What is the answer to the crisis of over-publication of scientific papers?

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit say the explosion in scientific publication, which is overwhelming the peer review system, should be addressed by encouraging research and publication only at universities that are designated as research-intensive. Nadine Burquel and Anja Busch say digital initiatives are mostly at an early stage of development in higher education, often due to budget constraints, but universities must and will adapt their teaching and learning to the digital age. Tatiana Belousova highlights India’s recent initiatives to make the country a more attractive study destination for international students but also some of the factors that will deter them from coming. And Anna Coussens, Abidemi James Akindele, Badre Abdeslam, Fridah Kanana and Mona Khoury-Kassabri outline a new project that aims to identify the barriers young scientists in Africa face and to develop strategies to address these in order to keep them in academia for the long term.
   In our World Blog this week, Patrick Blessinger, Enakshi Sengupta and Mandla Makhanya contend that higher education institutions have a critical role to play in driving sustainable development, which deals not only with environmental issues but also economic, social and cultural issues.
   In our section on Academic Freedom, Brendan O’Malley asks if a threat of sanctions by the EU could raise the pressure on Hungary to restore full academic freedom in its higher education sector.
   In Features, Stephen Coan writes about a new book by South African professor Willem Fourie, who calls for closer links between research producers and policy-makers for the successful implementation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. María Elena Hurtado, prompted by the high visibility of global university rankings in Latin America, asks experts why Latin American universities lagged in world rankings and what should be done about it. And Claire Hansen reports from the United States on an investigation into whether an executive-level diversity position can really help to diversify a university’s faculty. More...