By Jo Boyden. There are more young people in the world than ever before. While some see the planet’s 3.1 billion under 25-year-olds as a threat, others see the true potential of this demographic dividend. On International Youth Day on August 12, it’s clear that radical action is needed to help disadvantaged young people around the world fulfil their hopes. More...

By Timothy Devinney. The last few months have clearly been trying on the nerves and confidence of many academics working in Britain. The vote for Brexit has reverberated through the ivory towers and off the red-brick walls of British universities. In the middle of this unease then came a set of new recommendations by Lord Nicholas Stern proposing changes to the way the quality of research is assessed in the UK. More...

By Ash Amin and John Bell. The best ideas do not respect national boundaries. Great research and scholarship has always relied on cross-border interactions. Rivalries, such as that between Newton and Leibnitz over the invention of calculus, and collaborations, such as those at the CERN project in Switzerland involve people from different nations working on common problems. More...

By Daphne Martschenko. Researchers at King’s College London say they are able to predict educational achievement from DNA alone. Using a new type of analysis called a “genome-wide polygenic score”, or GPS, they analysed DNA samples from 3,497 people in the ongoing Twins Early Development Study. They found that people whose DNA had the highest GPS score performed substantially better at school. More...

By Richard Watermeyer. All researchers at a university should be considered when the quality of an institution’s research is assessed, according to a new independent review of the process by Lord Nicholas Stern, president of the British Academy. More...

By Moritz Pieper. As news of the attempted military coup in Turkey unfolded, I was in Pennsylvania. Travelling in the US, I had coincidentally found myself in the home state of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has singled out as the mastermind of the uprising. More...

By Kerry Barker. At every glass, steel or thatch-clad turn of a British university campus, the building boom becomes apparent. The recent removal of controls on the number of students each university in England can admit has resulted in a mad scramble for students from both home and abroad as universities struggle to maintain their market share. More...

By Morgen Witzel. What do the prime ministers of Singapore, Malaysia and Finland have in common with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón and King Abdullah II of Jordan. More...

By Aldwyn Cooper. Welcoming international students used to be one of the key ways that Britain developed long-term, soft power relationships to aid trade and wield political influence. One in ten current global leaders were educated in the UK. More...

By Andrea Salvatori. Several developed countries including the US, UK and Germany have seen their labour markets polarised in recent decades as the number of middle-skilled jobs has declined relative to that of low and high-skilled ones. More...