Head of school/department

Those planning new universities might think that a good institution will attract top staff wherever it is located. But is the quality of the environment beyond the ivory tower really so insignificant – and has the pandemic changed the calculus? Paul Jump runs through our survey results

International collaborations should focus on building institutions rather than individuals, say Adam Habib and Imraan Valodia

The loss of international income makes the improvement of universities’ online offerings all the more urgent

With the Covid-19 pandemic likely to prolong the need for mass online learning for some time, we seek the experts’ advice on how to do it well – from designing courses and maintaining engagement to choosing applications and carrying out experiments remotely

Obliging women to adopt ‘male’ characteristics is not just unfair – it also impoverishes university management, says Corinne Houart

India’s National Education Policy aims to establish a seamless connectivity between humanities and science, says Rup Narayan Das

System consolidation, regulatory simplification and undergraduate flexibility are positive steps, says Pushkar

Sustainable changes in digital learning will result from best practice alongside bold experimentation, say Friedrich Hesse, Volker Meyer-Guckel, Bitange Ndemo, Alexandros Papaspyridis, Rahim Rajan and Suzanne Walsh

Assessing doctoral candidates’ published papers instead would teach more useful skills and improve morale, says Noam Schimmel

Despite Auckland’s lockdown, the country’s handling of Covid-19 is increasing its attractiveness to students, says Roger Smyth

Academic endorsements cast little light while entrenching privilege, says Vincent Hiribarren

Universities and colleges are having to promise physical classes to protect enrolments, says Joseph Guarneri

Administrators must stop asking faculty of colour to do more than our fair share and then punishing us for it, says Josh Hiller

The Research Australia report has exposed the fault lines in health research funding, says Ross Coppel 

But in the new normal, the situation for female academics with children is even worse, says Enrica Maria Ferrara

Failure to act robustly risks legal, reputational and financial consequences for universities, says Susan Matthews

Managers must acknowledge that supervising some types of doctoral candidates is more labour-intensive, say Roger Watson and David Thompson

Social scientists should be judged on their impact, while journals should make room for under-represented voices, say academics

Falling staff-student ratios and low quality in some graduate programmes are prompting concern that more will mean worse, says Zhang Ruomei

Sexual violence at the student level is being addressed, but what about when the perpetrator is a member of staff, asks Heather Savigny

Stilted and unengaging Zoom lectures must not be allowed to become the new normal, says Nuria López

Artists are not empty dissemination vessels and must be respected and fairly paid for the expertise they bring, says Aoife Monks

Daily tweets, cake baking and discussion of James Bond film titles have all helped keep Anthony Smith sane

Horizon Europe will receive only a tiny fraction of an unprecedented €750 billion pandemic recovery package

Rather than simply endorsing complaints from the most vocal students and staff, we must react rigorously to curricular exclusions of all kinds, says Steven Greer

An oft-overlooked component of the research process is that simple little thing called leadership, says Matthew Flinders

NUS centre starts work with China-India relations, before turning to Sino-Japanese ties

The ability for PhD students to research previous students’ experience with particular examiners could reduce bad practice 

Scholars from Africa, Latin America and the Middle East should have new opportunities to guide internally displaced person policymaking

Never assume, never dominate the conversation and always have a Plan B are three of the lessons learned by Milena Head and Michael Hartmann

Legal challenges may succeed, but US universities must plan how to maintain physical classes come what may to avoid mass deportations, says Brian Wong

Covid-19 has underlined the need for more coordinated and comprehensive engagement with policymakers, say David Price, Sarah Chaytor and Andrew Wathey

Tributes paid to a scholar ‘ahead of his time’ in showing how history can ‘mobilise, empower and engage a wider public’

Steering the innovation currently taking place in educational institutions could have major long-term benefits, says Fernando Reimers

Female representation in Asian academia’s senior ranks is low by international standards. There are some encouraging signs that the situation is being addressed, but might the disproportionate effect of the Covid-19 lockdowns on women undo the good work? Joyce Lau reports

Progress will be very difficult if there is a loud cohort of academics who remain fundamentally opposed to it, says James Blackwell

Universities are in a powerful position to help societies address history in a way that informs the present and shapes the future, says Andrew Thompson

Volatility has become part of university managers’ new normal, but the effort won’t quickly become wasted, says David LeFevre

Even before coronavirus hit, Hong Kong was investing in new types of online education that challenge teaching conventions

But auditing such efforts will be difficult, while unintended consequences are always a risk, warns Athene Donald

We will need wisdom and common purpose to update multiple layers of norms, says Jinghai Li

New institution has jumped into research on AI system to help treat Covid-19 cases

Collaboration between the UK and China – and beyond – is needed more than ever to fight a pandemic in a politicised world

Why shouldn’t universities decide what to teach based on annual student demand, then hire temporary instructors, wonders Thomas Schneider

Without face-to-face interaction, new students could struggle to make friends and adapt to university study, leading to dropouts later, institutions fear

Failings on protective clothing have caused immense suffering for families of the dying, argues researcher

Maastricht University’s cross-syllabus approach could point the way forward, say Herco Fonteijn and Teun Dekker

Balancing the potential of remote learning with the benefits of student mobility for skills will be crucial, say Barbara Lorber and Sabine Prem

Video conferencing is a reasonable substitute for lectures, but that is where it must end, say Robert Zaretsky and George Alliger

The Covid-19 pandemic offers universities a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put their dysfunctional strategies behind them, argue Timothy Devinney and Grahame Dowling

The disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on poorer students makes the case for a stripped-down ranking in 2020, says Conor King  

It is time for those most vulnerable to huddle together in solidarity, says Tian An Wong

Experts say 2020 will be a watershed year for online education, both during and after the Covid-19 pandemic

The lockdown is affecting not only final-year students. Without a blanket funding extension, many others will suffer and drop out, says Ross Goldstone

Newly funded work to include investigations into how the city brought infections down to nearly zero

About 200 projects contribute to research and aim to engage students during campus shutdowns

Myths notwithstanding, devolving research agendas to disciplines has a poor record of success, says Steve Fuller

Jeffrey Kennedy, Simon Pek and Graham Smith explore ways of involving students far more deeply in the decisions that affect them

Educational economist Miguel Urquiola tells Matthew Reisz about the upsides of inequality and the dangers of ‘unbundling’

As the coronavirus pandemic turns academic life on its head, Robert Macintosh offers advice on how to show effective leadership in a crisis