2 October 2022  Issue No: 710

Universities can play a leading role in transforming society, but this requires a merit system and research and education funding conditions that recognise the value of engagement with society as well as impact on society, International Association of Universities President Pam Fredman tells University World News.

Several higher education institutions around Iran are supporting calls to boycott online classes and stage sit-ins to highlight the treatment by authorities of protesters, many of whom are students and young people demonstrating against the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

While it may be challenging at times for a faculty to hear from external professionals that there are some deficiencies in its curriculum, advisory boards can help to ensure that potential graduates are at the forefront of what the workforce and society requires.

At global fora, speakers demand the introduction of social justice into the knowledge project. But how can we discuss social justice at universities when our contractual researchers sleep in cars and early career scholars are excluded from the vision of the modern university?

As part of national efforts to boost internationalisation of higher education, Greek universities are offering more English-taught short courses. These are helping to create bridges with the international academic community by spreading the word that international academic synergies and opportunities are increasingly flourishing.

We need to ask whether the Sustainable Development Goals, which embrace economic growth as a solution to sustainability challenges and avoid any discussion about global population, are in fact sufficient for addressing biodiversity crises and engaging with the vision of a shared Earth.

The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, a network of six centres of excellence which are based in South Africa, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania and Rwanda, has been nurturing innovative, critical thinkers who can drive the continent’s science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, agenda.

A new book about higher education in an unequal society provides a devastating portrait of inequality – in education, achievement and incomes – in the United States, and suggests that without specific measures on the part of universities and colleges, inequality will continue to grow.

Hopes of a breakthrough in international efforts to reform how researchers and research organisations are assessed are rising, with European universities, research centres, public and private funders, national and regional agencies and other stakeholders being encouraged to create a coalition committed to change.