University World News Issue 0214 - 25th March 2012

NEWS: Our correspondents worldwide report 
GLOBAL
Universities and students face grim financial future 
Geoff Maslen
University affordability for students in 40 countries around the world may have reached its peak. Across countries in the OECD, government support for higher education barely kept up with inflation last year while the outlook for 2012 looks bleak “given the debt crisis in the Eurozone”, according to a report released last week.

AFGHANISTAN
Western troop withdrawals a ‘challenge’ for universities 
Yojana Sharma
The withdrawal of US and other NATO troops from Afghanistan by 2014 poses a challenge for the country’s universities, which are responsible for turning out local professionals able to take over non-military tasks, a top Afghan higher education ministry official has said.

EUROPE
UK government challenged over Erasmus funding rise 
David Jobbins
A House of Lords committee has urged the UK government to think again over its reluctance to support a European Commission proposal for a 70% hike in funding for the new Erasmus for All programme, which will support student mobility beyond Europe's borders.
 
HONG KONG
Spate of donations to UK universities from philanthropists 
Mimi Leung
A £20 million (US$32 million) donation to King's College London by a Hong Kong businessman, announced last week, is the latest in a spate of contributions by Hong Kong philanthropists to UK universities. The donation from Dickson Poon is the biggest from an individual in King's College history and the largest to any single law faculty in Europe.

GERMANY
Universities demand a more active accreditation role
 Michael Gardner
The Rectors’ Conference in Germany has called for reform of the country’s accreditation system to give higher education institutions a more active role.

ITALY
Students face fee rises despite court victory 
Lee Adendorff
The threat of increased fees for Italian students looks set to become a reality. As universities wrestle with shrinking state funding, budget shortfalls and the prospect of court action, the government headed by Mario Monti is seeking a reform package aimed at liberalising the economy and jump-starting growth.
 
NORWAY
Minister wants to lure students from southern Europe
 Jan Petter Myklebust
Norway's minister for higher education and research has called for more university collaboration with southern Europe, to help countries hit hardest by the economic crisis – and to lure talent.

CHILE
Loan forgiveness plan fails to win over students 
María Elena Hurtado
Measures to ease the debt burden of Chilean students in response to violent protests last year have failed to satisfy students and opposition politicians. Critics say new laws that forgive student debt and reduce interest on government-supported loans do not address fundamental problems.

EUROPE
Danes and Swedes lead bid for food research 
Jan Petter Myklebust
Danish and Swedish universities are in the running to become world centres for food innovation when the first round of Horizon 2020 research programmes is announced.

SERIES: African university leaders
KENYA
Managing a university on the rise – Nairobi 
Gilbert Nganga
When it comes to publicity, Professor George Magoha is shy. The vice-chancellor of the University of Nairobi rarely grants an interview or calls a press conference. He believes being too public a leader could be a blunder for Kenya’s premier university. Magoha spoke to University World News for this second in a series of articles on African university leaders.

FEATURESGLOBAL
Absence of Arab rankings creates obstacles, says study 
Brendan O’Malley
The Arab world urgently needs a ranking and classification system for its universities, a pilot study covering seven countries concludes.
 
GLOBAL
Transparency key for more women university leaders 
Yojana Sharma
Women have now caught up with – and in some subjects surpassed – men in university enrolments. Yet the number of women heads of universities remains small globally. Overcoming this equity hurdle will require institutional changes, including greater transparency in the way leaders are selected, a conference in London heard.

INDIA
Higher education bills in limbo after election shock 
Alya Mishra and Yojana Sharma
Higher education reform in India, including a proposed bill to allow in foreign universities, has hit another snag after the party leading central government performed below expectations in elections in three out of five states – reducing its room for manoeuvre in pushing key bills through parliament.

AUSTRALIA
Facebook enables the dead to ‘live on’ – for others 
Geoff Maslen
Dr Patrick Stokes is a researcher and philosopher at Deakin University in Melbourne. He found it a little weird when ‘friends’ he knew had died started contacting him via their Facebook pages.

WORLD BLOG
UNITED STATES
Gaming in the American university ranking system 
William Patrick Leonard
The main international university ranking systems focus narrowly on top institutions and use independent third parties for their metrics. How can people find out more about other American institutions, and can they trust national ranking statistics if they are self-reported?

COMMENTARY
 
GLOBAL
Emerging countries need world-class universities 
Simon Marginson
Policy experts tend to advise developing countries not to focus on creating world-class universities. But universities that do not develop their global science capacity will find themselves in a position of continuing dependence. The ambition for world-class universities is not a superficial or elitist whim. It is an entirely valid aspiration.

GLOBAL
International rankings: A poisoned choice 
Kevin Downing
International rankings raise a huge amount of debate, but undoubtedly have a major impact on everything from university reputation to the ability to hire top academics. Each of the main ranking systems measures different things, so institutions can select the one that most clearly matches their aims and status.
 
GLOBAL
Universities must encourage the philanthropic spirit 
Daniel McDiarmid
The huge donation from Dickson Poon to King's College London shows that fundraising efforts, even in harsh economic times, pay off. But many institutions in countries around the world are still slow to invest in fundraising, not just in terms of staffing but also in terms of university leaders' time and energy.

SCIENCE SCENE
UNITED STATES
Predicting clinically significant prostate cancerCurrent evidence suggests that screening men for prostate cancer is a double-edged sword, say Dr Carvell T Nguyen and Dr Michael W Kattan, both working in urological institutes in Cleveland, Ohio, in the US. They say the ethical and economic implications of over-diagnosis and over-treatment of clinically insignificant prostate cancer are profound.

GLOBAL
Diverse bacteria may aid honey bee survivalRecent challenges to honey bee health, including dramatic colony losses attributable to Colony Collapse Disorder, have devastated honey bee stocks worldwide. But an agent causing the losses has yet to be identified and new ideas about the decline in colonies are still emerging.

LATIN AMERICA
Mountains on a plate form the AndesCurving down the western coast of South America is the world's longest mountain chain – and one of its greatest puzzles. The Andes run for about 7,000 kilometres with the highest peak, Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, rising nearly 7,000 metres above sea level.