By Dan Butin. Another commission on the future of higher education has just been formed. I thus sometimes wonder whether we would all be better off and save everyone a lot of time and money and headaches if we instead embraced what should be the standard-issue for any academic administrator in this age of disruption: the Magic 8-Ball. Read more...

The Future of The Future of Higher Education

By Brian Keeley. Views vary on how much of a difference the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) actually made to the world. But on one thing people seem more or less united: They were a great communications tool. They took the abstract concept of “development” and turned it into a series of mostly concrete goals – fewer poor people, more kids in school, healthier mothers and babies, and so on. More...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. One of the surprise success stories in the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme this year was the entry of four Irish universities into the list of the 50 top-performing universities. But how did they do it. Read more...

Last Friday, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) submitted its response to the Horizon 2020 simplification survey of the European Commission. Simplification has always been the number 1 priority of LERU in the development and implementation of Horizon 2020. Consequently LERU has always been actively engaged in the simplification agenda (see below) and will certainly continue to do so in the future.
In the current LERU response, many topics are addressed, focusing on pressing administrative and financial issues, but also investigating possible conceptual changes that could contribute greatly to further simplification of Horizon 2020 project application and management. More...