7 May 2020  Issue No: 268

The social sciences and humanities have a crucial role to play during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond in answering the basic question of how we respond to living in a changed world. There are three broad approaches that might help academics in diverse contexts to re-think and re-imagine the future.

It is three years since the call for applications was made, but Kenya’s National Research Fund has finally announced the recipients of its second round of research grants, giving the nascent agency a much-needed lifeline.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created urgency around consultations on shared values and principles that would hasten global access to data, research, publications and technological innovations.

A partnership in East Africa is helping lecturers to teach in ways that ensure graduates leave university not just with subject knowledge but also the wider skills they need for their own employment, to make a positive difference in the wider world and to be better equipped to adapt to change.

In the first of a six-part dialogue series hosted by the Alliance for African Partnership or AAP, four African university leaders outlined the responses of their universities to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lessons learnt thus far. In this special report University World News brings you some of their insights. The next webinar, “Global and Continental Partnerships and Collaboration in Higher Education post COVID-19” takes place on 13 May.

The lessons of history show us that the best response to international challenges is international collaboration. But what are the mechanisms? Now is the time to establish an international assembly for higher education and global science to promote and sustain international collaboration.

Support staff are taking on huge amounts of work during the six weeks – so far – of shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, so that faculty can focus on teaching and research. Their role should be remembered when it comes to future budgetary cuts.

China ‘facemask diplomacy’ during the coronavirus pandemic – with boxes of masks sent around the world as gifts while Europe, America, Africa and Latin America are still in the throes of the crisis – won’t stem concerns about the risks in research collaboration with China.