As the political crisis in the United Kingdom deepened over the impasse on which Brexit deal to agree with Europe, the 2019 International Higher Education Forum, organised by Universities UK International, examined how UK universities can continue to develop internationalisation in the event of a hard Brexit or no deal, University World News reports.

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and the CHEA International Quality Group (CIQG) held their annual conferences last week. On the agenda were how to build trust in universities in a hostile environment, how to address corruption in higher education and how to adapt higher education to a world of changing demand and innovative modes of provision. University World News was the media partner.

A workshop in Cape Town, a conference in Stellenbosch, and a recently published volume on the contribution of universities to place-based development form the basis for this edition’s special report examining the opportunities for South African universities – like their counterparts around the world – to embrace the roles of place-makers, engines of innovation and economic development, and centres of knowledge-production which seek to inform local decision- and policy-making.

The Sixth Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) Biennial Conference, also known as the African Higher Education Week, took place in Nairobi, Kenya, from 22-26 October under the theme “Aligning African universities to accelerate attainment of Africa’s Agenda 2063”. The conference brought together stakeholders in higher education and agriculture from across the continent.

How is technology transforming education? What are the main challenges facing the world of ed tech? These were some of the questions discussed by global experts in education, innovation and ed tech at the ‘EnlightED: Reinventing education in a digital world’ conference in Madrid, Spain, on 3-5 October, which drew an international audience of around 1,000.

There is a crisis in academic publishing – too much pressure on top journals, too many books of marginal quality, the rise of predatory journals and publishers that publish low or marginal quality research and tremendous pressure on academics worldwide to publish, according to Philip Altbach and Hans de Wit. Their argument has triggered a continuing debate among higher education experts.

The British Council’s Going Global 2018 conference for leaders of international education was held in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia last week. The theme was ‘Global Connections, Local Impact’. University World News covers the event.

The Studyportals Academy 2018, held in Amsterdam in the Netherlands from 25-26 April, brought higher education stakeholders together to look at embracing change in higher education and international student recruitment. University World News covers the event.

The Next Einstein Forum (NEF) Global Gathering, held every two years, is a unique international science forum with a strong focus on Africa. The forum connects science, society and policy in Africa and the rest of the world – with the goal to leverage science for human development. This year, the NEF Global Gathering was held in Kigali, Rwanda from 26-28 March under the theme “Connecting Science to Humanity”.