Opinion

The popularity of an undergraduate course in Hong Kong reveals an enduring hunger to examine what makes life worth living, says McQueen Sum

Students must be taught a more community-based form of development, less dependent on the goodwill of donors, says Noam Schimmel

What do the 2026 Sustainability Impact Ratings tell us about the countries and regions whose universities are prioritising work towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

Improving sustainability and resilience can be a way of life for a higher education institution, writes Western Sydney University vice-chancellor George Williams

The Sustainable Development Goals – and independent assessments based on them – help guide the University of Manchester towards its ‘north star’, writes vice-chancellor Duncan Ivison

Anxious students offer rich pickings for those offering to check their AI-likelihood scores, say Benjamin Luke Moorhouse and James Mian Jia

Imagine if every student graduated with evidence not only of what they knew, but also of how effectively they could communicate it, says Bruce Hood

When whole campus communities are displaced and war continues, sustainability becomes an endurance test that can help an institution rediscover its true mission, writes Mykola Trofymenko

A comparative analysis could explore what creates social support for international education, say Glyn Davis and Anton Muscatelli

From beach clean-ups to integrating greener practices in curricula and institutions, student participation is key if we want young people to drive Africa’s future sustainability, say Belinda Mensah and Divine Edem Kwadzodeh

Publishers must stop treating AI governance as an ethical burden to be outsourced to those already overburdened and under-rewarded, says Mai Zaki

One-year degrees may be cost-effective, but pre-existing doubts about their quality are now becoming a barrier to employment, says Grace Chau 

The central goal should be simple: seamless student movement without obstacles regarding the recognition of courses, says Gregor Majdič

National security is not strengthened by making Australia smaller and less attractive to scientific talent, say James Laurenceson and Wanning Sun

Universities are using a short-term cash crunch to make long-term structural changes, including greater reliance on private providers, says Glyn Robbins

Widening access cannot begin at 18. Most factors that affect attainment are in place before students start school, say Amanda Broderick and Christian Guy

We discuss the ambitions of Shenzhen and other cities in China’s Greater Bay Area to develop higher education systems that match their global economic and industrial clout

Hybrid journals’ double-dipping is causing funders to stop paying APCs. Pricing transparency and universal open access are urgently needed, says Fred Fenter

With opportunities for Indian doctoral graduates narrowing in the West, India’s scheme to repatriate them stands a good chance of success, says Pushkar

To protect graduate employment, universities must explicitly teach and assess the skills that AI still can’t replicate, says Boxi Yang

Academic debates should embrace political neutrality, professional judgement and the plurality of possible interpretations. The campaign against Ivan Katchanovski does not, say Dmitry Dubrovskiy and Matthew Blackburn

A variety of personality traits enhance or inhibit the role of IQ in scholarly achievement and professional advancement, says Adrian Furnham

Only a dedicated directorate-general stands a chance of keeping Horizon Europe separate from the competitiveness agenda, says Jan Palmowski

Genuine cross-disciplinary working requires dedicated leaders willing to spend political capital, absorb failure publicly, and try again, says Geraint Rees

We have produced a generation who believe their own thinking is not good enough unless it sounds like a machine, says Agnieszka Piotrowska

Academic standards will only be restored when universities align incentives with rigour, integrity and meaningful learning, says Mohan Rao 

Beneath the uncompromising rhetoric, however, federal higher education policies are likely to be gradually implemented, says Eldho Mathews

The availability of ERC grants falls off a cliff in your 40s, and in most countries there are few comparable alternatives, says Cristina Muñoz Pinedo 

With King’s College London and Cranfield University planning to join forces, we discuss whether mergers are a sensible way forward for UK universities beset by financial challenges

The experienced lawyers we surveyed were consistently sceptical about arrangements’ consistency and robustness, say Alex Fairbairn and Daniel Sokol

Hertfordshire’s announcement of course closures is the latest example of a dynamic that narrows access and deepens inequality, says Dragan Plavsic

Modern research culture’s encouragement of widespread sharing makes disclosure risks inevitable, say Elizabeth Green and Felix Ritchie

Institutions, in Iran or elsewhere, are not obliged to reshape their research to avoid attacks, say Alireza Qaiumzadeh and Sara Gordafarid