University World News

CANADA: Bunnies bounced from college campus

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 07:37:39 +0200

A Canadian university has "officially declared the campus to be rabb...

GLOBAL: How to create a world-class university

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:54:00 +0200

Although some of the world's top-ranked institutions such as Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford are hundreds of years old, a series of case studies of successful world-class research universities, prepa...

AUSTRALIA: Science under siege

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:01:00 +0200

The very basis of science and of an informed, progressive and enlightened society are under siege, Australia's Chief Scientist Professor Ian Chubb told a conference on Thursday. Chubb said scientis...

SOUTH AFRICA: Uproar over Dalai Lama visa mess

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:03:00 +0200

Outraged over South Africa's 'failure' to give the Dalai Lama a visa, academics and students at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) took to the streets on Wednesday. The Tibetan spiritual le...

GLOBAL: Some surprises in THE university rankings

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:21:00 +0200

The California Institute of Technology has edged Harvard out of the global top slot in the just-published Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-12. The new ranking places Hon...

ITALY: Billion euro boost for southern universities

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:30:00 +0200

The Italian government is to pump more than EUR1 billion (US$1.3 billion) into universities in the south of the country as part of a regeneration plan for the region. The decision was announced las...

PAKISTAN: Bank loan to rescue higher education plan

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:09:00 +0200

Pakistan's five-year higher education development plan, which has been languishing in the doldrums for lack of funding, is now expected to be implemented after the World Bank agreed to release US$3...

LATIN AMERICA: Brazil leads new regional ranking

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:00:00 +0200

Brazil has more universities in a new top 200 ranking for Central and South America than any other country in the region. The lusophone nation hosts 65 of the top 200 universities in the ...

AUSTRALIA: Doors open to foreign students

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 09:40:46 +0200

Australia's 39 universities are preparing for a brand new day in 201...

FRANCE: Immigration restrictions hit foreign students

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 09:35:06 +0200

Immigration measures that tighten restrictions on foreign students f...

EUROPE: Erasmus expands to help Arab Spring

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 17:28:00 +0200

The European Commission announced on Tuesday that EUR66 million (US$...

ASIA: Forging regional higher education integration

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:05:00 +0200

Plans to integrate higher education in Asia, a regional challenge that calls for streamlining of university curricula and grading systems, gathered steam at an international symposium held in Tokyo...

PAKISTAN: Central role for universities in new policy

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:01:00 +0200

Higher education's share of Pakistan's overall education budget shou...

BAHRAIN: Reinstate sacked staff, says rights group

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:35:00 +0200

Human Rights Watch has called on universities in Bahrain to immediat...

SWEDEN: Scholarships to woo back foreign students

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 08:55:00 +0200

The Swedish government has responded to the drastic fall in the number of international students from outside Europe, following the introduction of tuition fees, by increasing funding for scholarsh...

DENMARK: Masters graduates overseas face study bill

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 09:28:00 +0200

The Danish government intends to make masters students who go on to ...

NIGERIA: President orders probe into campus rape

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:07:00 +0200

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan has ordered a police investigat...

KENYA: Double student intake kicks off at Kenyatta

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 09:10:06 +0200

Kenyatta University has become the first in the country to enrol two...

GERMANY: Launch of digital campus network

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 09:05:22 +0200

Dubbed the Collaboration Network for Academia, the world's first 'iversity', which has been set up by a team of young entreprene...

MAURITIUS: Minister outlines knowledge hub plans

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:55:58 +0200

Africa's most developed country, the small island state of Mauritius...

CHINA: Hong Kong helps to upgrade medical training

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:50:00 +0200

Prestigious overseas universities have been hovering in China hoping...

GLOBAL: A buyers' guide to branch campuses

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:48:31 +0200

Ministers of education in developing economies around the globe are trying to make sense of the growth of university branch campuses. Their neighbors and competitors have them, local citizens seem ...

GLOBAL: The future of international student mobility

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:44:59 +0200

International student mobility in the first decade of the 21st centu...

AUSTRALIA: Tackling the fall in international education

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:42:03 +0200

In the two decades after 1990 the number of international students i...

UK: In defence of public higher education

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:40:51 +0200

In May 2010 a new government was formed in the UK out of a coalition...

GLOBAL: Humans exhaust nature's budget

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:38:07 +0200

Humanity is surpassing 'nature's budget' for the year and is moving ...

UK: Playing ping-pong with electrons

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:36:15 +0200

Scientists at Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory have demon...

AUSTRALIA: Aborigines reached Asia first

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:34:00 +0200

A 100-year-old lock of hair from a West Australian Aboriginal man ha...

GLOBAL: Serpentine subduction in transfer

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:32:28 +0200

An international team of scientists has provided new insights into the processes behind the evolution of the planet by demonstrating how salty water and gases transfer from the atmosphere into the ...

GLOBAL: Professors take academic road to the East

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:26:14 +0200

A decade ago most aspiring business professors headed West, to the US. These days they are heading in the opposite direction: Asia is becoming the hotspot for the top management thinkers, writes De...

UK: Universities 'over-report' on foreign students

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:24:35 +0200

A new report shows that British lecturers and staff have raised concerns over student absence or activities on more than 35,000 occasions in the past two years, writes Tom Whitehead for ...

US: Harvard endowment rises to US$32 billion

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:22:49 +0200

Harvard University has consolidated its position as the richest university in the world, with the value of its endowment rising by 20% to �20.7 billion (US$32.4 billion), reports the ...

US: Princeton adopts open access policy

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:20:09 +0200

The movement to make research freely available got a high-profile boost last week with the news that Princeton University's faculty has unanimously adopted an open access policy, writes Jennifer Ho...

