5 June 2022  Issue No: 695

Nordic governments are putting measures in place to combat intellectual espionage and information misuse in international research collaborations. But the exercise raises questions about how far centralised control over academic cooperation can go before it takes its toll on the quality of science.

The third UNESCO World Higher Education Conference was held in Barcelona in Spain from 18 to 20 May 2022. The theme was Reinventing Higher Education for a Sustainable Future and the plan was to forge a common roadmap for higher education to 2030. University World News is the exclusive media partner for the conference.

Chinese authorities say they have begun to ‘ease’ some draconian rules for university students in cities affected by strict COVID-19 lockdowns, which prompted protests on several campuses. This includes easing food supplies, an issue that sparked much discontent, and allowing some students to return home.

The African Research Integrity Network, a partnership to promote ethical research practices across the continent, was officially launched on 31 May after years of operating as an informal body of practitioners. This work is much needed in Africa which, along with some other regions, faces huge challenges with research integrity.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the closure and then reopening of schools and universities played a key role in an upsurge of violence on campuses, with more than 9,000 students and educators abducted, arbitrarily arrested, injured or killed in armed conflicts around the world during 2020 and 2021, according to a damning new report.

If universities are to contribute towards transformative and sustainable futures, our practices of social imagination need to contain a deepened reckoning with our own roles in creating ecological damage and sustaining environmentally harmful practices and an imaginative reconstitution of our own practices.

A recent study from the University of Cambridge suggests that official impact assessment systems may not be sufficiently geared towards measuring and acknowledging the impact and public value of research increasingly being shared by socially networked academics over a multitude of social media platforms.

A recent Talloires Network discussion about the application of an awareness-based systems change approach to struggles against racial and other injustices considered the limitations of a purely rules-based approach to justice and the need to move from anger to tenderness towards others.

Researchers across low- and middle-income countries are set to contribute towards the creation, expansion and maintenance of inclusive climate datasets in an initiative that will provide resources to Africa, Latin America and South and Southeast Asia in the climate and energy as well as climate and health fields.

After 120 roundtable sessions, 86 ‘HED’ talks and five youth-led activities, the UNESCO World Higher Education Conference 2022 concluded on Friday 20 May in Barcelona, Spain, with the announcement of a common ‘Roadmap to 2030’ and a demand that barriers to change be “blown down now”.