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By Ahmet Ýçduygu. In 2011, the United Nations projected that nearly two-thirds of the world’s population would be living in cities by 2050. Yet the physical and social infrastructure of most cities is ill-prepared to absorb the expected influx of new residents. An international conference titled "Global Urban Challenges: The role of research universities" was held last week in Chicago. 
Hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois, the event brought together academics and researchers from 30 research universities from around the world to discuss the role university-based research plays in addressing the challenges of urban growth. More...

By Kalinga Seneviratne. Singapore is offering big money and five years of guaranteed research funding to woo back top Singaporean scientists and engineers from overseas and help the city state become a global research and development powerhouse. 
The Returning Singaporean Scientists Scheme launched last month by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, aims to encourage leading researchers in their field globally to take up leadership positions in Singapore. More...

By Liz Heron. Scotland’s newest university has launched an international head-hunt for a principal to spearhead the provision of higher education across the country’s most remote region. 
The University of the Highlands and Islands, or UHI, is offering a “competitive” salary for an “outstanding candidate” to replace founding principal and vice-chancellor James Fraser, who is due to retire at the end of the year. More...

By Sonia Motisca. Dutch universities are making increasing efforts to attract more students from India and Indonesia and the higher education sector is promoting the universities in both countries. 
The universities know that over the next 10 years, the population of the Indian middle class is expected to reach 550 million, making it larger than the total European population. They are also expecting the demand for high-quality higher education to grow by 18% to 30% of the middle class population by 2025. More...

By Alan Osborn. A new online service was launched last week by the European Commission and the OECD to help universities better understand their place in today’s market-oriented world by measuring how entrepreneurial they are. 
The initiative, HEInnovate, is a self-assessment tool enabling universities to assess their performance in seven areas: leadership and governance, organisational capacity, teaching and learning, pathways for entrepreneurs, university-business exchange, the internationalised institution, and impact measurement. More...

By Ishmael Tongai. A proposal to site the fifth node for the Pan African University, or PAU, on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius has been deemed ineligible. The African Union, which is backing the initiative, said Mauritius fell into the continental body’s Eastern Africa region. 
“Mauritius is in the Eastern Africa geographic region of the African Union and will therefore not host the PAU Institute for space sciences, because Eastern Africa is already hosting the PAU Institute for Basic Sciences, Technology and Innovation,” Beatrice Njenga, head of the human resources, science and technology department at the African Union Commission, told University World News last week. More...

By Mimi Leung. Bejing’s decision to reduce the proportion of marks allocated to English in the highly competitive national college entrance examination, the gaokao, appears to be an extremely popular move. 
A survey by Hong Kong-based Phoenix television – one of the few private television channels permitted to operate in mainland China – collated responses from 220,000 television viewers and found that almost 83%, or nearly 182,000 respondents supported the proposed new emphasis on Chinese studies and reduced emphasis on English in the gaokao, while just 13% opposed the changes. More...

By Wagdy Sawahel. A network of university leaders across North Africa and the Middle East, known as MENA, was launched at the first MENA Higher Education Leadership Forum in the United Arab Emirates last week. 
"The initiative of launching the MENA Association of University Presidents was aimed at advancing higher education in the MENA region by forming a group of dynamic leaders that will have an effect in influencing policy makers,” said Nicola Degaetano, marketing manager of UAE-based Middle East Ellucian, one of the forum sponsors. More...

By Jan Petter Myklebust. A decision by the Swedish government to force foreign students to leave the country within 10 days after receiving their diplomas has been condemned by opponents of the move. 
Writing in the Swedish newspaper Sydsvenskan, the rector of Lund University, Per Eriksson, and a member of the European Parliament, Cecilia Wikström, said the harsh regulation was counterproductive to Swedish interests, while Per-Olof Rehnquist, head of administration at Gothenburg University, on his blog page described the decision as “stupid and shameful for Sweden”. More...

By Geoff Maslen. Despite pre-election promises it would not slash spending on Australia’s universities, the new conservative government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott has done just that – with a A$900 million (US$825 million) cut from university grants. 
In addition, the nation’s 820,000 university students will lose discounts they currently receive for early repayment of their higher education loan debts – and that will cost them almost A$300 million. 
Australia’s federal Education Minister, Christopher Pyne, introduced a bill to cut spending on universities and students last Thursday, at the end of the parliament’s first sitting week under the new government. Pyne admitted the Higher Education Support Amendment (Savings and Other Measures) Bill 2013 would be damaging to the university sector. More...