Belarus integrates further into Bologna Process
MINSK (eurobelarus) -- In a recent workshop in Minsk, the Roadmap of Belarus’ integration into the European higher education area was discussed. One major step to achieve this, Sijbolt Noorda, head of the Magna Charta Observatory, is setting up a quality assurance system and the inclusion of students in the decision-making on various levels ... read more | and here 13.12.2015
Rhine-Main universities establish strategic alliance
MAINZ (eurekalert) -- The three presidents of universities in Darmstadt, Mainz and Frankfurt have signed a cross-border framework agreement. As centers of scholarship and research, they intend to promote the development of the Rhine-Main region as an international knowledge hub ... read more 11.12.2015
Deep university budget cuts in Wales
CARDIFF (wales online) -- The Welsh government has reduced the regions higher education budget by 41 million pounds or 32 percent within the next two years. There is every chance this could lead to more tuition fees and the possibility of mergers further down the line ... read more 12.12.2015
EU to remove copyright obstacle to data mining
BRUSSELS (uwn) -- The European Commission has proposed an exception in the EU copyright legislation in order to give researchers and innovators the explicit right to process data on a large scale ... read more 11.12.2015
Erdoğan vows support to universities in southeast
ANKARA (saily sabah) -- The heads of 24 universities met with President resident Recep Erdoğan and conveyed problems of their universities. It is urgent, they said, to attract more academics to the region, which suffered for decades from underdevelopment because of deteriorated security. The meeting also focused on the diversification in the universities’ missions and the role of universities in regional development ... read more 10.12.2015
Dutch universities and Elsevier reach deal
THE HAGUE (the) -- Dutch universities and the publishing house Elsevier have reached a deal over institutional subscriptions that will lead to more academics being able to publish their work on an open access basis. The new three-year agreement ... read more | see also 10.12.2015
Cyber attack on British universities
LONDON (gizmodo) -- University students
across the UK have been unable to submit work, after the academic
computer network known as Janet came under cyber-attack. With term
coming to a close, students have reportedly missed their deadlines for
work, as submission systems have been largely inaccessible. The Register
reports that the attackers haven’t yet made a ransom demand ... read more 08.12.2015
Most of Syrians arriving in Greece are students
GENEVA (unhcr) -- Almost 800,000 refugees arrived on the Greek Islands near Turkey in 2015. The vast majority of those surveyed were under 35. The most frequently mentioned occupation was student, followed by merchants and craftsmen, engineers, architects and doctors. Overall, the profile is of a highly-skilled population on the move ... read more 08.12.2015
Employment trends make university brands
LONDON (the) -- One in four international recruiters choose students from preferred institutions. This is one result of the Global Employability University Ranking that show a shift of employers’ focus away from academic qualifications and students’ nationality ... read more | and here 12.11.2015
The de-intellectualisation of Austria
VIENNA (standard) -- In an effort to redesign the Austrian higher education and research landscape, the science ministry plans a series of measures. One is to ‘divert’ students from universities into universities of applied sciences with a shorter, technophilic professional education ... read more 03.12.2015
Swiss universities renew Microsoft licences until 2019
ZURICH (inside-it) -- Swiss universities have renewed their software licence contracts with Microsoft until 2019. Criticism that (more) open source software should be used in order to save public funds has faded. The agreements have been negotiated by the foundation under private law SWITCH ... read more | and here 02.12.2015
Who profits from internal German student migration
MÜNCHEN (aw) -- The destinations of university graduates are not necessarily the regions where the education took place. The city states Hamburg and Berlin and the industrial south of Germany profit most from the student migration ... read more 07.12.2015
UK students rise up against soaring housing rents
LONDON (guardian) -- Student accommodation now takes up 95 percent of the maximum amount of finance available to students in the United Kingdom, according to the student union NUS. Demands for cuts and compensation spread as protests in London call for 40 percent reduction in accommodation costs ... read more 06.12.2016
Tunisia joins Horizon 2020
BRUSSELS (enpi) -- Researchers and innovators from Tunisia will now be able to participate in the EU programme Horizon 2020, under the same conditions as their counterparts from EU Member States and another 13 associated countries. The agreement was signed on 1 December ... read more 03.12.2015
Wiki algorithm reveals world’s most influential universities
BOSTON (technology review) -- The diversity of countries is greater in the Wikipedia list, including universities from Africa such as Al-Azhar University in Egypt. Japanese and Indian universities are more prominent. Germany is the second highest ranked country after the U.S. ... read more 07.12.2015
UK: Casual contracts threaten teaching quality
LONDON (guardian) -- Job security in higher education eroding. In Great Britain, further and higher education are second only to the hospitality sector in their use of casual contracts. More than 24,000 university academics are on zero-hours contracts, according to the university union UCU ... read more 01.12.2015
Technical studies on the rise in Poland
WARSAW (thenews) -- This year, the largest number of candidates opted for IT, law and management ... read more 07.12.2015
European code on science misconduct to be updated
BRUSSELS (s|b) -- Research Commissioner Carlos Moedas this week told EU research ministers that the Commission will update the code of conduct for researchers, so as to better discourage fraud and other misconduct and reflect the fact that an increasing amount of publicly-funded research is carried out beyond the walls of the university lab ... read more 03.12.2015
EU keen to permit talent immigration
BRUSSELS (aca) -- The European Union is planning to harmonise entry and residence rules for non-EU students and researchers in its quest to attract top talent from around the world. The new rules, agreed upon informally among MEPs and Council Ministers earlier this month, would improve conditions for non-EU nationals pursuing studies or research in the EU by easing their movement within the Union and ensuring their equal access to the labour market in all member states ... read more 30.11.2015
Elsevier editors quit in battle for open access
LEIDEN (wired) -- The editors for the linguistics journal Lingua had finally had enough. On October 27, the journal’s six editors and 31 members of its editorial board quit. Their beef? The high fees Elsevier charges authors and academic institutions to see the journal. A lower price, the publishing house argued, would be “not sustainable” ... read more | and here 05.11.2015
Academics oppose UK airstrike in Syria
LONDON (guardian) -- Ken Loach, Brian Eno and Frankie Boyle are among dozens of actors, writers, academics and trade union chiefs who have signed a letter telling David Cameron to keep British forces out of the air war on Syria ... read more 27.11.2015
Google pays favourable research results
WASHINGTON (business insider) -- Between 2011 and 2013, Google donated more than $760,000 to George Mason University in Virginia, which published a number of favourable research papers and ... read more 24.11.2015
More democracy for Greek universities?
