Finland reaches out to Asia
HELSINKI (pie news) -- A new project has set an ambitious target of attracting 100,000 international students to Finnish universities – more than triple the current number. In collaboration with its sister company, Asia Exchange, Edunation (Finland) will seek to attract primarily Asian students. There were 30,827 international students in Finland in 2015 ... read more 08.03.2017
Right-wing populism threatens Dutch science
THE HAGUE (nature) -- Public trust in science is higher in the Netherlands than in most other highly developed countries. But anxiety is rising in the science community as right-wing populism has spread to the political mainstream. Universities and research institutions have seen some of their international programmes and policies publicly questioned. And the rectors expressed their concerns last month in an open letter, reminding politicians and the public of the merits of freely pursuing science and the drawbacks of restricting immigration for scholars and researchers ... read more 08.03.2017
Swiss are European patent champions
BERN (the local) -- Switzerland made more European patent applications per capita in 2016 than any other country, more than the Netherlands, in second place with 405 applications, and Sweden in third, with 360 applications. “The figure is an indicator of the growing demand for patent protection from businesses worldwide”, the European Patent Office said in a statement.
ETH Zurich and EPFL in Lausanne made 71 and 80 patent applications respectively. Among Swiss companies, pharma multinational Hoffmann-La Roche made the most patent applications (644), followed by tech leader ABB (553) and food giant Nestle (442) ... read more 07.03.2017
Plagiarism dispute in Croatia
ZAGREB (slobodna dalmacija) -- Quoting your sources is the sine qua non of scientific credibility. Sanja Knežević, Head of the Department of Croatian Language and Literature in Zagreb, found her ideas in a work of the writer and critic Nikola Šimić Tonin and asked him directly to qote her correctly. After the response had only been denial, she turned to the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Philosophy ... read more 07.03.2017
Higher ed in the 2017 French presidential election
PARIS (le monde) -- In anticipation of the 2017 French presidential election on April 23, two candidates have presented their positions on tertiary education and research:
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, founder of the movement La France insoumise, has presented a 10-point emergency plan for higher education and research which includes doubling the higher ed and research budget, the abolition tuition fees and the repeal of the research tax credit (CIR), a “notoriously inefficient tax loophole meant encourage private investment in research and costing €5.5 billion per year”.
Emmanuel Macron, former minister of economy and founder of the independent liberal party En Marche!, wants to “give universities and grandes écoles the freedom to recruit teachers and researchers according to international standards of quality and independence” ... read more 06.03.2017
Possible university merger in Belgium
BRUSSELS (la libre) -- Last week, all community members of the Université Saint-Louis in Brussels, specialised in humanities and social sciences, found an 80-page document on their desks. The administration wants to reopen the debate about the possible merger with the much bigger Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) started last summer ... read more 4.3.17
EU fosters private investment in public research
BRUSSELS (bnn) -- The European Union is fostering public-private partnerships to take its agenda forward as the ‘UNESCO Science Report’ of 2015 shows. In 2010 the so-called Innovation Union flagship project was introduced in order to remove obstacles to innovation, such as expensive patenting, market fragmentation, slow standard-setting, skills shortages and duplicated research efforts in different member states. The project funds partnerships between European institutions, national and regional authorities and businesses. Reflected at the national level, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Romania and others all stressing a shift in focus ... read more .03.2017
Women in STEM
LONDON (rs) -- For #IWD2017, the Royal Society celebrates the global achievements of 160 women in science, tech, engineering & maths ... video
Brexit slowly infects student mobility
LONDON (guardian) -- Reassurance from the British immigration authorities appears to have enabled a German student who is doing her PhD on the Orkney Islands in northern Scotland to return to the UK after a trip. However, she is not the first EU student fearing their stay permit in the UK could be revoked because they lack the right health insurance ... read more 07.03.2017
Coursera expands in Europe
PARIS (benzinga) -- Coursera announced growth of its enterprise platform Coursera for Business with a new set of customers in the European market such as Air France KLM and Unicredit. “Companies in this region are eager to work with us and our university partners to equip their employees with high demand skills needed to excel in today’s economy,” said Rick Levin, CEO of Californian online education company ... read more 07.03.2017
Denmark scales back university autonomy
COPENHAGEN (uwn) -- Danish science minister Søren Pind has surprised everybody by endorsing an extensive new legislative proposal on the governance of higher education institutions, giving the government the final choice on the appointment of heads of university boards. The universities would be responsible for the process leading up to the proposal of the board members, but the final decision would be taken by the minister. Lars Qvistgaard, president of Akademikerne, the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations, said that the proposal is breaking with the principle of the ministry keeping at arm’s length from the higher education institutions ... read more 01.03.2017
Austerity pushes Greeks to study and to go abroad
ATHENS (greek reporter) -- The number of the so-called eternal students in Greek universities and technical colleges (who are registered but do not graduate) has doubled since 2003 amounting to 330,000. Another problem is that of those who graduate, one in ten goes abroad ... read more .03.2017
Poland: Science aligns to any political system
WARSAW (nature)
The days of hardship are over, nature argues. Poland’s research intensity almost doubled between 2005 and 2015, to one percent. Its GDP grew even faster, so overall public and private science spending more than tripled, to €4.3 billion. And since 2004, when the country was one of several from the former Eastern bloc to join the European Union, about €100 billion in EU infrastructure funding has been spent on modernizing roads, hospitals — and scientific facilities. The lion’s share of scientific publications produced in Eastern Europe is Polish ... read more 22.02.2017
European sister marches for science in 8 countries
AMSTERDAM (science) U.S. cities won’t be the only places where lab coats will fill the streets on 22 April. Groups in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands have announced “solidarity marches” in support of the U.S. March for Science, to be held on Earth Day. Bigger countries may see several ... read more 02.02.2017
Master Card funds Science Po grants
PARIS (africa.com) The MasterCard Foundation (with assets of $8-9 billion one of the biggest philantropic organisation worldwide) has announced a six-year, €7.6 million partnership with Sciences Po in Paris, to provide 120 bright African students with scholarships for a social sciences education. Sciences Po is the first continental European university to join the foundation’s global network of 28 partner organisations ... read more 23.02.2017