By Phil Baty. We welcome scrutiny of all university rankings and can agree with some of the opinions put forward by Bahram Bekhradnia for discussion in the recent Higher Education Policy Institute or HEPI report, International University Rankings: For good or ill?. Read more...

By Ben Sowter. University rankings are not perfect. Indeed, for years I have found myself persistently drawing on a quote from United States statistician George Box: “Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.” Read more...

By Bahram Bekhradnia. The problems with international university rankings essentially concern data – in particular the lack of it. National rankings don’t raise the same issues. There are no data available on the basis of which to reach any conclusions about comparative quality other than about research: pretty well all the data used in the QS, Times Higher Education or THE, and Academic Ranking of World Universities or ARWU world rankings are research-related. Read more...

By Philip G Altbach and Ellen Hazelkorn. We have one simple argument: universities around the world, many more than will ever publicly admit it, are currently obsessed with gaining status in one or more national or global ranking of universities. They should quit now. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. There is a huge mismatch between student aspirations to study abroad and the number of students actually doing so, according to a new survey. Read more...

By Suvendrini Kakuchi. Academics in Japan are bitterly divided over defence ministry grants to universities for defence-related research, with such funding receiving a dramatic boost this year amid declining general research budgets for universities over the past decade. Read more...

By Elvira Ramirez-Cohn. The first budget under the administration of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, signed into law on 22 December, includes allocations to scrap tuition fees in all state universities and colleges from the 2017 academic year, as part of a significant increase in the country’s education budget. Read more...

By Fred M Hayward. The struggle for gender equity and equal access to higher education for women in Afghanistan has been a difficult one, complicated by war and hindered by conservative traditions, weak support and the banning of women in all levels of education by the Taliban from 1996 to the end of 2001 when the movement was defeated. Read more...

By Robert Tijssen and Erika Kraemer-Mbula. Centres of excellence and related initiatives have become a high-profile feature of the African science landscape during the last decade, where the eye-catching ‘excellence’ tag usually reflects either worthy aspirations or challenging levels of ambition. We believe that African science can and should take the concept of excellence more literally, moving from aspirational to ‘outstanding performance’ or ‘highest quality’. Read more...

By Jens Jungblut. Student movements such as #FeesMustFall in South Africa must demand both free higher education and matching increases in public spending, or risk incentivising governments to take the easy way out and compromise higher education quality. Read more...