29 August 2021  Issue No: 657

The race to get hundreds of scholars out of Afghanistan and secure their safety continues but has turned from a sprint into a marathon, following the closing of the Kabul military flight evacuations in advance of the 31 August deadline agreed with the Taliban.

Could vaccine policy widen the gap between international enrolments across US states with concerns about rising numbers of COVID cases and deaths in areas which are politically opposed to mandatory safety measures? And what could the knock-on impact be on the most disadvantaged US students?

The movement to remodel recognition and rewards in academia – sparked by the Declaration on Research Assessment initiative – is gathering pace after a hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, claim Dutch researchers at the forefront of radical change in universities in the Netherlands and beyond.

How important is travel to other countries for academic life? Does movement influence the mind, learning and how we experience new ideas? Does distance from the stability of home make new questions possible? How a year spent online has hindered knowledge creation and transmission.

At a summit on student affairs and services, 140 experts from around the world discussed how to improve awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs among students and universities. A resulting position paper will be renewed in November at a global meeting of 24 student affairs associations and submitted to the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference next year.