Breaking News
CANADA
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Nathan M Greenfield
The fallout of the Israel-Hamas war is roiling the campuses of Canada’s two most storied universities – McGill in Montréal, Québec and University of Toronto. Jewish organisations report that students are feeling unsafe while Jewish faculty say they are witnessing the breakdown of collegial relationships.
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NETHERLANDS
Jan Petter Myklebust
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
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PAKISTAN
Ameen Amjad Khan
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UNITED STATES-UKRAINE
Nathan M Greenfield
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EUROPE-CHINA
Yojana Sharma
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BULGARIA-UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
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BANGLADESH
Mohiuddin Alamgir
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Top Stories
GLOBAL
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Time to tackle predatory publishing practices
Nathan M Greenfield
The documented hijacking of a legitimate academic journal earlier this year shows how the pressure on researchers to publish, combined with the proliferation and development of AI technology, is threatening to undermine trust in research and is even derailing the careers of affected academics.
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EUROPE
Villano Qiriazi, Luca Lantero and Chiara Finocchietti
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UNITED STATES-EUROPE
Philip G Altbach and Hans de Wit
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CHINA
Karin Fischer
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News
CHINA
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Mimi Leung and Yojana Sharma
As record numbers of graduates sit China’s fiercely competitive civil service examinations, hoping for secure government jobs amid high youth unemployment, the government is widening its special recruitment system for some civil service posts to include Chinese citizens who have graduated from top overseas universities.
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AUSTRALIA
Shadi Khan Saif
A draft defence bill aimed at the exclusive exchange of technology with the United Kingdom and the United States has set off alarm bells in Australian academic circles because of what academics say is the potential for criminalising activities the research community considers normal.
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IRELAND
John Walshe
The latest data from the Graduate Outcomes Survey in Ireland show that 83% of last year’s class was in employment nine months after graduation – up from 75.9% for the class of 2020. The figures are seen to confirm the value of a higher education qualification.
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MYANMAR
Padone
As fighting intensifies across Myanmar, with mounting casualties for the military regime, newly graduating medical students have been drafted in as military reservists. “The junta is losing on all sides,” said a spokesperson for the exiled National Unity Government and is strengthening its forces in various ways.
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MIDDLE EAST-NORTH AFRICA
Wagdy Sawahel
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ZIMBABWE
Clemence Manyukwe
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War in Israel-Palestine
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
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Wagdy Sawahel
As the conflict centred on Gaza continues, academics and students in the occupied West Bank are facing an intensified campaign of arrests and have appealed to the international community for help to protect the territory’s universities from the full impacts of the war.
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INDIA-PALESTINE
Shuriah Niazi
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Edtech, AI and Higher Education
SOUTH KOREA
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Yojana Sharma
South Korea has long been known for its innovative university-industry collaborations. Now, global developments in generative AI – most widely represented at the moment by ChatGPT – are prompting new ways for the country’s universities to work with South Korea’s own technology giants.
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Features
DENMARK
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Jan Petter Myklebust
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.
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HE and Sustainability: The Gulf States
MIDDLE EAST
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As the United Arab Emirates prepares to host COP28, the global summit on climate action and sustainable development, University World News is running a weekly Special Briefing exploring the contribution of Gulf states’ universities to climate action and to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
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GULF STATES
Christina Maria Paschyn
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.
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GULF STATES
Heba Hashem
With the Gulf region a key focus of the upcoming COP28 global climate summit in Dubai, universities in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait – all countries that are facing tough environmental challenges – are playing a more proactive role in promoting sustainability within their campuses and beyond.
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World Blog
UNITED KINGDOM
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Jamie Pitchforth
Timely access to effective mental health services for students has never been more important. With the assistance of artificial intelligence and data intelligence, it is now possible to pre-emptively flag when an individual might be experiencing mental distress and offer the support needed.
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SDGs
AFRICA
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Elias Ngalame
Young scientists, researchers and civil society activists from across Africa who gathered at the inaugural Youth Forum on Adaptation Finance in Africa have called on leaders from around the globe to urgently scale up adaptation finance and include young people in actions to fight climate change.
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Top Stories from Last Week
SOUTH AFRICA
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Desmond Thompson
Outrage about the situation in Gaza is growing in academic circles in South Africa, judging by the proliferation of critical pronouncements about the crisis. A prominent recent initiative came in the form of an open letter that has drawn the support of researchers, lecturers, administrators and students.
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AFRICA
Clemence Manyukwe
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
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CHINA
Xiaofeng Wan
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UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
A new online tool provides granular data about the economic contribution of international students in the United States, which totalled over US$40 billion in the 2022-23 academic year. Its launch follows the formation of a new coalition to increase enrolment and diversify the pool of international students.
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UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
A new report suggests that ‘internationalisation at home’ can improve the internationalisation experiences of all students on United Kingdom university campuses, particularly by internationalising the curriculum, and its findings will feed into the process of producing a new international higher education strategy.
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INDIA-GLOBAL
Shuriah Niazi and Yojana Sharma
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Sponsored Article
UAE University staff
With an eye to developing a clean, alternative aviation fuel to reduce carbon emissions, researchers at the United Arab Emirates University have been focusing on the production of jet fuel from sustainable resources such as halophytes, which are salt-tolerant plants that could be cultivated on a wider scale in the region’s coastal areas.
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Sponsored Article
Michael Milligan
Artificial intelligence is now a part of our evolution in technology and teachers need to be encouraged to find ways to bring AI into the classroom and have students use it in a way that is beneficial to them in the long term.
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Sponsored Article
UAE University staff
As water scarcity reaches critical levels globally, a research team at the United Arab Emirates University seeks to revolutionise seawater desalination practices, offering a path to mitigate water scarcity while championing environmental preservation.
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Amid the current debates about the introduction of an international student levy in Australia that universities may pass on to their students, thereby pushing up the cost of a higher education, the question of what students are getting for their money looms large.
Low public and private investment levels in research and development remain a trend in most African countries. Still, this bleak narrative contrasts with knowledge production patterns by African nations as bibliometric studies of articles authored or co-authored by scientists and scholars over the past two decades show healthy annual growth.