By William Patrick Leonard. As recently as the last decade, environmental concerns or the green campus dominated discussions about institutional sustainability in the public and private non-profit tertiary sectors in the United States. More...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. International collaboration has been an important element in the European Commission’s research framework programmes, and work is ongoing to strengthen such cooperation significantly in the huge Horizon 2020 research initiative that kicks off in January 2014. More...

By Lucy Hodges. Unusually for a Muslim country, Qatar has opened its door to Western-style institutions. In broadcasting, this has meant Al Jazeera. In higher education, it has meant the creation of Education City, which houses Hamad bin Khalifa University, or HBKU, a new all-graduate institution. More...

By Miriam Wells. The most comprehensive survey of Latin American universities ever undertaken has revealed an ongoing failure to adapt to the modern age, Mexico's director general of higher education has told a major regional tertiary education conference. More...

By Miriam Wells. Latin American and Caribbean university rectors have come together to create the first region-wide higher education association, in what they say is a major step forward for regional identity in ways that go far beyond education. During a side meeting at the Alfa PUENTES Second Bi-Regional Conference in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, rectors from across south and central America presented their new organisation – the Association of University Rectors' Councils of Latin America and the Caribbean. More...

By Miriam Wells. An international higher education conference has underlined the major progress made in building links between universities in neighbouring countries in Latin America. But it also highlighted significant remaining challenges facing Latin American higher education if it wants to be truly integrated with tertiary institutions worldwide. More...

By Wagdy Sawahel. Five North African countries – Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia – along with 38 European and Mediterranean states will benefit from a new framework initiative to promote student mobility across the region. The first working meeting towards elaborating on a Euro-Mediterranean student mobility framework initiative took place on 27 November at the headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean, or UfM, in Barcelona, Spain. More...

By Geoff Maslen. After opening its first international offshoot at London’s City University in May, the Australian-based online academic newsletter, The Conversation, is planning to open in other, as yet unnamed, countries – while its monthly unique visitor numbers at home have tripled over the past year to 1.4 million, with 400,000 readers outside Australia. Andrew Jaspan, the founding editor and chief executive, said at the time of the UK launch that 13 British universities had agreed to back the project, along with the Wellcome Trust, the Nuffield Foundation and the higher education funding councils for England, Wales and Scotland. More...

By Hiep Pham. Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training, or MOET, could revoke the licences of at least two universities in the wake of a recent evaluation by the Hanoi People’s Committee, which inspected 20 higher education institutions operating in the Hanoi region and recommended that two of them be shut. More...

By Peta Lee. If PISA founder Andreas Schleicher had his way, the Programme for International Student Assessment would extend to higher education as well. Until then, the three-yearly tests, and their much-awaited scores, will be limited to high schools around the world.
The latest results, released on 3 December by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, took participating countries by surprise yet again, and unleashed a flurry of reaction. More...