World news

Australian university shrugs off Covid’s financial wrecking ball and even manages to bolster its insurance against future ‘shocks’

Complaints about essay mills peaked as online delivery concerns subsided, regulator’s report says

First institutional accounts reveal mixed results, with many institutions weathering the Covid storm but some plunging into deficit

Legislators push for change to be adopted nationally

‘Extremely careful’ attitude reflects scepticism over vaccine roll-out, but also unexpected success of forced switch to online learning

Universities Australia not releasing its latest ‘health check’, after the previous one revealed ‘harsh’ perceptions

Equity expert also highlights the risks of competitive grading and the benefits of diverse groupings

Minister’s suggestion, which has a troubled history, among several medium-term ideas to revive international education

More pain in store for Australian universities, as bankruptcy beckons the colleges and agencies that scaffold their international operations

Science minister’s replacement could curb momentum on women’s progress in STEM, critics fear

Universities face ban on deals with foreign partners that lack ‘institutional autonomy’, as they wrestle with similar demons

Australian universities’ standing in global league tables may have plateaued

Research projects examining humanitarian crises and school inequality the latest to come under a cloud

Beijing has banned dozens of China researchers and their families, while the country’s embassy to France called an expert a “petty thug” on Twitter

Vietnamese analysis of Australian survey data affirms findings about education’s impacts on subjective well-being, but ‘does not settle the argument’

At the Future of Humanity Institute, early career researchers are given two years to work out which questions are really worth asking

Requirement for trainee doctors to undertake training in the bush has not been enough to keep them there after graduation

Most collaboration will continue, but emphasis on building the EU’s ‘strategic autonomy’ means academics in Israel, the UK and Switzerland could be shut out of some areas

Internal vetting found nothing wrong with rejected research projects, vice-chancellors tell parliament’s security committee

‘Ambiguous’ regulations and lack of clarity around national security concerns are keeping universities in the dark, Australian inquiry hears

Lift your game, minister tells Covid-struck universities, as students mark institutions down on engagement

Brussels-backed pilot project has borne fruit, but leaders say creating ‘seamless mobility’ across continent has been even more expensive and bureaucratic than expected

Chinese students becoming more supportive of authoritarian government during time in liberal democracy

Critics say university lent undue weight to analysis that was not peer-reviewed, but some worry scientists have shied away from fully investigating hypothesis

With every second institution sporting a new boss, or looking for one, the pool of replacements may be shrinking

New Sydney boss to earn much less than his predecessor – but more than Michael Spence’s current income in the UK

Selling the sector will be a key challenge for the former political adviser, journalist and media administrator chosen to lead Australia’s oldest university 

The pandemic may be goading Australia’s stay-at-home students to look further afield for their education, although some of them may ultimately decide to stay put

Educational link ‘as bad as it has ever been’, with billions of dollars at stake for universities

Sector leaders acknowledge ‘errors’ but deny deliberate withholding of pay

We want commercial success but can’t build it on an empty research larder, university lobby tells Canberra

Recession-driven domestic surge more than compensates for loss of international students at some institutions Down Under

Departures of Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell has prompted academics to ask if they should reconsider links with the technology giant

Debates around transgender rights illustrate why intellectual freedom rules must be in place before touchy topics arise, say authors

Unlike Dutch universities, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research cannot pay a ransom to attackers because it is a public body

Superficial thinking in Canberra is squandering transformative opportunity for higher education, Brisbane forum hears

Beijing follows Shenzhen and other cities in seeking to attract laureates, but experts question whether initiative will have trickle-down effect on basic science

As classes resume on Australian campuses, anxieties persist about the year ahead – domestically, and particularly internationally

Students who ‘strategically’ jettison subjects early are among the least likely to complete courses, Australian research finds

Universities must develop their own cultures of academic freedom rather than borrowing them, according to Australian authors

Academics and public health officials quit Covid-19 research or need police protection after attracting threats

Liberal politicians glorify Robert Menzies but few share his love for universities, says former Melbourne v-c Glyn Davis

Postgraduate admissions assessments may have digital element despite falling number of Covid cases

Campaigners say tight-knit elitism, boozy initiation weeks and a lacklustre administrative response have led to a culture of silence in grandes écoles

Top-ranked Melbourne the latest to declare a surplus in the face of pandemic

While notching up a leadership position can make a woman a role model, her treatment can be equally influential, professor says

Chinese ministry sanctions Australia’s joint programmes even though analyses highlight endemic problems in foreign teaching collaborations

Students share in small permanent increase to welfare payments

But Frédérique Vidal admits the term ‘has no scientific definition’, and it remains unclear who will conduct the investigation

Australian reviewer who proposed benchmarks before the crisis must now decide how and when to apply them

Australia’s post-Covid employment ‘circuit breaker’: casual professors, a revised 40/40/20 split and no more 18-month payouts

Organisation charged with leading probe says term has no ‘scientific reality’ and is being used to shut down academic discussion of race and colonialism

Industry operatives’ worst fears could cost universities thousands of staff and country tens of billions of dollars

Author of a comprehensive appraisal of university finances says officials want universities to keep money flows on the straight and narrow

Education department asserts right to approve language course closures while insisting that it ‘does not intervene’

Australian department ‘erroneously’ removed protection for former education minister’s pet courses

Warnings that some universities could become master’s-free zones overlook progress during the pandemic, vice-chancellors say

Study says academics should highlight unreviewed papers’ uncertainty

As military overlords revert to type, concerns mount over fate of detained Australian economist

Crisis precipitated by proposal that could have shifted pan-Pacific university’s headquarters from Fiji, embattled leader says