7 February 2021  Issue No: 629

Japan is setting up a projected US$95 billion endowment fund to increase public financing for scientific research, even as the country is struggling to contain the third wave of COVID-19 infections. The pandemic has exposed the country’s lack of long-term and stable funding of research.

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India’s government has made it mandatory for academics and organisers to obtain prior clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs to hold international webinars or online seminars on topics touching on India’s security and internal issues and on subjects the government believes are sensitive.

Throughout the pandemic, there have been tensions between online and face-to-face teaching, between keeping students safe and seeking to educating them. But nothing has been settled. Academics will have to make a strong case for what it means to teach in the post-COVID period.

The University of Oslo has presented an ambitious action plan for the humanities towards 2030, addressing society’s grand challenges – the first such plan ever – in response to the Norwegian government’s call in 2017 for higher education institutions to strengthen their work with the humanities.

PhD supervision needs to be considered in a more holistic way with the emphasis on teamwork, particularly as COVID-19 is likely to bring changes to how international researchers complete their studies, but it requires better recognition and reward for the collaborative effort needed.

The Turing scheme, established to replace the student and academic study abroad part of the United Kingdom’s participation in the Erasmus+ programme post-Brexit, is a reality and we need to make the most of it by emphasising employability, widening participation and trade.