Time for BRUCS
LONDON (qs) -- To make things sound catchy, we have acronyms. BRICS for emerging economies, and now BRUCS for ‘emerging study destinations’. The candidates are Brazil–Rhineland–UAE–China–Singapore. These are, according to QS, new higher-education markets that are becoming increasingly relevant for students. The only European member is the Rhine-land which refers to Germany and Netherlands with astrong research base ... read more 7.3.18
German surprise minister
BERLIN (science) -- In a surprise move, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has chosen little-known lawmaker Anja Karliczek as the country’s next minister of education and research. Karliczek has a background in banking and business but little experience in science and education policy.
Karliczek is expected to have some money to play with. The coalition agreement promises an increase of 3 percent per year for research agencies and increasing research spending from 2.9 of GDP to 3.5 percent ... read more 27.02.2018
Too few women authors on research papers
LONDON (nature) -- An analysis of research papers in 15 prestigious journals indicates that the proportion of female authors has been consistently low over the past 13 years. This under-representation negatively affects the careers of thousands of female scientists ... read more 07.03.2018
UK-EU, half in, half out
BRUSSELS (s|b) -- Brussels wants the UK in EU research programmes after Brexit, but rejected their bid to become an associate member of regulatory bodies including the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The EU, a statement says, “will preserve its autonomy as regards its decision-making, which excludes participation of the UK as a third country [in] EU Institutions, agencies or bodies” ... read more 8.3.18
Switzerland: The black sheep of university privatisation
BERN (swi) -- The industry-funded think-tank Avenir Suisse dislikes the incredible success of state-sponsored higher education in Switzerland. In a 96-pager it cannot but praise the successs of the country with six world-class universities and a 70 percent increase in public education spending since 2000, but good is not enough: tuition fees are not high enough, double courses should be streamlined. But universities and students alike do not agree ... read more xx.02.2018
US still dominates global higher education market
LONDON (pienews) -- With the last snow, equally fast melting news come from the latest Quacquarelli Symonds universities ranking ... read more 28.2.18
Italian universities charged excessive fees
ROME (repubblica) -- Italian universities have charged —illegally— excessively high tuition fees, the Italian student union UDU revealed in a report. Based on public figures, the report shows that in 2015 alone universities have cashed in 269 million euros above the limit set by law. After the University of Pavia had been sentenced to repay 8 million euros in 2016, a sword of Damocles is hanging now over the entire sector ... read more 02.03.2018
UK wants new move on Open Access policy
LONDON (nature) -- The UK’s main public research funder will reassess its open-access policy, amid concern that a national drive to make papers free to read might not be financially sustainable. A new UK Research and Innovation body will unite nine UK research-funding agencies in April and, said its chief executive, Mark Walport, conduct an internal review of the policy this year ... read more | and here 01.03.2018
Denmark pushes for European debt collection agency
COPENHAGEN (uwn) -- “Denmark is not to be a ‘gift heaven’ where we let foreign citizens leave without repaying their debts,” tax minister Karsten Lauritzen said. He and science minister Søren Pind want to persuade the European Commission to agree to a Union-wide initiative for student debt recovery across member states ... read more 01.03.2018
4th edition of the European Universities Games
LJUBLJANA (eusa) -- Starting in July 15, Coimbra will host the fourth edition of the European Universities Games. The registrations for the largest university sport event in Europe are open until March 15. The Games will feature Badminton, Basketball, Football, Futsal, Handball, Judo, Rowing, Rugby, Table Tennis, Tennis, Volleyball and Canoe Sprint ... read more 22.2.18
CEU in Budapest reaccredited
BUDAPEST (nyt) -- A Budapest university threatened with being shut down after emerging as a high-profile target of government attacks on its founder, the financier George Soros, announced a bit of welcome news on Wednesday: It has been reaccredited for the next five years ... read more 28.02.2018
Big Russian universities want to commercialise
MOSCOW (uwn) -- The annual revenue of Russia’s largest universities, from the sales of its commercial developments to business, is many times lower than that of their Western counterparts. According to the Association of the Classical Universities of Russia, this has to change ... read more 03.03.2018
Ethics for Romanian universities
BUCAREST (esu) -- Starting this fall, Romanian universities will be required to include ethics and academic integrity courses in their curricula. The Ministry of National Education has issued an order requiring these courses at master and PhD level after in recent years there have been many cases accusing public figures of plagiarism. For years, the national student union ANOSR made efforts in this direction ... read more 26.02.2018
Icelandic students demand grants, not loans
REYKJAVIK (esu) -- With a new strategy paper, Iceland’s student union has met with the education minister, Lilju Alfreðsdóttir. The students want a change to the outdated student funding system and demand grants instead of loans ... read more 27.02.2018
Wishlist of internationalisation
HONG KONG (abc) -- A Hong Kong-based student fair company asked students from the poorest countries in the world where and what they’d like to study. Their favourite destinations are Canada, the UK, the USA, Russia, and Germany, where they dream of learning Medicine, Engineering or other Tech Sciences, Business or Social Sciences, Education, and Aviation ... read more