1 November 2020  Issue No: 618

The higher education sector has a huge role to play in an inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. To do so, it needs UNESCO to strengthen the mechanisms for international collaboration and sharing of ideas and recognise higher education as a key stakeholder.

Despite rising nationalism being expected to fuel single-country research and current geopolitical tensions between China and the United States, cross-border scientific research during the early months of the COVID-19 global pandemic rose, with collaborations between researchers in China and the United States particularly prominent, a new study shows.

Tecnológico de Monterrey or Monterrey Tec is redesigning itself to develop students as entrepreneurial and socially minded leaders who can adapt to the future. It has revamped the role of professors and increased the focus on cutting-edge technologies, challenge-based learning and personal competencies, such as flexibility, leadership skills and values.

On 25 November University World News, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, will be bringing together experts and practitioners from the International Association of Universities, the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities and the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program in an online webinar on how universities can improve their social impact.

Canada’s meteoric rise in international student numbers faces sustainability problems in a post-COVID world, especially if Joe Biden ousts Donald Trump in the United States election and India’s economy continues to slump. It needs to rethink its offering to students and put employability at its heart.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has unveiled the new Namal Knowledge City, a mega project of academic facilities near Mianwali city in Punjab province, which is expected to include housing, research and development institutions, technology start-ups and foreign university branch campuses.

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Proposed changes to United States visa rules that will set fixed timelines of up to four years for international students could make US institutions less attractive to foreigners, including to the thousands of students from Sub-Saharan Africa who seek university education away from home.