Thousands have signed a letter protesting a proposal by the Netherlands’ peak universities body that effectively sacrifices all English-taught psychology programmes in the interest of persuading the government to ditch its strict foreign language test aimed at raising the overall number of Dutch-taught courses.

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has called on US-based scientists whose work is under threat from President Donald Trump’s executive orders slashing science and undermining research freedoms to relocate to Europe and has unveiled a package of incentives.

As a part of extensive reforms to professional and vocational degrees in Denmark supported by a parliamentary majority in March, the Ministry of Education and Research has now approved 800 English-taught study places targeting international students seeking to study and work in Denmark.

A new analysis of research on medical errors, which uncovers significant inequities in geographic and thematic representation and highlights the dominance in the field by high-income countries, calls for inclusive global frameworks to bridge research disparities between the Global South and North.

Harvard University has accused the United States government of making new threats to “illegally withhold funding for lifesaving research and innovation” in retaliation for its decision to stand up to the Trump administration by seeking an injunction against federal cuts worth US$2.2 billion.

Higher education stakeholders fear that new data released by the British Home Office, showing that 16,000 asylum claims were made in 2024 by people who first came to the country on study visas, will bolster the case for tighter restrictions on all international students.

Rising US-China tensions over technology restrictions, US trade tariffs and US regulations affecting universities are set to further dampen enthusiasm for US-based study among Chinese students and their parents, as education agents in China have been advised to steer students towards alternative destinations.

India’s status as a high-quality international education destination is growing, with recent applications for branch campuses from institutions in the United Kingdom, Australia and – for the first time – the United States, but there are concerns about the impact of local faculty shortages.

The measurement of science, technology and innovation, or STI, in the African context is under-researched, but the knowledge base is growing, according to a study titled ‘Do we measure what should be measured? Towards a research and theoretical agenda for STI measurement in Africa’.

Five student organisations have called on the Norwegian minister for research and higher education to reintroduce tuition-free higher education for international students from outside of the European Union, European Economic Area and Switzerland, saying the country had ‘lost the battle’ for talented people.

Student organisations and several higher education sector representatives in Finland have criticised recent changes by Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s coalition government to taxation and public spending that include tax breaks to companies and employees but significant cuts to core spending on higher education.

Cuts to international aid programmes by the Trump administration and moves to revoke student visas highlight the precariousness of refugee higher education – the provision of which educators through the ages have understood as both a moral obligation and a profound opportunity for intercultural learning.

A new book on teaching and learning with generative AI, co-edited by American education technology professors Joseph Rene Corbeil and Maria Elena Corbeil, moves beyond reactions to AI towards a practice-based guide for educators and staff navigating the challenges of AI in classrooms and curricula.

A new study shows the biggest losses in international postgraduate student enrolment in the January to March 2025 intake around the world have been felt by Canada (31%), the United States (13%) and Australia (13%). By contrast, the United Kingdom saw an 8% increase.

In a move aimed at strengthening research infrastructure and capabilities and embedding a culture of research excellence in India’s higher education sector, the Anusandhan National Research Foundation – the overarching research funding body – has selected 124 institutions to form research clusters across various disciplines.

Renewed political violence in South Sudan, which has been escalating in the past few days, is harming this war-torn country’s already fragile higher education sector, academics and international officials say. Fear is keeping students away from class, and concern about their studies is growing.

The United States government has halted funding for its ‘American Corner’ programmes in at least two top Portuguese universities amid its revision of contracts and grants with foreign universities, which includes asking them controversial and ideological questions concerning their support for American interests.

New pathways need to be developed for young people to stem the increasing number of young people who leave school in the United Kingdom unprepared for further and higher education or for entering the workforce, the head of the government’s opportunities mission said.

Thailand’s Attorney General’s office announced it will not prosecute university academic Dr Paul Chambers, a political scientist and US citizen accused of defaming the monarchy under the country’s strict lèse-majesté law – a decision Chambers’ legal team said underscored the weakness of the case.

Students in Indonesia say they are feeling threatened by the presence of military personnel arriving unannounced on campus since the passing of a national military law last month, which extends the military’s reach into civilian positions – a move widely opposed by students at the time.

China’s annual catalogue of approved undergraduate majors in universities and colleges, routinely updated last week by the Ministry of Education, for the first time included programmes fast-tracked for approval amid new economic stresses unleashed by United States President Donald Trump’s trade and tariff policies.

Amid the Trump administration’s dramatic termination of hundreds of international student visas, a new study reveals that the majority of international graduates who stay on to work in the United States have STEM degrees and find well-paid jobs in top-ranking Fortune 500 companies.