US: Too many rules in higher education, study finds

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:18:58 +0200

After surveying more than 2,000 higher education officials about which federal regulations they find too burdensome, a federal panel now has its answer: almost all of them, writes Libby A Nelson fo...

DENMARK: Online network to recruit Chinese talent

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:16:13 +0200

Denmark last week launched the first-ever website to enable talented Chinese students and professionals to connect directly with Danish universities and firms, reports Xinhu ...

JAPAN: Universities under-utilise facilities - survey

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:14:23 +0200

Many of Japan's most prestigious universities spend huge amounts of money on unutilised and unnecessary facilities, reports the Mainichi Daily News. A recent survey cond...

NIGERIA: Staff strike cripples universities

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:12:41 +0200

There was total compliance last week with the one-week nationwide warning strike by Nigeria's Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, which disrupted examinations in the nation's premier Univer...

ZIMBABWE: Under-resourced universities under threat

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:10:49 +0200

The Zimbabwean government has threatened to shut down under-resourced universities, saying the institutions are compromising education standards, according to The Africa Report...

TAIWAN: 'Spying' professor under investigation

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:04:23 +0200

Prosecutors in Taiwan last week investigated Wu Chang-yu, an associate professor in the Central Police University's department of administrative management, in connection with passing information o...

JORDAN: Displaced medical students to study locally

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:03:41 +0200

All Jordanians studying medicine in Yemen and Libya will be accepted at local universities provided that they pass the entrance exams prepared by the medical faculties of the institutions, a senior...

SWEDEN: Academics may apply for jobs in Swedish

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:02:59 +0200

Three Swedish universities, which had placed job advertisements requiring certain applications to be filed in English, are now being told to change their approach after a recent decision that gives...

UK: Universities face cuts for not boosting access

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:02:19 +0200

Universities have been told to enrol more students from disadvantaged groups or they could be ordered to cut their fees, writes Richard Garner for The Independent. A rep...

SCOTLAND: Anger over rush to agree on merger

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:01:39 +0200

Two of Scotland's universities are under pressure to agree to merge within weeks in a bid to save money, it has emerged. The Scottish Funding Council, which provides Scottish government cash for hi...

US: Universities urge freshmen to study humanities

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:00:59 +0200

On 21st century American campuses, is there room for Shakespeare, Sartre and Sondheim? A declining number of students think so, a trend that worries leaders at many top universities, where engineer...

US: 'Irvine 11' plan to appeal heckling conviction

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:00:16 +0200

A group of Muslim students who were convicted on 23 September of disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador at the University of California, Irvine, plan to appeal as Muslim community leaders ca...

US: Bake sale: Clever satire or over-the-top stunt?

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:59:32 +0200

The bake sale was supposed to be a satire, drawing attention to what organisers feel is a discriminating and racist bill, now on the desk of California Governor Jerry Brown, that would allow the st...

WALES: Plans for super-institution unveiled

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:58:43 +0200

A university last week mapped out its blueprint for a new super-institution bringing together partners in southeast Wales. The University of Wales, Newport, talked of a new era for higher education...

UK: Manchester professor revives Beethoven classic

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:30:39 +0200

A lost Beethoven masterpiece has been painstakingly reconstructed by...

NORTH KOREA: Ruler's grandson to study in Bosnia

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 08:28:56 +0200

While Chinese leaders send their offspring to America and Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe sends his to Hong Kong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il favours...Bosnia, reports T...

GLOBAL: New scoreboard for research and innovation

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:46:08 +0200

Although research efforts by universities and private organisations are increasing across the globe, most research remains highly concentrated in a small number of US universities, according to a j...

EUROPE: New continental higher education strategy

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 08:22:00 +0200

The European Union's 4,000 universities and other tertiary institutions are not doing enough to help create jobs and economic growth, and their ability to contribute to prosperity remains underexpl...

GREECE: Students escalate opposition to reforms

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:40:50 +0200

Greece's Education Secretary Anna Diamantopoulou (pictured) has warn...

CHINA: Student flows to US forecast to fall - study

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:39:35 +0200

The flow of students from China to universities in America is forecast to fall between now and 2015 but rise to Canada and Australia, according to student mobility forecasts by the British Council....

NEW ZEALAND: Quake-hit university to cut jobs

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:38:28 +0200

First they were rocked by a deadly earthquake, now staff at the University of Canterbury are facing job cuts. The university in New Zealand's South Island has suffered a 13% drop in enrolments sinc...

CHINA: Mao raises questions over celebrity professors

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:37:00 +0200

When it was revealed last week that the grandson of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong was teaching at a college in Guangzhou, in southern Guangdong province, it unleashed a barrage of comment in C...

AUSTRALIA: Another Confucius Institute established

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:24:38 +0200

China continues its 'soft power' diplomatic efforts to expand its in...

SOUTH AFRICA: Researcher rating boosts publication

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:23:00 +0200

Recent research indicates that the evaluation and rating system for ...

BOTSWANA: Decision soon on stalled new university

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:50:37 +0200

The future of the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) at Palapye, 260 kilometres northeast of the capital Gaborone, will be known in early October. The potential of ...

EUROPE: What role for the EU in an era of austerity?

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:21:52 +0200

How does the recession affect higher education in Europe and what im...

MIDDLE EAST: Rankings herald an Arab renaissance

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:20:00 +0200

The recent news from the global rankings produced by Quacquarelli Symonds of London and Shanghai Jiao Tong University shows that the Saudi Arabian government's plans to create a knowledge-based eco...

AUSTRALIA: The problem with ERA

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 09:17:00 +0200

Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) has the laudable aim of i...