Outgoing Erasmus University Rotterdam president discusses the underappreciated value of the social sciences, managing student protests and the differences between Dutch and German higher education
University of Technology Sydney head on achieving impact on policy and sustainability by building partnerships, fossil fuel divestment and boosting Indigenous enrolment
As overhaul presses staff and students to broaden horizons, president discusses handling faculty pushback, maintaining a vital Samsung partnership and dealing with disgruntled alumni
The interim president of Michigan State University shares her approach to healing the campus community after a deadly shooting and sexual misconduct crises
Michel Mawad fights to keep the lights on at Lebanese American University and its teaching hospitals, and to keep staff while supporting students amid economic and political crisis. But he’s not giving up
Lund University vice-chancellor discusses the challenges of working with business, creating an innovation valley in the Baltic region and managing one’s friends
New chair of global guards’ association on being the first port of call for emergencies, helping students with their mental health and planning for terrorist attacks
The product of a warm and happy childhood spent tinkering with computers explains how soft expectations created a personal drive that startled lab colleagues
Cambridge professor discusses swapping engineering for history, why researchers overlook the Indian and Pacific oceans, and what it means to offer ‘an environmental lens’ on imperial history
The Nottingham historian discusses founding a library in the Indian village where he grew up and the need for alternatives to the ‘false promises of neoliberal education’
The winner of this year’s Leverhulme Medal discusses what it means to be a feminist historian and how contemporary politics, and a surprising find in Jamaica, changed her research
Ashoka University professor and novelist discusses academic life in the US and India, as well as his next novel, which explores ‘the ethics of education’
The former Austrian molecular biologist explains how a boring childhood was an advantage, why he switched careers and how designing board games is like basic research
Artist and researcher Anthony Schrag on the importance of interdisciplinarity, how university changed him and why art will be even more important in the post-Covid world
The LSE management expert describes how workers can gain confidence to speak up, the culture shock of academia and what she learned from a drag king workshop
Winner of award for women in science in the developing world discusses growing up in a family of eight in Ghana and ‘feeling like Christmas’ when she is on a podium
The epigeneticist and new Max Planck vice-president on a global childhood, the pleasures of buses running on time, and why young researchers are more stressed than ever
The human rights barrister and author reflects on his path into international law, the university course that changed history and what the UK’s ‘lazy’ and ‘narcissistic’ prime minister could learn from Keir Starmer
Simone Buitendijk emphasises that efforts to improve diversity must not be left to under-represented groups as she takes top job at Yorkshire powerhouse
The ecologist with more air miles than most on alternative pathways to the professoriate, Australia’s natural boom-bust cycles and whether there is hope for the platypus