Afghan students face a double blow amid restrictions on overseas scholarship opportunities by the Taliban regime and cuts to scholarships for Afghans by the United States as part of the administration of US President Donald Trump’s dismantling of its aid agency USAID.

At many Nigerian universities sport is an all-male affair, with no facilities, opportunities, teams or clubs for women. As Nigerian women athletes achieve on global sporting stages, more female students are demanding inclusive campus environments in which women can also participate and excel in sport.

Amid ongoing talks of a youth mobility deal with the European Union, a new report highlights the sharp fall in UK students going abroad for study or work placements post-Brexit and after the pandemic – but shows progress in widening participation among less advantaged student groups.

Hong Kong education officials are concerned about the impact on teaching quality of a sudden surge in university enrolment driven by interest from Chinese students who might have chosen to study in the United States prior to recent policy developments in the US.

Six First Nations chiefs have criticised a claim made in court papers by four University of British Columbia professors and a former graduate student that the university’s acknowledgement that its campuses are located on ‘unceded’ Indigenous territory violates their academic freedom.

A leader of a key European university research stakeholder group has sounded the alarm at plans by the European Commission to abandon the exclusive civilian focus of the Horizon Europe framework programme for research and innovation to include defence and dual-use activities.

As the United States administration continues to impose measures widely considered detrimental to higher education and research in that country, Norway has announced a new research council funding scheme – initially worth NOK100 million (US$9.6 million) – that will make it easier to recruit researchers from abroad.

In his second term, United States President Donald Trump has moved quickly to slash federal research funding, abandon aid commitments to higher education capacity building and scholarships and force universities to end diversity, equity and inclusion programmes. Below we track the impact in the US and globally.

Academics in Sweden have welcomed a government investigation aimed at strengthening academic freedom but argue the probe fails to take account of threats to academic freedom from the political establishment itself – threats that call for academic freedom to be enshrined in the constitution.

Morocco has unveiled plans to establish an institute dedicated to promoting AI research and its practical applications across various developmental sectors. The Jazari Institute, the third AI-focused centre in the country, aims to transform knowledge into technological solutions for sustainable development.

United States President Donald Trump has issued a new executive order to restructure the nation’s college and university accreditation system and cancel diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, measures, a move professors say is another means to control higher education and will open the door to corruption.

Ahead of Australia’s forthcoming national election, the opposition Coalition’s promise of new funding for campus infrastructure in regional areas to boost higher education has won support from Universities Australia, for recognising the social, economic and cultural value of higher education and research.

A new study argues that inaccuracies in the mapping between journal subject classification by Elsevier and the narrow subject field used by two major global university rankings organisations in their subject rankings system have resulted in inaccuracies in institutional scoring in both rankings.

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, Kashmiri students studying in various parts of India have reported a surge in threats and harassment, prompting calls for state authorities to take extra measures to ensure the safety of affected students.

Indonesia’s former president Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, has returned to his hometown in Solo, Central Java, to live as an ordinary citizen but now faces two lawsuits, one of which – the authenticity of his tertiary education diploma – challenges the legality of his past presidency.

Since India started welcoming foreign universities almost two years ago, attention has focused heavily on Gujarat’s GIFT City, which has emerged as the favoured location for several overseas branch campuses. Now, however, other states are actively positioning themselves as hubs for foreign universities.

A university in Hong Kong has formulated an ‘outside the textbook’ model of service learning that uses international trilateral partnerships to give students the opportunity to benefit from cross-cultural learning. It is a model that is inspiring other universities to follow suit.

The adoption of micro-credentials in Southern Africa is fragmented because of limited regulatory guidance, but Mauritius has made significant progress in the conceptualisation of the concept, and some of its universities are collaborating with international institutions to offer credit-bearing courses that can translate into formal qualifications.

Algerian researchers have developed the first home-made electronic chip as part of a broader national strategy to position universities as hubs for technological innovation – and to reinforce the role of Algeria’s higher education institutions as drivers of the knowledge economy.

The African Union Commission has officially launched the African Space Agency at its headquarters in the Egyptian Space City in Cairo as part of its efforts to harness space technology for sustainable development and to coordinate the region’s work in this sphere.

In what higher education leaders consider an existential moment, the American Association of Colleges and Universities has issued an extraordinary statement slamming President Donald Trump’s administration for ‘unprecedented overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education’ and calling for ‘constructive engagement’.

