13 June 2021  Issue No: 647

What will international higher education look like after COVID-19? There are five factors that will have a major impact: from climate change and commercialisation to COVID itself. While a revolution does not seem likely, there are serious challenges – and opportunities – ahead.

American universities and colleges are increasingly confident that international education is poised to recover in phases from the pandemic, with 43% reporting an increase in international student applications for 2021-22 and half planning in-person study abroad from the fall, a new survey suggests.

The killing of a university Communist Party secretary by a lecturer at China’s prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai has shocked academics in China, unleashing a debate on pressures to perform and publish, research demands and precariousness of university jobs in China.

The UNESCO Qualifications Passport for Refugees and Vulnerable Migrants is paving the way for Syrian refugees’ access to higher education in Iraq. The passport addresses a global problem of national recognition authorities and higher education institutions lacking the tools needed to evaluate refugees’ qualifications.

The challenges remain regarding academic recognition in Europe, but there are ways to overcome some of these fairly easily, which will provide transparency and confidence, help the inflow of talent into our economies and aid the creation of a world-class higher education system.

The overwhelming endorsement by Danish MPs of a motion calling on universities to avoid “excessive activism in certain research environments” and ensure free and critical scientific debate has been criticised in an open letter signed by thousands of academics, who see it as a threat to academic freedom.

In the backlash against the Black Lives Matter protests for racial justice, Republicans in numerous US states have voted for bills banning the use of critical race theory in schools and-or colleges and universities, arguing that it ‘undermines American values’ and ‘American exceptionalism’.

This week University World News reports on the performances and trends by region of individual universities and national systems in the just-published QS World University Rankings 2022, which this year ranks 1,300 institutions worldwide using data from academic papers, employers and academics.