By Katrien Maes. When we talk about women in academia, we tend to concentrate on fixing the numbers and fixing the organisations. That means more women getting into research careers, staying in and reaching leadership positions and it means making sure that universities and other research organisations make structural changes in the way they recruit, support, retain and promote. Read more...

Australia is welcoming unprecedented numbers of international students in 2015 and changes to the visa rules will stimulate further growth, government ministers said last week. Read more...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. The Finnish government plans to introduce a minimum tuition fee for students from outside the European Union or the European Economic Area from 1 January and give higher education institutions the freedom to set higher levels. Read more...

By Wagdy Sawahel. The Islamic Development Bank and the World Bank have launched an ‘Education for Competitiveness Initiative’, or E4C, to help equip young people with the knowledge and skills needed to support economies and societies, with a primary focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Read more...

By Eugene Vorotnikov. The Russian Ministry of Education and Science has announced plans to establish the new position of federal professor in national universities starting from next year. Read more...

By Wachira Kigotho. In a report, S/2015/801, released on 19 October in New York, the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea also blasted Kenya’s security forces for their slow response to the assault. Read more...

By Yojana Sharma. Malaysia’s public universities are reeling after higher education appeared to bear the brunt of cuts announced in the 2016 budget last week. Higher education will see a decrease of MYR1.4 billion (US$325 million) compared to the previous year – a drop of some 15% from MYR15,785 billion in last year’s budget to some MYR13.3 billion. Read more...

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. From Malaysia, where the economy has come under pressure from lower oil and commodity prices, Yojana Sharma reports the news that universities are reeling as their budget allocations for 2016 have been severely slashed. And in Features, Yojana Sharma reports on the vital role that private higher education institutions and foreign branch campuses will play in meeting ambitious plans on widening access and doubling the number of foreign students in Malaysia’s universities. Also in Features, Jan Petter Myklebust reports on an analysis of the top performers in Europe’s Horizon 2020 programme. Sharon Dell reports that the appointment of a top former banker at the helm of South Africa’s student financial aid scheme is intended to help resolve student funding issues. And Brennan Weiss interviews Cornel West, professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York City, about the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.
Two of our Commentary articles this week focus on gender equality, with Katrien Maes emphasising the importance of gendered research and innovation, which ensures that gender analysis is properly integrated into the research process, and Ali Reza Yunespour highlighting a new gender and women’s studies programme in Afghanistan, introduced in a system weighted against women. Also in Commentary, Eric Fredua-Kwarteng puts forward a case for ‘developmental universities’ in Africa, which are universities that contribute to the fulfilment of national development needs and priorities.
In our World Blog, Margaret Andrews says it is interesting that ‘soft skills’ are most in demand among business school graduates while many schools spend the majority of their curriculum teaching the ‘hard skills’. Read more...