Interest from prospective international students in going to the United States for graduate studies has dropped by 44% since the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January – a period in which he has made massive cuts to university-based research and attacked university administrations and academic freedom.

Over 60,000 students have been told they will need to re-sit their matriculation examination after a fire caused by the devastating earthquake that hit Myanmar late last month destroyed nearly 400,000 answer sheets being marked by lecturers at the badly damaged Mandalay University.

After the Senate voted to support the Dutch government’s cutbacks to education and science funding, amounting to €500 million (US$570 million), several universities are going to court. Doubts about the legality of some of the funding cuts were not enough to save the budget.

Academics in the Netherlands are concerned that a proposed new law requiring the screening of incoming graduate students and researchers intending to work in ‘sensitive’ subject areas could create delays that might drive foreign talent to apply to universities in other countries instead.

The Algerian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has decided to replace French with English at universities, starting in September when the new academic year begins. Experts say the move reflects a wider anti-France mood in the region. They recommend a more gradual implementation process.

In another attempt to safeguard the integrity of the higher education sector, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has ordered several higher education regulatory bodies to clamp down on illegal tertiary institutions undermining the credibility of the education sector in the country.

Denmark has introduced sharpened regulations for work permits for international students from outside Europe and their accompanying family members due to extensive reports of misuse. This may lead other European countries to rethink their immigration rules, shaping student mobility policies for years to come.

As university chiefs in the United Kingdom wait in anticipation for the Labour government to unveil a new international education strategy, a key architect of the last government’s master plan to attract more overseas students admitted major deficiencies in the 2019 strategy that he introduced.

Using Truth Social, United States President Donald Trump has struck out at Harvard University, threatening to remove the tax-exempt status it has had for centuries – on top of a US$2.2 billion cut to grants – after it refused to accept demands for swingeing changes.

With national university tuition fees rising, the Japanese government is launching new initiatives to help financially strapped students, focusing on increasing public grant scholarships and exempting loan repayments for some disadvantaged students, as well as paving the way for students to apply for free tuition.

The increasingly hostile regime being created for international students and scholars in the United States – involving denial of entry, detentions, deportation and even being ‘disappeared’, according to human rights experts – has triggered a plethora of travel warnings from foreign governments and higher education institutions.

As the number of local students opting for doctoral studies declines and the need for high-level skills grows, governments in Norway and other Nordic countries are recognising the value of effective strategies to increase the number of international PhD graduates that stay.

The Danish Council for Research and Innovation Policy is to launch a project on Danish PhD education to explore whether or not more can be done to improve the pathway to employment outside of academia and to enhance creativity during the PhD programme.

University sector representatives have condemned a recent Coalition pledge, made by opposition leader Peter Dutton, to cut international student numbers further and raise student visa fees, saying this would damage the economy and Australia’s global reputation but not solve the housing crisis as claimed.

In a move aimed at facilitating higher education globalisation, India’s University Grants Commission announced new regulations for the recognition and equivalence of foreign qualifications, promising the speedier processing of applications by graduates to have their overseas degrees recognised back home in India.

The University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda, recognised for its socially accountable, equity-centred medical education, will be the institutional home of the newly launched Consortium of Medical Schools in Africa, a continent-wide platform aimed at transforming professional health education.

Facing increasing cost pressures, European universities must take action to strengthen their financial resilience by finding new ways of generating income, tackling inefficiencies and being more strategic in prioritising their activities, according to a new report from the European University Association.

A Tunisian student fell to his death after attempting to hang a Palestinian flag on the building of the Higher School of Design Sciences and Technologies in Dandan in the Manouba Governorate, Tunisia, during a wave of protests in North Africa demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

Dr Paul Chambers, a prominent foreign scholar at Thailand’s Naresuan University, has been arrested following a complaint filed by the Third Army Region. This is the first case of a foreign academic formally charged under the law that penalises insulting the Thai monarchy.

After South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s removal from office following impeachment charges, growing political uncertainty has raised concerns over the future of the ‘glocal university’ project and the government’s ability to enforce several of his administration’s higher education policies, including deregulation of universities and tuition freezes.

Plans to cut arts and humanities enrolments at a Chinese university considered a traditional stronghold for humanities scholarship have sparked heated discussions over the decline of liberal arts education in China and whether the government’s science and technology drive has gone too far.

China is perhaps the world’s new science superpower, in terms of gross spending on research and development, a new OECD report reveals. Meanwhile, research is under threat in the world’s two other research giants, America and Europe, says Sir Peter Gluckman, president of the International Science Council.

