4 July 2021  Issue No: 650

Many of the almost 160,000 Chinese students enrolled in Australian universities in 2020 were ‘self-censoring’ to avoid threats and harassment from their Chinese classmates, and because they fear being ‘reported on’ to the authorities back home, Human Rights Watch says in a new report.

The World Health Organization and its COVAX partners are working with a South African consortium comprising Biovac, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a network of universities and the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to establish its first COVID-19 mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub.

Many scholars with decades of China expertise and scholars who conduct fieldwork in China from time to time say they are reluctant to return to China even after coronavirus restrictions are lifted due to tightening ideological control and concerns for their safety.

The past year has seen a spate of unethical behaviour in higher education leadership. Is there a reason for this or are we just getting better at reporting some cases of abuse – and will cuts targeting the humanities have an impact on ethical accountability?

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs will have much greater success if they include local communities in their design and implementation and have actionable objectives at community level. Universities have a big role to play through promoting experiential learning and participatory research.

The controversy over the University of Oslo’s agreement to host the European centre of China’s Fudan University, signed back in February, has re-erupted in the past fortnight, triggered by parallel anger in Hungary where protesters have taken to the streets to oppose plans for a Fudan branch in Budapest.