By Sudarto Svarnabhumi. A number of Asian governments – among them Indonesia and Malaysia – are concerned their citizens who study abroad in the Middle East could become exposed to Islamic State doctrine, or, due to the proximity of Turkey to Islamic State strongholds in Syria, could be recruited from Turkey. Read more...

By David Jobbins. A powerful United Kingdom parliamentary committee has warned that Britain could lose high-level strategic influence over not only European but more widely international science policy in the event of a Brexit after the June referendum on continued membership. Read more...

By Karen MacGregor. Amnesty International has called for an urgent investigation into the killing – allegedly by intelligence agents – of a student during a peaceful march at the University of Kordofan in Sudan. Up to 27 students were wounded in an attack related to student elections. Read more...

By Munyaradzi Makoni. The African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education or CAMES – the body responsible for accreditation in Africa’s French-speaking countries – has signed a partnership agreement with UNESCO to promote higher education quality across the continent. Read more...

By Yojana Sharma. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang was touring major universities in China last week to promote the country’s strategy for science and innovation-fuelled economic growth under a new five-year plan announced last month that will triple funding for basic research by 2020. Read more...

By Yojana Sharma. A scholar of Chinese studies at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University whose writings are said to have inspired Hong Kong’s student-led 'localism' groups has said he is about to lose his university post. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley. Joseph Munyambanza’s fled North Kivu, in the war-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo or DRC, when he was six. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. This week in our World Blog, Hans de Wit wonders if our higher education leaders are really interested in true innovation, change and social responsibility if they are only focused on rankings.
In Commentary, Tom P Abeles warns that education globally is in transformation and the traditional university cluster as the centre of knowledge is changing. Sigal Alon suggests that reforming affirmative action in college admissions is not about choosing between the race and class models but about determining what aspects to target to achieve the broadest diversity dividends. Ararat L Osipian says if allegations are confirmed against the president of Russia’s flagship Far Eastern Federal University, who has been arrested on suspicion of financial fraud, this will be one of the largest corruption scandals in Russian higher education in the past few decades. And Alejandro Caballero says universities need to find ways to develop cross-cutting skills in students like problem-solving, teamwork and leadership which will withstand turbulences as automation and technology put workers at risk of being substituted by machines.
In our six-month series on ‘Transformative Leadership’ in which University World News is partnering with The MasterCard Foundation, Brendan O'Malley tells the story of how leadership training supported by scholarships helped one young refugee’s quest, with his friends, to challenge the despondency in his camp in Uganda by building an effective education programme and starting a host of anti-poverty projects.
In Features, Jan Petter Myklebust reports on a 20-year-old from the Netherlands studying at Stockholm University in Sweden who has become the youngest PhD holder in Scandinavia. Read more...