27 November 2022  Issue No: 718

The Sustainable Development Goals framework provides an opportunity for universities to “collaborate across differences” and represents a new “common language” for universities’ social responsibility agendas, according to key speakers participating in the University Social Responsibility Summit held from 16 to 18 November.

The government of India has announced it is about to start negotiations with the country’s 70-odd journal publishers around the implementation of a ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ policy that will ensure greater access to research for ‘all people in India’ under a centrally negotiated government deal.

Academics have welcomed the agreement made at the United Nations’ COP27 climate summit to establish a ‘loss and damage’ fund to assist developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, and have called for part of the funds to be earmarked for universities and research centres geared towards climate change research.

However helpful the delineations of different academic cultures have been for those of us who study and work in academe, the times we live in may require of us to consider what ties academics together and unites us, rather than describe our differences.

Community service is a critical tool for decolonising African universities and can turn universities into real partners for development, but until the obligations of this key mission are enshrined in policy or law and adequate funding is provided, it will remain largely voluntary.

If higher education is to achieve equity in access and success, it needs to relearn some of the “goodness” that carried it through the COVID-19 pandemic and think about how to “lead with love”, participants of World Access to Higher Education Day 2022 heard.

War may have upended the lives of countless Ukrainian students, but in the weeks after the war started nearly 6,000 applied to study in Poland, where a warm welcome at the universities has allowed them to push on with their work and find relative peace.

A new university ranking that foregrounds values, ethics and sustainability as central principles of higher education institutions has been launched to fill a gap left by traditional rankings that are skewed towards the West, biased towards research outputs, and exclude 95% of institutions.