By Ingrid Hall. During the decades since its re-opening to the world, China has undergone a massive reformation of modernisation and political influence, and now holds high influence on the world stage. In contrast to classic Western hegemony, China is continuing to amass global influence through non-traditional (and frequently criticised) methods and for reasons other than simply bettering the global landscape. More...

By Hans de Wit. Small, developing countries encounter specific challenges when developing an internationalisation strategy for their higher education systems, trying to strike the right balance between their colonial past and the present, local and foreign languages and cultures, brain drain and brain gain, national and foreign accreditations, foreign and national providers and the importance of exports and local human capital. More...

By Adriana Perez-Encinas. The international student experience as a concept is growing fast and gaining in importance for higher education educators. Universities around the world offer a wide range of support services to satisfy the needs of students. More...

By Lin Tian, Yan Wu and Niancai Liu. In 2015, UNESCO published a report, Rethinking Education: Towards a Global Common Good, which proposed that the common good should be seen as a constructive alternative to the public good (the latter being traditionally seen as being closely associated with education and its outputs). More...

By Jane Knight. An international joint university, frequently referred to as a binational university, is often confused with an international branch campus. A joint university is an independent higher education institution founded through collaboration between foreign higher education institutions and host country institutions or government. More...

By Brendan O'Malley – Managing Editor. The first issue of University World News was published on 14 October 2007, which means that this 478th issue marks our 10th anniversary. In a Special Report to celebrate this auspicious occasion, former and current editors Geoff Maslen, Karen MacGregor and Brendan O’Malley look back at the past decade and forward to the next, while our distinguished contributors and readers explain why University World News is regarded as a must-read for all stakeholders in higher education.
   In Commentary, Futao Huang says the US general education model for undergraduate studies, which seeks to produce students with all-round skills, has emerged with surprising prevalence and gained high status in both mainland China and Hong Kong. Michael Gaebel says recent survey results on learning and teaching at Europe’s universities support the purpose of the European University Association’s learning and teaching forum, held recently in Paris, with the next forum scheduled for 2019. Rajesh Tandon encourages universities to deliberate on the roles higher education can play in realising the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. And Nader Habibi suggests Turkey would be better off investing more in the quality of higher education rather than massively increasing the number of students in higher education, considering the inadequate supply of graduate-level jobs.
   In World Blog this week, Patrick Blessinger and Barbara Cozza consider the purpose of internationalisation of higher education and how global university partnerships are helping universities to increase their international engagement.
   In Features, a presentation by leading higher education expert Simon Marginson explains why the overall outcome of some of the best known international university rankings – particularly if they are multi-indicator rankings using weighting – should be viewed with scepticism, while Gilbert Nganga describes how politics and protest action in Kenya have caused major disruptions to the academic calendar.
   In News, Yojana Sharma reports on a debate among European and Asian university leaders meeting in Singapore about how universities can prepare graduates for a future that is unknowable. More...