By Diana Beech. Research in Europe is increasingly targeted towards fostering excellence. At the heart of this policy drive is the concept of researcher mobility, which requires researchers to work not just across borders but also across disciplines and sectors. By Cristina González. A few months ago I was in Chile, where I was invited to lecture on issues in higher education. The moment I arrived, I was struck by how important the subject is in Chile, where it has a pervasive presence in everyday life. By William Patrick Leonard. Academic critics and media commentators have suggested that the United States' tertiary education community's decades of unprecedented growth is a bubble that has or will shortly burst. The US public tertiary education community is widely said to be in crisis. By Yojana Sharma. Universities from a number of countries have set up branch campuses in China, hoping to tap into the country’s desire for a Western education and a large pool of middle-class students. But China wants new types of university partnerships that tie in closely with its aspiration to drive up research and innovation. By Shafigeh Shirazi. Iran’s parliament, or Majlis, has finally approved the country’s new ministers for education and higher education, after previous nominees for the posts failed to win a parliamentary vote of confidence in August. They will continue reforms, said President Hassan Rouhani. By Peta Lee. Education ministers from the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – countries met in Paris last Tuesday and agreed to establish a mechanism at the “highest political and technical level” to coordinate and implement collaboration, especially in higher education. South Africa’s Dr Blade Nzimande, minister of higher education and training, hosted this first meeting of the BRICS education ministers, which was aimed at establishing cooperation and sharing experiences. They met on 5 November on the margins of the 37th session of the UNESCO general conference. Read more...By Bianka Siwinska. The directors of higher education research centres from around the world flew to Shanghai for their first ever global meeting last weekend and, encouragingly, policy-makers also attended. The aims were to discuss the future of research on higher education, to debate common issues – and to create a global network of higher education research experts. The “International Higher Education Research and Policy Roundtable” was organised by the Center for International Higher Education, or CIHE, at Boston College in the United States, and held from 2-3 November. Read more...By Alan Osborn. Is European higher education generally delivering the right kind of qualifications for citizens gearing up to tackle the challenges and opportunities of today’s world, or is it missing targets along the line? This is not a new question, but it has been given a fresh twist in the Education and Training Monitor 2013 just released by the European Commission. The report, which draws on statistics from European Union (EU) member countries and recent analyses and policy developments, finds numerous weaknesses and gaps in the higher education sector in Europe – although little that is not already widely known. Read more...
