The fraudulent essay industry must be outlawed, leading academics and lords have urged as figures reveal that more than 20,000 students are buying professionally written essays every year, writes Harry Yorke for The Telegraph. Read more...

In the battle of ideas, Sweden climbed to second place, Finland cracked into the top five, but South Korea dominated the 2017 Bloomberg Innovation Index, which scores economies using factors including research and development spending and the concentration of high-tech public companies, write Michelle Jamrisko and Wei Lu for Bloomberg. Read more...

Ain Shams University administrators and others will no longer ask students about their religious affiliations on academic forms, a move that follows last year’s policy change by cross-town rival Cairo University, writes Jacob Wirtschafter for Al-Fanar Media. Read more...

In a first for Germany, a privately funded institute joins forces with a state-owned university. The move promises innovation but also opens fault lines between private and public interests, writes Stefani Hergert for Handelsblatt Global. Read more...

By Munyaradzi Makoni. There is an urgent need for decolonised intellectual property, or IP, law curricula in order for African states to build IP expertise that is Afrocentric and development oriented. A South African university is making progress in developing an appropriate model. Read more...

By Donald A Barclay. Imagine, for a moment, the technology of 2017 had existed on 11 January, 1964 – the day Luther Terry, surgeon general of the United States, released Smoking and Health: Report of the advisory committee to the surgeon general of the United States. Read more...

As part of its Transformative Leadership series published in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation, University World News is joining DrEducation to host a free international webinar on 8 February 2017 at 9am New York time, 2pm London time and 4pm Johannesburg time. Read more...

By Grace Karram Stephenson. Despite our best intentions every university president (or chancellor) eventually leaves the job. Most presidents are more than happy to retire into the sunset after a decade of fundraising, strategic visioning and crisis management. Others return to their research or are recruited elsewhere to lead another organisation. Read more...

By Lisa Anderson. American universities in the Arab world have long enjoyed a good-humoured debate about whether they are in or of the city in which they are located. The American University in Cairo is in the minority; most – the American Universities of Beirut, Sharjah, Kuwait and Iraq, for example – are of their place. Read more...

By Anand Kulkarni. A new day, a new acronym it seems. First we have had the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – countries, then the MINT – Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey – nations, CIVETS – Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa – and now most recently the TACTICS – Thailand, Argentina, Chile, Turkey, Iran, Colombia and Serbia – nations. Read more...