17 July 2022  Issue No: 701

The potential to disseminate disinformation on a large scale and undermine scientifically established facts represents an existential risk to humanity. Higher education institutions have a crucial role to play in developing a shared, empirically backed consensus based on facts, science and established knowledge.

As part of a recent survey, Ukrainian students expressed a strong belief in their country’s victory and subsequent economic growth and pointed to greater cooperation between their institution and its international partners in teaching joint courses as a viable pathway towards post-war recovery.

The diplomatic fissure between France and Australia caused by the new AUKUS alliance, together with a move to diversify within Asia from collaborations with China has led to French foreign ministry funding for university collaborations being redirected away from Australia and towards India.

There are wide gaps between the science and policy-making areas, but the two approaches can be complementary if they meet somewhere in the middle to combine the single big picture sought by policymakers with the level of detail required by scientists.

An important step towards quality education that is free of fraud and corruption has been made with the recent adoption of the Recommendation on Countering Education Fraud, the result of four years of work within the framework of the Council of Europe.

We will not contribute to making the world a better, more equal and just place if we allow the extractive and exploitative capitalist, market-driven and profit-making logic to continue to frame our thinking and the research and teaching priorities of our universities.

A new report calling for strategic interventions for change indicates that members of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities are less likely to enter higher education than any other ethnic group and face both financial and social hurdles once they do manage to enrol.

A webinar hosted by the Talloires Network of Engaged Universities and originally inspired by the war in Ukraine, exposed the resilience and hopes of countless young people and students around the world whose daily lives are forged amid relentless violence that goes largely unreported.

Despite a lack of globally accepted standards or even agreement on language, microcredentials are gaining a strong foothold throughout the world and have proven to be a promising way to fulfil student and labour market needs that are unique to the digital age.