The ‘European degree’, a new qualification to be awarded after transnational bachelor, masters or doctoral programmes, offers a unique value proposition, but needs to be effectively managed, according to experts participating in an online meeting hosted by the League of European Research Universities.

Harvard University, which stands to lose up to US$9 billion in federal monies if it does not satisfy the Trump administration that it is doing enough to combat antisemitism, is the latest target of what some commentators believe are essentially attempts to silence truth-seeking institutions.

Well over half of professorial positions at India’s premier higher education institutions, including its renowned Indian Institutes of Technology and centrally funded universities, are vacant – with implications, experts argue, for quality and India’s aspirations to become a global hub for innovation and higher education.

South Korean medical students who have been on a prolonged ‘leave of absence’ in protest over a government plan to increase medical school admissions have re-registered and are expected to return to campus. Whether it marks a definitive end to the boycott remains unclear.

Women dominate Namibia’s cabinet, which is led by Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the country’s first-ever female president, who has set clear education goals during campaigning, including overhauling the Namibia Students Financial Assistance Fund.

The imminent arrival of three eminent American Ivy League professors and efforts by Canadian universities to attract researchers from the United States, Canadian officials hope, herald the reversal of a perennial problem for Canadian universities: the brain drain to the US.

Universities and environmental organisations in Southeast Asia are spearheading a campaign to protect the region’s wetlands – mangroves and peatland – which they call the world’s ‘green lung’, with recent research finding that these areas play an outsize role in reducing greenhouse emissions.

New measures are being introduced by the Japanese government to try to make longer-term study abroad more attractive in a sector deeply affected by a weaker local currency, financial uncertainty and student concerns about missing out on local job recruitment opportunities, according to experts.

To accelerate AI-empowered education reforms, and inspired by the launch last year of the homegrown generative AI intelligence model DeepSeek, the Chinese government is pushing a shift to open-source models, including the development of a government-led open-source collaboration platform to foster cross-sector innovation.

The vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex has pledged to contest the decision of the United Kingdom’s higher education regulator, the Office for Students, to fine the university £585,000 (US$757,000) for failing to uphold freedom of speech during a period of pro-transgender rights campus protests.

Alarmed by the impact the Trump administration’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion, or anti-DEI, agenda is having on research collaborations across the Pacific, Australia’s leading universities and the Australian Academy of Science are pressing for greater collaboration with Europe and seeking deeper bilateral ties in Asia.

Moves by the United States to detain and deport foreign students due to alleged links to pro-Palestinian causes or for taking part in solidarity campus protests are casting shadows over Indian students’ American dreams. Meanwhile, the Indian foreign ministry has urged compliance with local laws.

The Norwegian government has launched a new plan to strengthen the Norwegian research system, which will see it invest in supercomputers, create a national strategy for quantum technology, strengthen research safety, and improve conditions for international researchers and students.

The recent attacks by the Trump administration on United States higher education and research institutions – seen as global leaders in scientific research-based progress – have prompted the Swedish academic community to call on the government to strengthen constitutional and statutory protections for academic freedom.

The number of unemployed PhD graduates in South Korea has soared to record levels in the past year, with the difficulty of landing a job becoming particularly severe in 2024 for PhD holders under the age of 30 and this year’s job market continuing to be subdued, according to analysts.

A leaked memo for grant management staff of the United States government’s National Institutes of Health instructs officers to hold “all [research] awards to entities located in South Africa”. Some experts estimate that as much as 70% of South Africa’s medical research is funded through the National Institutes of Health.

The new African Science, Technology and Innovation Leaders’ or ASTIL forum that has just been launched promises to significantly amplify the continent’s voice in global science at a time when nationalism and protectionism in other regions of the world are undermining the interconnectedness of the scientific community.

The uncertainty and seemingly wanton destruction behind the Trump administration’s slashing of research programme budgets for the National Institutes of Health and other agencies, and via the shuttering of USAID, have left researchers across the world afraid to speak out for fear of jeopardising other projects.

International students make a substantial contribution to the German economy, according to a survey by the German Economic Institute. And the more international students that stay on after graduating, the greater their impact appears to be, according to a recent comprehensive analysis.

The withdrawal of US$45 million in scholarships awarded by the United States development agency USAID has left 400 Myanmar students, many of them studying abroad, in limbo – unable to return to their country, unable to continue to pay for their education, and desperate for support.

A bill passed by Indonesia’s House of Representatives, which analysts say will allow members of the military to take up civil positions, has sparked major protests led by students concerned about a possible resurgence of military power over government and lack of transparency.