By Karen MacGregor. Recommendations for academic and research collaboration among the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are to be taken forward after a heads of state meeting in Russia in July adopted a BRICS Academic Forum vision paper. The proposals include easy visas for researchers and a fund similar to Europe’s Horizon 2020 to finance joint research. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Features Karen MacGregor examines how the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – intend to take academic and research collaboration forward, including providing easy visas and a research fund emulating Europe’s Horizon 2020. Ameen Amjad Khan looks into why, three months after Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency raided IT firm Axact following allegations that it ran a global business selling fake degrees, so little progress has been made in court.
In Commentary, Simon Marginson says British Prime Minister David Cameron must sooner or later face up to the devastating consequences that a political pledge to break the link between short-term study and permanent settlement in the UK could have for universities. Artemios G Voyiatzis says the greatest impact of the ongoing austerity and uncertainty in Greece will be an increasing and damaging brain drain. Londa Schiebinger demonstrates how gender analysis can solve a wide range of society’s problems by making research more responsive to the needs of everyone.
In our World Blog, William Patrick Leonard says tackling student debt has become an irresistible populist issue for presidential candidates in the United States.
In our ICDE World Conference report, Geoff Maslen talks to Joyce Seitzinger, a digital expert who is on a mission to show academics how they can use social media to improve research impact and crowd-fund. Read more...