The International Association of Universities (IAU), founded in 1950, is the UNESCO-based worldwide association of higher education institutions. It brings together institutions and organisations from some 150 countries for reflection and action on common concerns and collaborates with various international, regional and national bodies active in higher education. Its services are available on the priority basis to Members but also to organisations, institutions and authorities concerned with higher education, as well as to individual policy and decision-makers, specialists, administrators, teachers, researchers and students. The link address is: http://www.iau-aiu.net/

By Josie Gurney-Read. Year Here, a gap year programme launched in March 2013, culminated this week, as university graduates competed for a £5,000 grant to launch a social enterprise. Forget full moon parties in Thailand, for many graduates today the typical gap year route isn’t enough. Gap years, especially post-university, increasingly need to provide the opportunity to improve long term career prospects.
Year Here, a new gap year programme for university graduates and A-level school leavers, is seeking to provide an alternative to the traditional gap year experience, by giving graduates the opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial skills without leaving the country. Read more...

 CLUSTER is a network of leading European Universities of Technology; their fundamental missions are advanced research and higher education of engineers, scientists and architects. Their common goal within CLUSTER is the quest towards excellence in the fulfillment of these missions. Read More…

 La Asociación de Universidades Grupo Montevideo es una red de universidades públicas de la región sur de América Latina que trabaja desde el año 1991, fecha de su creación, por la integración y cooperación educativa regional, en defensa de la Educación Pública Superior considerada como un derecho humano universal y un bien público social. The link address is: http://www.grupomontevideo.edu.uy/

By Ashley Thorne. US colleges increasingly view anything published before 1990 as 'inaccessible' for students. So much for timeless themes. One summer when I was an undergrad, my college assigned The Pilgrim's Progress to all the students. It was, so to speak, a mandatory beach book, not for credit in any course, but meant to be the basis for a campus-wide discussion on the theme of "difficulty". Reading Bunyan's 1678 allegory of Christian's hike to the Celestial City was indeed an uphill challenge for us. That college assignment comes to mind as I've recently been looking at trends in similar summer assignments for college students.
Before they arrive on campus this fall, many American college freshmen will already have finished their first assignment. Their colleges have given them a "common reading", one book that they are all expected to read. Last year, 309 colleges made such assignments. It's a great tradition, but something curious has happened since my days as a college student. Only eight schools assigned anything published before 1990, and only four assigned books that could by any stretch be considered classics.
For American college students, 1990 appears to be a historical cliff beyond which it is rumored some books were once written, though no one is quite sure what. Why have US colleges decided that the best way to introduce their students to higher learning is through comic books, lite lit, and memoirs?
For the last three years I have been tracking what colleges do in this vein and reading their rationales. This week my organization published Beach Books: What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class? It documents the obsession with the present that has overtaken American higher education. Read more...

 The Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) enhances the mutual understanding and cooperation in the North American community by fostering collaboration between institutions of higher education in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The link address is: http://www.conahec.org/

By Ian McNay. Let me own up: I coined the term "modern universities" for the re-designated polytechnics (Letters, 23 August). Before 1992, there were three groups of universities – ancient, old and new. "Modern" seemed to complete the quartet and give a nice symmetry, a counterpoint to "ancient". It also encapsulated my hopes for that group of higher education institutes, not dissimilar to those of Alan Bance, since the former colleges of advanced technology had not followed the strong European tradition of professional technological education and the Robbins report's recommendation on the special institutions for scientific and technological education and research. The cooling of the white heat of technology, the need to rescue teacher education after the James report and the 1972 education white paper, and to diversify to respond to increased demand for access after the 1980 cuts, meant that intent was lost. Read more...

 The Danube Rectors' Conference has served as a forum for the articulation and initiation of a number of joint research projects, such as the "Ecology of the Danube" (natural and life sciences, environmental engineering and technology) and "Blue Danube," a trans-disciplinary project that involved the "harder" sciences as well as historical and cultural disciplines. The Danube Rectors' Conference has grown considerably in recent years, and its agenda has expanded. The network articulated objectives to raise the general level of academic performance; to promote mobility, to reduce drop-out rates; and to lower the cost of tertiary education. Furthermore, it underlined the importance of multilateral cooperation in the region and expressly supported the establishment of the Central European Exchange Program for University Studies. Finally, the Danube Rectors' Conference endorsed an integrated university model based of institutional autonomy and established working groups to address the issues of university legislation, curricula and the evaluation of teaching and research. The link address is: http://www.d-r-c.org

By Chris Williams. With college loan debt hitting us where it hurts, the American dream has become the American farce for Generations Y and Z. The American dream has become the American farce for Generations Y and Z. Student loan interest rates doubled to 6.8% on 1 July until Congressreached an agreement to change them back weeks later. This isn't some small special interest issue; it impacts 40 million Americans. Indebtedness has become a ravaging disease infiltrating our US waters, and there doesn't seem to be a cure to stem the tides of suffering that so many of us are dealing with at present. There are more questions than answers on how to remedy this unpleasant situation. To his credit, President Obama recently conducted a town hall at the University of Buffalo to discuss his new plan to attack student loan debt for numerous citizens drowning in it. Read more...