By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Commentary, Sultan Barakat and Sansom Milton argue that rebuilding higher education in the aftermath of conflict is a top priority that requires collective national and international effort.
Jamil Khader contends that the magnitude of the attack on academic freedom in the occupied Palestinian territories has been underestimated. Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela writes that student protests in Chile have impoverished higher education quality and could produce a generation with a strong political formation but without a robust academic background.
Abi Mandelbaum describes how colleges in America are using virtual reality and augmented reality to attract students and create a community. In World Blog, Margaret Andrews makes the case for marketing universities in ways that reflect a strong, unique identity rather than making them all look the same.
In Features, Nic Mitchell outlines a report from the European Students’ Union warning that patchy implementation of the Bologna process could render it obsolete. Suvendrini Kakuchi finds a new era of university-industry collaboration in Japan, and Munyaradzi Makoni looks at university involvement in innovation and inclusive development in marginalised African communities. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In a worrying week for academic freedom, in Features, Andrew Green reports on allegations in Burundi that students are being targeted with harassment, including death threats, by security forces, amid fears that the embattled government has put educated young people on its list of perceived enemies. In News, Yojana Sharma reports on fears that a new law in China will bring the activities of foreign higher education partners under the remit of China’s national security authorities. And in Commentary, Rachael Jolley, editor of the Index on Censorship magazine, says threats to academic freedom are looming large across the world from the USA to India, even in democratic societies.
Also, in Commentary, Martin Cohen says the Greek government is being led by academics and asks if its seemingly reckless negotiating strategy is informed by Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis’s ‘game theory’ analysis of the ‘incredible threat’. And Daniel Obst examines the potential opportunities for collaboration arising from the recent meeting of US and Iranian higher education leaders in Iran.
In our World Blog Martin Ince says if there is one lesson to be learned from Nobel Prize winner Sir Tim Hunt’s life-altering blunder which led to his resignation from his honorary professorship at University College London, it is the need for even stellar academics to have media awareness training.
In Features Brendan O’Malley looks at who the winners were when the European Research Council announced its €445 million (US$493 million) worth of advanced grant awards going to 190 researchers for ground-breaking ideas. And Karen MacGregor reports on the World Bank’s US$150 million programme to strengthen Africa’s 19 centres of excellence. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. In Features, Brendan O’Malley outlines a new report from Scholars at Risk, which documents how not only militant groups but state forces in many countries are using violence, imprisonment and intimidation to silence students and academics and close down the space in which alternative ideas or critical thinking can emerge.
In News, Yojana Sharma reports on the fears being raised over the upholding of academic freedom on foreign campuses in China in the wake of its ideological tightening of freedoms in its own universities.
In Commentary, we offer two opposing points of view on the proposed academic boycott of Israel. John Kelly argues that a total boycott could ensure Israeli academics and students force their government to ease restrictions on Palestinian universities; while David Newman argues that the activities of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement serve only to weaken the chances of Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement.
Also in Commentary, Peter Tindemans says we should think in novel ways about reshaping doctoral training to cope with the reality that many doctorate holders will end up in non-research positions.
In World Blog, William Patrick Leonard says international students looking to study in South Korea should shop around to find the institutions which run courses in English at their level, because some institutions are better prepared than others to offer them.
In our Special Report on the 14th General Assembly of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Wachira Kigotho hears a warning that the quality of education in African universities must be improved to reduce the increased risk of brain drain stemming from internationalisation. Read more...