By William Patrick Leonard. English is the reigning bridge language or lingua franca in nearly all human endeavours that cross national borders. A nation’s education sector is no exception. Preparatory English instruction and its subsequent use as the Mode of Instruction, or MoI, in a nation’s educational policy and institutional curricula may serve as expressions of its commitment to globalisation. Read more...

By Peter Tindemans. EuroScience is Europe’s grassroots organisation of scientists, which is working increasingly with similar organisations across the world such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, the Indian Science Congress Association, the Brazilian Society for the Promotion of Science, and also the Japan Science and Technology Agency. Read more...

By Michael Gardner. The German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD, celebrated its 90th anniversary this month. While playing a key role in the academic world, the organisation is also an important player in the field of diplomacy.
Today, the DAAD or Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst is the world’s largest organisation supporting academic exchange. It maintains a total of 15 branches as well as 56 information centres abroad, and has supported two million students and academics, just under a third of them incoming, enrolling for a semester or doing research at a German university. Read more...

By Brendan O'Malley. On 15 January 2014, Chinese police raided the home of Ilham Tohti, a Chinese economics professor and advocate for the rights of the Uighur ethnic minority group. They seized computers, mobile phones, passports and students’ essays. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. The Council of State has ordered the merging of 11 higher education institutions into four new institutions, thereby establishing the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, or NTNU, as the largest university in Norway. Read more...

By Barbara Barkhausen. Palmer United Party Senator Zhenya Wang has proposed an opt-in/opt-out model for university fee deregulation in a bid to break months of deadlock between the government and opposition over higher education reform. Read more...

By Jane Marshall. Thierry Mandon has been appointed as the new state secretary for higher education and research. He takes over at a time of austerity and low morale among the university community, after a period of three months during which the post was vacant. Read more...

By Suvendrini Kakuchi. Universities will face pressure to streamline and refocus their mission on developing skills for the global jobs market under sweeping reforms announced last week. The education ministry wants to raise the standing of science and technology and said that humanities departments could be axed. Read more...

By Alan Osborn. The European University Association, or EUA, fears that last week's decision by the European Parliament to formally adopt the European Union European Fund for Strategic Investments, or EFSI, and divert EU research funding to EFSI’s budgets will mean a squeeze on other earmarked funds for collaborative research by universities and other research bodies. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley. Violent attacks on higher education students, staff and institutions around the world are occurring with “alarming frequency”, according to a new report, which documents 485 killings in 18 countries in the past four and a half years.
States and other actors who depend on controlling information and what people think are going to “great lengths to restrict or even silence higher education communities and their members”, according to the report, Free to Think, published by the Scholars at Risk Academic Freedom Monitoring Project. Read more...