By Bekir S Gur. Many have criticised the pernicious effects of global university rankings. Nonetheless, the same rankings are perhaps the most powerful tool influencing national higher education policies around the world. Read more...

By Brendan O'Malley. The Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre, ADAPT, the global centre of excellence for digital content and media innovation, was launched on Wednesday by Minister for Skills, Research and Innovation, Damien English, with the aim of developing the next generation of digital content technologies. Read more...

By David Jobbins. The United Kingdom has emerged as the country with the most-internationally focused universities in the world – with Australia a distant second and the United States hardly featured. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. A top foreign student has been deported from the country for working too many hours in a part-time cleaning job – despite strong protests from Aarhus University, Danish working unions, the media and 18,000 signatories on a petition delivered to the Integration Minister Inger Støjberg. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. Minister of Education and Research Torbjørn Røe Isaksen has promised to make improvements to the quality of teaching at universities a cornerstone of the government’s education programme and will present a White Paper in 2017. Read more...

By Eugene Vorotnikov. The Russian parliament is to draw up proposals to impose restrictions on the employment of graduates of national universities abroad, with the aim of preventing further brain drain out of the country. Read more...

By Damtew Teferra. In a recently published article “African Flagship Universities: Their neglected contributions” – an outcome of a two-year study of a dozen flagship universities in Africa – I attempted to formulate an enrolment typology and also ventured into estimating the number of graduates these institutions have produced since their founding. Read more...

By Ahmed Mohamoud Elmi. Somaliland’s Minister of Education and Higher Studies Abdillahi Ibrahim Habane was among 75 students who graduated last month with a masters degree in international relations and diplomacy from the University of Hargeisa, the country’s largest higher education institution. He extolled the virtues of lifelong learning. Read more...

By Gilbert Nganga. Private universities in Kenya are pushing to be allowed to admit state-funded students, in a bid to help ease an admissions crisis in public institutions. Currently – and despite a government directive – private institutions can only admit self-sponsored students. Read more...

By Munyaradzi Makoni. Namibian higher education funding will be based on a new formula from the 2016-17 academic year. The country now calculates operational funds based on the number of courses, which translate into credit units, for which a student is registered. This does not mean more money for institutions – it’s all about bringing transparency and equity to funding, said a top official. Read more...