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Most writing on community-campus engagement focuses on individual projects and practices. This makes sense since most practices are employed at the project level, but what about systems of engagement? Individual projects sit within institutional and community systems. Institutions and communities sit within sector or regional/national systems. Where are these systems of engagement? As I increasingly engage internationally with ...

As I have been thinking about a blog for our Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU), I got a bit stuck on the concept of commonwealth itself. If you look at definitions for the word commonwealth, you will find that they largely refer to relations between states, such as with our own use of the Commonwealth referring to former members of the British Empire. When one looks a bit further, one finds under the label 'archaic', ...

At this year's UHR (Universities Human Resources) Conference in Newcastle, which took place on 9-12 May, the ACU and HR Global Innovations gave a joint workshop entitled 'The future of HR in Higher Education; taking a global perspective', which emphasised the commonality of HR challenges in universities around the world. The workshop was designed to encourage international collaboration, particularly through the ACU HR in HE ...

In stark contrast to only five years ago, much of the prominent new research on scholarship programme outcomes adopts a longitudinal model. Some examples have been posted within this blog series: see, for instance, essays by Anna Seifried and Cate Lawrence or Mirka Martel. A recent request for proposals from the MasterCard Foundation – architects of the Scholars Program – reinforces the point: "The Scholars Program ...

Universities are under increased pressure to self-assess their research management (RM) provision to determine their strengths, weaknesses, and alignment to trends. This is due in part to international ranking exercises, greater expectations of accountability for funding once granted, and the now iterative links between performance and funding. In addition, increasing international collaboration and demand for accountability of ...

Launched in 2014, the first phase of the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships program (QES) is providing international education opportunities for over 2000 young global leaders from Canada and abroad through 48 distinct projects led by Canadian universities. Programme focus areas include diverse projects that strengthen health systems across countries of the Commonwealth, enhance indigenous community ...

Social inclusion and equity in higher education are high on Mexico's educational agenda. Within this framework, guaranteeing indigenous students access to, and successful conclusion of, a university education is an urgent undertaking that is being addressed – although there is still much to do. The purpose of this post is to highlight some contributions of the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program in Mexico (IFP ...

The use of education as a foreign policy tool is usually related to developed countries. However, major developing countries are designing strategies adapted to the new transnational arena, which is being constantly modified by technological transformations. These strategies include scientific and educational agreements towards both the exchange of knowledge and shaping public opinion. One of the most recognised transnational ...

When the 'Ciência sem Fronteiras' ('Science without Borders') programme was launched by President Dilma Rousseff in the end of 2011, few could foresee how deeply the economic, social and political outlook of Brazil would be transformed five years later. An emerging power in the early 2010s and soon to host the FIFA World Cup and Summer Olympics, Brazil had resisted the worst impacts of the global financial crisis fairly well ...

In the last decade, Brazilian higher education has assumed a far more visible role within the international arena, partly – perhaps primarily – because of national government investment in a large-scale student mobility programme.Ciência sem Fronteiras (CSF) has been an enormously influential scholarship programme within the international higher education landscape since the early 2010s. The CSF programme saw ...