and calls are heard for higher education to find a new role for itself and better articulate its place as a public good.
|
|
|
Features
SOUTH AFRICA
Desmond Thompson
The Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, or STIAS, Africa’s only independent institute for advanced study and the sole one of its kind in the southern hemisphere, is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It has hosted about 900 fellows since its inception, including several Nobel laureates.
|
|
|
SDGs
GLOBAL
Eve Ruwoko
University leaders this month called for more gender-responsive policies in higher education institutions amid an urgent need to strengthen the role of women researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields and, most importantly, in achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
|
|
|
INDIA
Shuriah Niazi
An initiative offering emotional support and counselling has been introduced in Kota in India as an attempt to curb the high suicide rate among the thousands of students who flock to the city’s coaching schools annually to prepare for admission exams into engineering and medical programmes.
|
MAURITIUS
Sweta Rout-Hoolash, Vimi Lockmun-Bissessur, Shaheen Motala-Timol and Petra Pistor
The first National Multiplication Training in Mauritius is a testament that higher education institutions can support the work of national regulators and actively champion national agendas and reforms through capacity building, peer learning and collaborative exchanges. A North-South, private-public partnership helped to achieve these outcomes.
|
Top Stories from Last Week
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
United States President Donald Trump’s executive order to exclude former students who are now non-profit workers from the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programme has alarmed higher education bodies. Critics say it sows fear and confusion for students and is fundamentally about shutting down work of which the administration disapproves.
|
|
|
UNITED STATES
Louise Nicol
|
INDONESIA
Kafil Yamin
|
CHINA
Amber Wang
|
AFRICA
Wagdy Sawahel
Despite the overall rise in the number of indexed journals over two decades, 2003-23, Africa’s representation in the Scopus database remains disproportionately low, suggesting that the current global scholarly publishing system continues to marginalise African research output, even as other developing regions gain greater representation.
|
MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICA
Wagdy Sawahel
Social science research has a real impact on the reduction of poverty and inequality, two key Sustainable Development Goals – a correlation that underscores the need to bolster research capabilities to generate research-driven, tailored solutions targeting challenges in the Middle East and North Africa.
|
TAIWAN-CHINA
Yojana Sharma
Concerned that its neighbour China is stepping up its knowledge transfer and influence activities abroad amid emerging reports of increased collaboration between China’s military-linked universities and Russian institutions, the Taiwanese government is taking action to close China’s influence and research security loopholes.
|
GEORGIA
Giorgi Meladze and Nana Shamatava
Georgia’s universities stand at a crossroads. If the government succeeds in suppressing the current wave of student-led protests, control over universities will tighten further, but if the movement prevails and the government is ousted, meaningful reform becomes a possibility – though not a certainty.
|
|
|
Source link
