The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education held a conference in London this month titled “The International Higher Education Revolution: Impacts on mobility, qualifications, networks”. University World News was there.

The second Bi-Regional Conference of Alfa PUENTES – a project aimed at improving integration across Latin American higher education institutions and building partnerships with European counterparts – was held from 2-4 December in Cartagena, Colombia. The project, coordinated by the European University Association, involves more than 20 university associations from Latin America and Europe. University World News was at the conference.

In his new book on Academic Freedom in a Democratic South Africa, John Higgins argues that when it comes to contested relations between the university and the state, South Africa has come a full circle since apartheid. In the foreword JM Coetzee, recipient of the 2003 Nobel prize in literature, writes that South African universities are not alone in facing the ideological force driving the assault on the independence of universities.

Doctoral training in Africa has become a focus of universities, researchers, policy-makers, governments and donors across Africa and around the world. In this, the first of two Special Reports, we look at the topic as discussed at a gathering hosted by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and South Africa’s National Research Foundation, and at a Volkswagen Foundation grantees' meeting in Hanover, Germany.

The Robbins Report, produced by a government-commissioned Committee on Higher Education, was published in the United Kingdom in October 1963. Its recommendations were accepted and had a literally massive impact on the sector. We revisit Robbins and how higher education has evolved in the subsequent half a century.

The 7th Annual Teaching and Learning Higher Education Conference was held at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban from 25-27 September, titled “Re-envisioning African Higher Education: Alternative paradigms, emerging trends and new directions”. Some 250 delegates attended, along with speakers from across Africa and the world. University World News was there.

Transparency International published the Global Corruption Report: Education on 1 October, charting rising dishonesty in education worldwide. The report comprises more than 70 articles by experts in the field of corruption and education. University World News examines what it says about corruption and poor governance in higher education.

Last week the UK government published a review of massive open online courses, Britain's MOOCs platform – FutureLearn – launched its first courses, the Germany-based iversity announced that it would provide credits for courses on its platform, and we spoke to a researcher who has launched a MOOCs site in Vietnam.

A convening on “Higher Education Policy, Leadership and Governance” in Africa was held in Nairobi recently for grantees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The objectives were to share research, practices and findings on how grantees are influencing higher education policy and leadership, to identify gaps, develop a common vision and map the future. University World News, which received a grant to support its “Thoughts and experiences of African University Leaders” article series, was there.

Around 50 academics, policy experts and managers got together with development assistance agencies in Marseille on 1-2 July for a meeting of the OECD’s Innovation, Higher Education and Research for Development – IHERD – programme, financed by the Swedish donor agency SIDA. The meeting had the theme “Increasing Evidence-based Approaches in the Design and Implementation of Innovation and Research Policy in Developing Countries”.