Will Brexit mean a more parochial UK with less appeal to global students?

By Brendan O’Malley – Managing Editor. The United Kingdom’s referendum to decide if it will stay in or leave the European Union will take place on Thursday 23 June. Our World Blog examines possible Brexit implications, with Elspeth Jones and Hans de Wit speculating about the impact of Brexit on the numbers of international students choosing to study in the UK, and particularly students from the EU.
The Brexit debate is further explored in a Special Report. Nearly a quarter of all public competitive funding for research in the UK comes from the European Union and Daniel Hook wonders if the UK government will plug the funding gap should Britain vote to leave the EU. And Chris Bickerton and Lee Jones say the Brexit referendum is too significant a political decision for British academics to be campaigning for their own self-interests – they should look at the bigger picture.
In Commentary, Gerard Postiglione and Xiaoyu Chen say that major changes made in universities in China over the past 20 years indicate that they are shifting from the Soviet model of the past towards the international mainstream of research universities. Other Commentaries focus on higher education in India. Anand Kulkarni and Angel Calderon maintain that India’s new national university ranking scheme has much to commend it but there are opportunities for improvement. William G Tierney says the Indian government’s goal to have 20 highly ranked world-class universities is praiseworthy but unrealistic, requiring not only huge investment but reforms promoting institutional autonomy and academic freedom. And Renu Modi and Rhea D’Silva write that racism against Africans in India is a reality that must be countered by promoting greater intercultural understanding.
In our series on ‘Transformative Leadership’ in which University World News is partnering with The MasterCard Foundation, Zuleika Arashiro says that universities claiming international status need to address historical inequities so that, for example, women academics from the Global South are more than a superficial reflection of a university’s diversity.
In Features, Sharon Dell reports on how South African universities of technology are positioning themselves as partners in the field of waste recycling and management, a relatively new and potentially lucrative research and job creation area. Read more...