My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Scientific breakthrough: Eating more makes you fat – Eating large food portions can significantly increase our weight even during short periods – researchers at the University of Ulster have discovered in the first ever study of its kind.
• Obstacles to researchers’ mobility in the EU – Although the free mobility of researchers within the EU was one of the priorities of the European Research Area (ERA) at its creation in 2000, many obstacles to mobility remain. Some of them are ingrained in the lack of flexibility national systems show towards foreign workers. In Germany, Italy and Spain, what can only be described as opaque recruitment practices for senior positions are common.
• Dutch wrong to ban Iranian nuclear students – The Netherlands is wrong to refuse Iranian students places on nuclear engineering masters programmes, a Hague court has ruled. The case was brought by a group of Iranian students who had been denied access to Dutch university courses and nuclear power plants.
• Student protesters occupy Dutch universities – Students have occupied lecture halls and university buildings in Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Dozens of students entered the buildings, blockaded the entrances and hung up banners. They are protesting against Education Minister Ronald Plasterk's plans for cutbacks in higher education. They are particularly opposed to the abolition of the basic grant and are demanding that the universities and their umbrella organisation the VSNU reject the cutbacks.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Earnings Gap Between College and High School Grads Small – Most researchers agree that college graduates, even in rough economies, generally fare better than individuals with only high-school diplomas. But just how much better is where the math gets fuzzy.
• China’s top universities will rival Oxbridge, says Yale president – To create world-class capacity in research, resources must not only be abundant, they must also be allocated on the basis of scholarly and scientific merit, rather than on the basis of seniority or political influence. To create world-class capacity in education, China's curriculum must be broadened and pedagogy transformed. But these are problems that could be solved with sufficient leadership and political will.
• Meet the Erasmus elite: bright stars in a global recession? – What do a loud-mouthed English ladette, a svelte Ukrainian vamp, a dashing Polish casanova and a bagpipe-playing Frenchman all have in common?
• Criticism of Global Rankings Prompts Major Changes and New Players – The Europeans' holistic approach reflects the widespread yearning for user-friendly rankings amid their growing acceptance as an integral part of the international higher-education landscape.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• LERU: Harvesting talent: strengthening research careers in Europe (pdf) – The League of European Research Universities is pleased to invite you to the launch event of LERU’s latest position paper Harvesting talent: strengthening research careers in Europe. The paper sets out the priority issues that need to be addressed to improve the attractiveness and excellence of research careers.
• EUA promotes full costing – Two projects aimed at improving the ability of European universities to meet the challenges posed by the EU's Lisbon Strategy for increasing the union's technical competitiveness are to be launched by the European University Association. The programmes reflect a need for new tools and methodologies if Europe's higher education sector is to play its part in equipping the EU to compete successfully in tomorrow's world.
• Erasmus Mundus gets good marks – The European Commission's Erasmus Mundus programme of 2004-08, designed to promote the EU as a global 'centre of excellence' in learning, has been judged a success though changes in financing may have to be made if it is to continue in its present form.
• Book Review – ‘The Marketplace of Ideas,’ by Louis Menand – In the four rigorously reasonable essays in “The Marketplace of Ideas,” Louis Menand takes up four questions about American higher education: “Why is it so hard to institute a general education curriculum? Why did the humanities disciplines undergo a crisis of legitimation? Why has ‘interdisciplinarity’ become a magic word? And why do professors all tend to have the same politics?”

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Where now for European innovation strategy? – Plans to unveil an Innovation Act in time for the spring meeting of EU leaders have been stalled while the new European Commission beds down and looks at broadening the scope of the strategy.
• Ranking of universities and higher education institutions for student information purposes? – In this report, we describe the ranking phenomenon in general and, more specifically, a number of existing ranking systems. We also discuss the prerequisites for and the pros and cons of ranking in terms of information for students.
• The way we learn – In the four rigorously reasonable essays in “The Marketplace of Ideas,” Louis Menand takes up four questions about American higher education: “Why is it so hard to institute a general education curriculum? Why did the humanities disciplines undergo a crisis of legitimation? Why has ‘interdisciplinarity’ become a magic word? And why do professors all tend to have the same politics?”

