Breaking News
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
The Trump administration’s compact offered to nine elite universities has provoked alarm among higher education leaders. It demands surrender of academic freedom and curbs on international recruitment in return for federal funding, a Faustian pact borrowing from the authoritarian playbook of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.
HONG KONG-EUROPE
Yojana Sharma
ARGENTINA
Mónica Marquina
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
Top Stories
GLOBAL
Scale of intervention in US ‘bigger than in McCarthy era’
Nathan M Greenfield
The latest Scholars at Risk academic freedom report details how pressure on institutional autonomy and academic freedom in authoritarian states has combined with ‘historic levels’ of pressure on academia in liberal democracies, principally the United States, aimed at long-term control by anti-democratic forces.
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
JAPAN
Suvendrini Kakuchi
UNITED KINGDOM
Nic Mitchell
News
SOUTH KOREA
Yumi Jeung
A new university ranking in South Korea – its first ever national rankings – is heavily weighted towards internationalisation and aims to provide objective and reliable information to international students whose numbers have seen a significant increase in the country’s universities over the last three years.
AFGHANISTAN
Manija Mirzaie
UNITED STATES
Nathan M Greenfield
GAMBIA-MAURITANIA
Elizia Volkmann
DENMARK
Jan Petter Myklebust
Amid elevated political temperatures in Denmark, particularly around the issue of immigration, the government has announced a series of measures aimed at preventing third-country international students from using their entry into the country to study as a back door into the labour market.
DENMARK
Jan Petter Myklebust
Amid outrage over anti-immigration comments from a university leader, the Bangladeshi student community in Denmark has called for Danish authorities and universities to review the involvement of ‘intermediary agencies’ in student admissions to address concerns about the misuse of student residence visas.
EGYPT
Wagdy Sawahel
The Egyptian higher education sector is expanding regionally with the establishment of several new branch campuses across Africa, adding to its existing three, while it also has plans to venture into the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Greece.
Edtech, AI and Higher Education
GLOBAL
Richard Watermeyer, Donna Lanclos and Lawrie Phipps
In a resource-deprived context, only the most prestigious, and accordingly, financially resilient institutions, will be able to resist dependency on AI tools and assert human-centrism as a badge of quality that distinguishes them from mainstream providers. The consequences of this are considerable.
GLOBAL
James Yoonil Auh
The debate over whether universities should adopt AI is behind us. The real issue is how higher education will operate in an ‘atmosphere of cognition’, where AI has been absorbed into the invisible infrastructure of institutional life. Will universities adapt or drift into irrelevance?
GLOBAL
Victor Lim Fei, Yee Jia’en and Jerrold Quek
A new study based on students’ physiological responses to AI interaction confirms that teachers are largely irreplaceable. But using AI as an aide rather than a replacement in the classroom can give teachers more space to support students who most need it.
World Blog
INDONESIA
Ali Yasfi
The underemployment of STEM graduates in Indonesia highlights the need not only for technical training, but individual agentic capital – the capacity among graduates to make strategic decisions, initiate actions and mobilise resources in ways that align with personal goals, identity and context.
Changemakers II
GLOBAL
This University World News series looks at whole higher education institutions that have become champions of transforming society and planetary health. Here we look at IHE Delft, in the Netherlands, whose work in water education, research and capacity development greatly contributes to global sustainability.
GLOBAL
Karen MacGregor
Walking the sustainability talk, IHE Delft in the Netherlands – the world’s largest international graduate water education institution – has trained a network of more than 25,000 water experts, mostly from across the Global South. “We are part of creating sustainable development in countries for the long term,” says Rector Eddy Moors.
GLOBAL
Andreia Nogueira
AUDIO INTERVIEW: Fredrik Huthoff, a professor at IHE Delft and at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, bridges engineering, policy and practice to address urgent water challenges. “What I really like to do is to dig into complex problems, and work with advanced technologies, to find solutions that make a difference.”
MEXICO-GLOBAL
Karen MacGregor
SDGs
LATIN AMERICA-CARIBBEAN
Gonzalo Baroni
The recommendations of a new study offer an opportunity to build on the legacy of solidarity and inclusion in Latin America and the Caribbean region and connect national refugee qualification recognition practices to regional and global standards, thus ensuring no one is left behind.
SOUTH AFRICA
Alicia James
The publication of the new South African Higher Education Institutional Types Policy will increase access to higher education by formally including public colleges of nursing, agriculture, and emergency and medical care. This could relieve some pressure on state universities that struggle to cope with the demand.
SOUTH AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
Higher education institutions in South Africa and across Africa must lead in equipping young people with the skills, research capacity and opportunities necessary to drive a just and sustainable transition – a core message at the inaugural International Conference on Climate Resilience, Smart and Sustainable Futures.
Features
MALAWI
Clemence Manyukwe
Malawi’s new president, Arthur Peter Mutharika, who has lectured across the world, has pledged to initiate higher education reforms after he was declared the winner in the country’s presidential poll on 24 September. Students asked that he prioritise problems related to loans and grants, infrastructure and digitalisation.
Top Stories from Last Week
AFRICA
Eve Ruwoko
Higher education and research have to take centre stage in shaping Africa’s future – from data sovereignty to artificial intelligence and global health innovation – according to experts who participated in an event that formed part of the Science Summit 2025 during the United Nations General Assembly.
GLOBAL
Saygi Ünlü
AFRICA-UNITED STATES
Clemence Manyukwe
AFGHANISTAN
Manija Mirzaie
RUSSIA
Sanshiro Hosaka
Russian espionage in universities has received little attention in higher education communities, leaving disengaged scholars and disinterested students among the most vulnerable targets. Downplaying the issue does not make it go away. The elephant in the lecture hall looms too large for that.
KENYA
Scovian Lillian
Kenyan horticulturist Professor Mary Abukutsa’s decades of work on indigenous African vegetables were recognised on the highest level when she won the 2025 Africa Food Prize at the Africa Food Systems Forum in Dakar, Senegal. The award recognises changemakers in Africa’s food systems.
COLOMBIA
Nathan M Greenfield
Despite ongoing deadly attacks by violent dissidents that put strain on Colombia’s national peace process and mounting public pressure for a military solution, the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Cali – a Jesuit university – remains steadfastly committed to peace through actively encouraging understanding and dialogue.
UNITED STATES
John Aubrey Douglass
Given the blitzkrieg of attacks on higher education and research in the past nine months, what should we expect from the Trump administration going into a new federal fiscal year and leading up to the midterm elections, and could blue states fight back?