Opinion

As political own goals go, threatening to both cap and confine international students to ‘elite’ institutions was in a class of its own, says David Bell

The country’s cultural deference to authority means students lack the courage and the motivation to challenge current thinking, says Aus Abdulwahhab

Institutions’ marketing approach should be to inform would-be students about the full range of degrees on offer, says Pat Moores

Saying that you stand with Ukraine while glossing over the situation in Hong Kong is untenable, says Phil Chan

Cutting-edge polling techniques can help universities genuinely canvass local needs, rather than assuming them, says Polly Curtis

Leaders should model thoughtful, respectful disagreement and bridge divisions in ideologies, say Teresa Valerio Parrot and Ali Lincoln

Overloaded slides, peculiar body language and speech that is too quick, slow, quiet or relentless are all easily fixed, says Brian Bloch

German-style political stability and long-term science funding could help mitigate the damage, say Zach Meyers and John Springford

More hardship funding, bigger maintenance loans and restored grants would all complement universities’ efforts, says Sarah Stevens

The department’s threat to ban international students from all but the top UK universities is totally counterproductive, says Nick Hillman

The need to rearrange academic units and, potentially, cut staff is the direct result of UK government policy, say David Latchman and Matthew Innes

The array of challenges facing universities and their leaders is daunting, with a broken funding system underpinning the pain in England

The UK’s Higher Education Bill could become a new global reference on academic freedom – if only it can get the definition right, say Liviu Matei and Shitij Kapur

AI is close to being able to write students’ essays for them. But that will not help them understand why they think what they think, says Jane Rosenzweig

Technology will never be properly integrated into teaching if it is seen as separate from the physical classroom, says David Puttnam

What the country really needs is a common school and evaluation system that compensates for background inequalities, says Gowhar Rashid Ganie

Building a publishing platform that allows scholars to earn from sales of their papers has put all Pooja Sawrikar’s rage to good use 

Success notwithstanding, managing different shorter-term funding streams while working towards a single long-term vision is not ideal, says Olga Wessels

The police-catch-punish approach neglects to address plagiarists’ misunderstanding of what higher education is all about, says Sioux McKenna

Greater efforts need to be made to distinguish predatory journals from those that at least aspire to scholarly standards, says Harvey Graff

If government sets clear ambitions, innovation follows from the private sector and charities – not the other way round, says Ian Walker

Ron Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University, has some advice for how universities can become as respected in society as they once were

Times Higher Education’s head of reputation outlines the current landscape 

In Hong Kong, as elsewhere, managers should support faculty and students to engage in inquiry whatever their personal values, says Carsten Holz

To promote reputation, Rachel Sandison, deputy v-c of external engagement at the University of Glasgow, says universities should face uncomfortable truths

The findings of the UniSAFE survey about the extent of gender-based violence at European universities are troubling, says Susan Sorenson

Institutions must be more strategic about positioning themselves and their work when considering new markets and partnerships, says Tania Rhodes-Taylor

If the sector is to tackle the existential threats facing the world, it must rediscover its practical idealism about itself, says Nigel Thrift

Universities should not be obliged to support speech that restricts another’s right to speech or academic freedom, say James Murray and Alice Sullivan

Students at higher-ranked liberal arts colleges report strong relationships with their instructors – but rural institutions languish, says Samuel Abrams

The mature student specialist’s renowned politics department could become part of the solution rather than the problem, says Matthew Flinders

Our work-life balance survey finds the inevitable: that for many if not most in academia, workloads are unmanageable, and seem to be getting worse

The LLE is a useful first step towards a radical reform of the country’s narrow and inflexible higher education system, says Martin Rees 

The emphasis on bringing in money above all else is killing researchers’ passion for discovery, says Aymen Idris

The world’s problems are too big for one sector to figure out: academics must team up with doers in fair, equal partnerships, says Carmen Geha

Even if conditions are not right for the development of a ‘slow university’, we need at least to walk in that direction, says David Alexander

Revealing desk rejection rates, peer review processing times and other useful operational data would do more to correct slipshod journal practices than an ‘author’s bill of rights’, says Jerry Jacobs

The student accommodation crisis seen in many UK cities highlights the need for a more strategic and sustainable approach to town-gown issues, says Neal Juster

Fine words in support of academic freedom are welcome, but deeds are also required, says Agnieszka Piotrowska

The new prime minister’s orthodoxy will prevent a repeat of the Iron Lady’s raid on the science and higher education budgets, says Terence Kealey

Australia’s new Labor government must allow more fee flexibility for high-cost degree subjects otherwise genuine student choice will disappear, say Robert Griew and Ian Anderson

This year’s Maddox Prize winner shows how community-led research can help communities escape polarised debates over scientific evidence

As THE’s Global Sustainable Development Congress kicks off at the University of Glasgow, Oxfam’s chief executive Danny Sriskandarajah explains why universities are increasingly important in the fight against poverty and social injustice

Ambitious plans announced at China’s National Congress will push elite universities towards supporting research spin-offs and graduate start-ups, says Hao Ni

Encouraging students to embody their institution’s distinctive values will allow it to present a more rounded view of the true worth of higher education, says Claire Taylor

Changes that pretend scientists do not care about publishing in highly selective journals will end eLife’s crucial role in science publishing, says long-time supporter Paul Bieniasz

Addressing extreme social stratification is a responsibility of all universities. But focusing excessively on action at the top of the pile is a mistake

Handing out glitzy prizes is a cheaper way of shoring up morale than paying people better, says Bruce Macfarlane

If we tenured professors do not hold ourselves to agreed standards, we will find ourselves being refereed by demagogues, says Robert Zaretsky

Each university should define and proclaim its own mission, and then be measured against it, says Peter Main

Monograph publishing needs partnerships between university presses and scholarly societies, say Helen Beebee, David Teira and Brian Scrivener

It is not enough to argue that higher education’s primary relationship with the students is not labour-related, say Jeffrey Stankunas and Emily Dilloway

Higher education must meet students where they are and find a way to connect anyone with an education if they are willing to work, says Aaron Basko

Scholarship that does not acknowledge the legitimacy of alternative views is inimical to knowledge generation, says Katy Barnett

Boosting innovation and supporting democracy requires a global, comprehensive approach, says Jan Palmowski

Amid growing anti-immigration sentiment, US universities should make greater efforts to export their expertise to where the demand is, says Richard Joseph

Although available information on USS finances is patchy, scope appears to remains for restored benefits or reduced contributions, says Michael Bromwich

Suella Braverman’s threats to ‘significantly reduce’ international student numbers are a direct threat to growth, says Keith Burnett 

The sector needs to foster a better collective sense of the pressures and possibilities of running a university, say Doug Parkin and Richard Watermeyer

As Sir Colin Campbell knew, an overseas footprint offers the long-term returns that universities are established for, say Christine Ennew and David Greenaway