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• English or Hinglish – does it matter what Indian students are learning? – What kind of English should Indians be learning? Purists argue that language skills must meet international standards, but experience tells us that local languages will add flavour to the mix. The result may be fine for the street, but when it comes to the workplace, it is just not good enough.
• Foreign Ph.D.s Stay in U.S. After Graduation – Most foreigners who came to the U.S. to earn doctorate degrees in science and engineering stayed on after graduation—at least until the recession began—refuting predictions that post-9/11 restrictions on immigrants or expanding opportunities in China and India would send more of them home.
• Survey: More Chinese students considering studies abroad – According to a recent report by the Information Times, China's well-known educational group, Beijing International Education Institute (BIEI) released China's first 2010 survey report on Chinese students' intentions to study abroad.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Science Education Across Borders – There are signs that the rest of the world is gaining on us fast—building new universities, improving existing ones, competing hard for the best students, and recruiting U.S.-trained PhDs to return home to work in university and industry labs. Should we be worried?
• International Students and U.S. Global Power in the Long 20th Century – My argument here is topical: that historians of U. S. foreign relations might profitably study international students and, in the process, bring to the fore intersections between “student exchange” and geopolitics.
• Tuning: A Tale of Adventures in Learning – A new video explains how the tuning process helps define quality in higher education for a better educated workforce.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Erasmus is about discovering Europe – Like many an old advertising cliché, the erasmus student exchange programme offers a ‘dual action’ experience. After the culture shock, the parties, the multinational encounters and the adventures across Spain, come the trips to visit new found friends, in all corners of Europe. This new European consciousness keeps us coming back for more.
• Study Abroad – Pricey and Priceless – It's a common theme from students who give up the comforts of home and campus to live and study abroad and immerse themselves in another country's culture. They come back changed. And some even admit to becoming more mature — and with a more wide-eyed view of the world.
• India’s richest man unveils university project – India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is committing up to 10 billion rupees to set up a world-class university in either Mumbai or Delhi modelled on top US universities. The university project reflects his belief that access to world-class education for aspiring young Indians is a prerequisite to building a strong India.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• More universities in the Netherlands charge for tuition – Many Dutch universities have started to charge full-cost fees to those who enrol in English-taught degree courses. There is also an emerging private sector offering nationally accredited degree courses on a full-cost basis to Dutch, EU and non-EU students.
• EUA promotes full-costing and research – With the backing of the European Commission, the EUA proposes to launch a range of activities to help universities manage their funding by developing full costing and promote successful collaborative research projects between universities and a wide range of external partners, including other research organisations, businesses and agencies of regional governments.
• Study Reveals UK is the Bogus University Capital of Europe – A new Report published today by Accredibase exposes an international fake degree fraud even bigger than the scam exposed by the British press last year, which found thousands of fake 'language schools and colleges' acting as 'visa factories' to fuel immigration crimes.
• Spending on education: Investing in brains – Should the economic squeeze mean cuts, reform or more spending on education?

