28 March 2021  Issue No: 636

Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee, which oversees the city’s publicly funded universities, has indicated that universities’ implementation of compulsory education on the National Security Law could affect stepped-up funding. But lecturers say it is not clear how such a course could be delivered.

Students appreciate the advantages of on-demand digital lectures but crave a deeper connection to the content. COVID-19 will accelerate the redesign of the university campus into a more collaborative model, creating countless small moments of interaction, pulling people together instead of spacing them apart.

The imposition of tit-for-tat sanctions on researchers by China after the European Union imposed bans on Chinese officials, has ratcheted up pressure on academics, particularly those whose research involves topics deemed sensitive to China. Researchers, their families and an entire institution have been banned from visiting China.

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Italy is not only a pioneer of the use of the European Qualifications Passport for Refugees but also provides scholarships for passport holders, giving them an opportunity to contribute to their new societies. As a result, refugees with health qualifications have contributed to tackling COVID-19.

An analysis of how Indian institutions are faring in the QS World University Rankings by Subject shows that they continue to perform solidly in some fields, but there is room to improve in areas such as environmental studies, agriculture, nursing, the arts and education.

The QS World University Rankings by Subject, released earlier this month, compared 13,883 individual university programmes, taken by students at 1,440 universities globally, across 51 academic disciplines. Here we publish the findings from each region, using QS data and analysis.