The British Council’s Going Global 2017 conference for leaders of international education was held in London last week. The theme was “Global cities: connecting talent, driving change”. In a two-part special report (the second part will be published next week), University World News covers some of the highlights.

The European University Association or EUA 2017 Annual Conference, with the theme “Autonomy and Freedom: The future sustainability of universities”, was hosted by the University of Bergen in Norway on 6-7 April, and discussed how autonomy and freedom of universities can be linked to address the current political, economic and societal challenges in Europe.

The International Higher Education Forum organised by Universities UK on 21 March in London explored how universities in the United Kingdom can maximise the emerging international opportunities and overcome challenges resulting from the radical political shifts the UK has experienced over the last year. University World News covered the event.

The Global University Network for Innovation or GUNi's sixth Higher Education in the World report, entitled Towards a Socially Responsible University: Balancing the global with the local, deals with the dual responsibilities of universities at local and global scale. Some of the contributions to the report are republished in edited form in this special report.

The Centre for Global Higher Education or CGHE, based at the UCL Institute of Education in the United Kingdom, held its annual conference in London on 1 March on the theme “Higher Education: Changing global relations”, which explored the drivers and effects of changing global relations in higher education. University World News reports.

The sixth World Sustainability Forum was held in Cape Town, South Africa from 27-28 January – the first time it has been held in Africa. An international scientific conference sponsored by the journal Sustainability under the patronage of the University of the Western Cape, University of Cape Town, University of Basel and the National Research Foundation of South Africa, the meeting highlighted the importance of academic institutions in any successful quest to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

America's Council for Higher Education Accreditation, or CHEA, held its 2017 annual conference in Washington DC last week, on the theme "Quality Assurance and Accreditation: Moving into the future", followed by a meeting of CHEA's International Quality Group. University World News was there.

The ban on entry into the United States by citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, signed by US President Donald Trump, is likely to have a much wider impact on recruitment of international students. Other moves thought to be in the pipeline could dramatically reduce international student numbers.

The third meeting of the Higher Education Research and Advocacy Network in Africa, or HERANA, held in Franschhoek in South Africa in November, was attended by representatives of seven of the eight participating universities: Botswana, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique, Ghana, Nairobi in Kenya, Mauritius, and Makerere in Uganda. Each gave detailed and fascinating presentations on key research indicators. Led by the Centre for Higher Education Trust, the goal of HERANA is to institutionalise data collection with a view to strengthening knowledge production in a group of emerging research-intensive flagship universities.

The Higher Education Policy Institute's latest report on ranking has further stoked debate about how accurate and how useful international university rankings are. University World News asked its author and ranking experts to share their views.