ATHENS (greek reporter) -- Education Minister Nikos Filis and Deputy Sia Anagnostopoulou believe there is not enough democracy in Greek universities and they want to give more
power to the students. Not everybody is enthusiastic about their law proposals ... read more 27.11.2015
Students and sex
CAMBRIDGE/RHEINGAU -- Adolescent transgressions are such in a prudish society. In one case, a provocative video of students at the European Business School of Rheingau, Germany, has been erased from Vimeo and the students apologised. In another, the yellow press publicises the ‘best butt’ competition of Cambridge University students ... read more | and here 29.11.2015
Student aid in Portigal delayed for years
LISBON (tvi24) -- About a hundred students gathered at the gates of the Education Ministry in Lisbon in protest of delayed grant payments and bad study conditions ... read more 26.11.2015
Spanish higher ed on the path of liberalism
CORUÑA (la voz) -- Spanish universities are pushing towards more autonomy — at the cost of commercialisation. With the new academic year beginning, rectors (CRUE) and university councils (CCS) are lobbying in favour of a presidential governance system, legal and financial authority and a closer relationship with industry ... read more | and here 02.12.2015
Italian secret service on tour at universities
VENICE (agi) -- ‘Intelligence live’ is the title of a lecture at the University Ca’ Foscari in Venice which is part of a roadshow of the Italian secret service DIS around the country’s universities. In these lectures, 22 up to now, students learn about the work of the intelligence service, discuss current security issues and the involvement of research ... read more 27.11.2015
Austrian dreams of innovation leadership
VIENNA (öj) -- The European Day at the Austrian ministry for science and economy was an occasion to present and discuss a comparative study on innovation systems. Austria, the authors write, should mimic the science policies of Sweden and Denmark: increase funding, but distributed in a competitive manner, privatisation through foundations, institutional mergers and shifting students from the universities towards the more vocational oriented universities of applied sciences ... read more | and here 27.11.2015
Prague universities sue President Zeman
PRAGUE (čtk) -- Charles University and the University of Economics have filed a criminal complaint with the municipal court against Czech President Milos Zeman for not appointing three nominated professors. In 2013, Zeman refused to appoint one of them due to his participation in the Prague Pride march of sexual minorities. Some observers noted that the homosexual Putna was a resolute critic of Zeman ... read more 20.11.2015
Lithuania to reduce number of universities
VILNIUS (global post) -- President Dalia Grybauskaite proposes to change the Science and Studies Law in order to reduce student numbers and the number of Lithuanian universities ... read more 16.11.2015
German pharma industry goes crowd-sourcing
MUNICH (sz) -- Big Pharma in Germany is going new ways to raise ideas, find partners and create scientific partnerships. They publish their own calls for proposals in international networks, online and via universities, and lure inventive talents with juicy offers ... read more 30.11.2015
Chinese agenda for Central Eastern Europe
SUZHOU (fmprc) -- This week, the fourth meeting of China and leaders from Central and Eastern European countries took place in Suzhou, east China. Besides the trade and financial agreements (with a 10 billion dollar credit line for Eastern Europe), the participants agreed on enhanced technology transfer, student exchange and an education policy dialogue ... read more 24.11.2015
US assistance to Western Balkans
WASHINGTON (nra) -- In 2015, the United States has allocated more than 134 million dollars to advance the Western Balkans’ integration with the EU and NATO. Three million dollars were spent to strengthen vocational education and promote increased access to higher education ... read more 25.11.2015
More and more needy students in France
PARIS (sud ouest) -- Despite François Hollande’s electoral promise, in 2012, to give “priority to youth”, the number of French students living under precarious conditions is rising year by year. Last year alone, student numbers have grown by 65.000, rents went up by 12 percent, and tens of thousands of affordable flats are needed. Moreover, CROUS, the organisation responsible for student services and housing, sees its budget cut by 25 million euros in 2016 ... read more 27.11.2015
Record student numbers in Germany
BERLIN (az) -- The number of students in Germany has risen further to 2.8 million. Universities warned of underfunded student services. Critics see a lack of teaching staff, library places and student flats ... read more 25.11.2015
