Twelve research groupings across five Danish universities have been selected to investigate and make recommendations for concrete strategies to enhance gender diversity and inclusion in Danish scientific research settings and to support the participation of more women at the highest levels of research.

Gulf universities are successfully implementing sustainable education policies in a bid to reduce inequalities among staff and students. Aligning their strategies with the Sustainable Development Goals, several universities have achieved noteworthy rankings. The support offered to special needs students could be transformative for societies.

The private Al Ain University in the United Arab Emirates, located in the oasis city with the same name, is leading the way on sustainable development among universities in the country through initiatives to boost quality education and global and national partnerships.

Change leadership involves steering an institution through major disruptions and organisational transformation. Research highlights the need for effective change management and academic collaboration to help universities around the world overcome the challenges of implementing education for sustainable development across the whole institution and curricula.

While education workers, educational institutions and civil society have been well represented in the governance structures of international education, the democratic voice of secondary and tertiary student unions has been formally absent for decades. But there are good reasons to believe that is changing.

The United Nations’ Higher Education Sustainability Initiative is developing practical guidance for higher education ranking organisations wanting to integrate the delivery of Sustainable Development Goals into their assessments of universities and colleges. The initiative has been supported in principle by some major ranking groups.

A groundbreaking UNESCO analysis, which shows the considerable scale of international aid flows to higher education, also reveals the magnitude of the geographical divide between the Global North and Global South and raises questions about who really benefits from such aid.

The agenda for higher education internationalisation in the Middle East and North Africa or MENA is lagging behind other regions. Some 4.5% of all students in the region were internationally mobile in 2019, but most of that mobility was one way – outward bound – the World Higher Education Conference 2022 was told.

None of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs – the internationally agreed framework for tackling poverty, inequality, disease and climate change – can be achieved without the contribution of higher education through research, teaching and community engagement, networks representing 2,000 universities have told the UN.