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Foreign students fuel postgraduate boom – British students risk being squeezed out of university as growing numbers of foreigners are recruited onto postgraduate courses, research suggests.
• Higher Education’s societal obligations in a globalizing economy – Only one in four employers feel that higher education is doing a good job in preparing students for success in the global economy. Not surprisingly, employers would like to have graduates who have both in-depth and broad range knowledge and skills.
• Innovation, Environments of Innovation, Intelligent Cities and Regions – The Intelligent Community Forum named the Top Seven Intelligent Communities. The following communities, drawn from the Smart21 of 2010, were named to the Top Seven based on analysis of their nominations by a team of independent academic experts:Arlington County, Virginia, USA / Dublin, Ohio, USA / Dundee, Scotland, UK / Eindhoven, Netherlands / Ottawa, Ontario, Canada / Suwon, South Korea / Tallinn, Estonia.
• Motivations and Experiences of UK Students Studying Abroad (PDF) – International student mobility of UK students, especially diploma mobility (students taking their entire degree outside the UK), has received little attention from researchers. This report summarises the findings of research funded by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills aimed at improving understanding of the motivations behind the international diploma mobility of UK students. It also seeks to evaluate the scale and significance of UK international diploma.
  mobility.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Market Failure – It is like the tenure system in academia. Who gets tenure? Above all, it is people who support the existing tenure system. Incidentally, that is my explanation for why the Internet has failed to alter the academic journal system. People who go through the tenure process have an enormous stake in not changing the process. The process is self-reinforcing.
• La Trobe hits strife offshore – La Trobe University is reviewing all of its offshore partnerships after an Australian Universities Quality Agency audit recommended an urgent review of the internationalisation plan.
• From Ivory Towers to International Business: Are Universities Export Ready in Their Recruitment of International Students? – There currently exists a lack of research and discussion concerning the business aspects of export education. Suspicion of the commercial aspects of what is essentially a public good is suggested as a possible reason for this absence of research. With the commercialisation of education growing at the phenomenal rate that it currently is, it is largely time that this research gap be addressed.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• What we know – and don’t know – about higher ed – Jason’s last post brought up some good issues about research on higher ed. But I side with the skeptics a bit. We actually know a bit about higher ed, even if it’s not recognized as a formal specialty in sociology or management.
• Professor Is a Label That Leans to the Left – The overwhelmingly liberal tilt of university professors has been explained by everything from outright bias to higher I.Q. scores. Now new research suggests that critics may have been asking the wrong question. Instead of looking at why most professors are liberal, they should ask why so many liberals — and so few conservatives — want to be professors.
• Less pretention, more ambition: development assistance that makes a difference – In 'Less pretension, more ambition', which is based on almost five hundred interviews in the field together with an extensive literature study, the WRR formulates recommendations for changes in the organisation of development aid and in the way in which public goods are cared for, and argues for structural attention for areas that are relevant for development aid (report only available in Dutch).
• Stem cells in China: Wild East or scientific feast? – In the field of stem cells, China is showing that it can do world-class science. It is a shame, then, that so many fraudsters operate and that officialdom turns a blind eye.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Do Top Scholars Make the Best University Leaders? – Yes, says Amanda Goodall. Her argument is based on inside knowledge, the ability to set appropriate standards, signaling, and legitimacy. Signaling strikes me as the most plausible (non-academic administrators may not have knowledge or legitimacy but they can hire subordinates who do). I haven’t studied the work carefully, however. Kudos to Goodall for tackling an important subject.
• Simon Marginson on international student security – International student security is not just about higher education or the global knowledge economy. It concerns the future world society and civil culture. It is about giving meaning to every life, not just the lives of those born in our own country, who might look like us, speak like us or share a religion.
• Cleaning up higher education in Indonesia – Indonesia's National Board for Higher Education Accreditation has announced its determination to clean up a sector riddled with bad practices. The board has set 2012 as its target for ridding universities of unaccredited undergraduate courses.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Response: Our universities are not under threat. Their income is at record levels – The Russell Group of universities seemed to suggest our higher education system is teetering on the brink of collapse. But the reality is different. While universities cannot escape the coming squeeze on public finances, nor are they under any kind of threat.
• Get ready for China’s domination of science – Since its economic reform began in 1978, China has gone from being a poor developing country to the second-largest economy in the world. China has also emerged from isolation to become a political superpower. Its meteoric rise has been one of the most important global changes of recent years: the rise of China was the most-read news story of the decade, surpassing even 9/11 and the Iraq war.
• Innovative Europe demands more investments in higher education (Dutch) – Het doel van de Lissabon-strategie om in 2010 drie procent van het nationaal inkomen aan onderzoek en ontwikkeling uit te geven is niet gehaald. Laten de Europese overheden de hand in eigen boezem steken en een doel stellen voor publieke uitgaven aan onderzoek en hoger onderwijs, stelt hoogleraar economie Luc Soete. Onderwijs en onderzoek versterken elkaar en de uitgaven aan hoger onderwijs blijven in Europa sterk achter.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• Will Lidia Brito put the science back into UNESCO? – Lidia Brito, Mozambique's ex-science minister and a forestry researcher from the country's Eduardo Mondlane University, was appointed as head of the science policy division at UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). She took up the post on 1 December, taking over from Mustafa El Tayeb, who has led UNESCO's science policy work since 1996. Here, she'sinterviewed by SciDev.net.
• Students only have ‘10-minute attention span’ – University students have average attention spans of just 10 minutes and many miss lectures because of the need for part-time jobs, research suggests.
• When state centralism meets neo-liberalism: managing university governance change in Singapore and Malaysia (by Ka Ho Mok) – This article critically examines how far the proposed university governance reforms by adopting the corporatization/incorporation strategies have actually transformed university management and academic life style in Singapore and Malaysia.
• Does U.S. News Make Law Schools More Expensive? – Why do law schools charge higher and higher tuitions that keep outrunning the cost of living? In the two decades ending in 2007, according to the American Bar Association, the cost of attending the average private law school (including tuition and fees) more than tripled–increasing from $8,911 a year to $32,367. Unsurprisingly, the average amount borrowed by law students has risen just as dramatically.

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My daily selection of the most interesting news on the internets:

• With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them – "With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them" is the first of three reports describing young Americans' views on higher education and college completion. Coming at a time when the United States has slipped to tenth place in international college completion rates, these reports explore the issue directly from the student point of view. Based on a national survey of young adults, ages 22 to 30, this research dispels some common myths about why so many students do not graduate and details what kinds of changes — by government, higher education, business and others — might make a difference.
• Universities and Islam: Hearts, minds and Mecca – When news emerged of the life-story of the Nigerian who tried to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, there were cries of bewilderment in some quarters, groans of dismay in others, and shouts of “I told you so” from a small army of Cassandras.
• University-entrance requirements: Shoot for the stars – Cambridge’s standard offer now requires at least one A* and two As. It is the only institution so far to make extensive use of the grade.
• University spin-off activity collapses – The number of cutting edge British technology companies being created from universities has collapsed in the last year and many that have formed have had to turn to foreign investors, research by Your Business has found.
• France considers tax on search engines – The French government is considering taxing search engines such as Google and Yahoo and internet service providers as a way to support the production of music, films and journalism in the digital age. A report commissioned by the country's culture ministry issued this week proposed a tax on online advertising that could then be put toward subsidies or vouchers for artistic and other cultural works.

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