Tag: Europe

  • Gender disparity in university leadership: what lessons can East Africa learn from the UK and Europe?

    Gender disparity in university leadership: what lessons can East Africa learn from the UK and Europe?

    This blog was kindly authored by Naomi Lumutenga, Executive Director and co-founder of Higher Education Resource Services (East Africa).

    Despite commendable interventions in recent decades, a gendered leadership gap persists at varying levels within higher education institutions. In 2024, women led 27% of the top 200 universities in the US; 36% in the top UK universities; 55% in the Netherlands’ top 11; and 29% in Germany’s top 21. In contrast, female leadership was far less common in Sub-Saharan Africa: only two of Ethiopia’s 46 universities, two of Tanzania’s 60, and six of South Africa’s 26 public universities were headed by women. While some may argue that comparisons with Western institutions are unfair due to their longstanding systems, the disparity highlights persistent structural barriers to gender parity in university leadership. Shifting focus from individual to organisational transformation can deliver change. As an example, long-standing financial systems have been leapfrogged. Currently, it is quicker to wire money to and within many African countries, compared to Europe or the USA. Linear comparisons along time periods, to effect change, do not, therefore, tell the full story; the real focus should be on the political will from within universities to acknowledge the value in and shift leadership towards gender parity.

    Our organisation, (Higher Education Resource Services East Africa) addresses gender equality in universities, as these institutions shape future leaders. Prestigious institutions like the University of Oxford have produced multiple prime ministers and policymakers across the globe, as the recent HEPI / Kaplan Soft Power Index demonstrates. In East Africa, notable alumni of Uganda’s Makerere University include past and serving national leaders like veteran Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Benjamin Mkapa (Tanzania); Mwai Kibaki (Kenya); Paul Kagame (Rwanda); Milton Obote (Uganda); and Joseph Kabila (Democratic Republic of Congo). However, Makerere University (unlike the University of Oxford) has never had a female Vice Chancellor.

     The structure and landscape of such institutions matter because they model frameworks and practices for the communities they serve. The persistent unequal representation triggered the work of HERS-EA that culminated, in part, in our recent publication.

    Findings from our unpublished study conducted in 2024 across 35  universities in East Africa illustrated the situation starkly.  This study was conducted by Makerere University in collaboration with HERS-East Africa, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The aim was to analyse the underlying barriers that prevent women from progressing into leadership and, for those who advance, from thriving. While some of the findings might be culturally unique to East African contexts, the majority were acknowledged, at the annual Engagement Scholarship Consortium conference in Portland, USA (October 2024), as being relevant to any higher education institution. In Japan, for example, there is evidence of cultural pressure exerted differently when women seek promotion; as Kathy Matsui asserts, women decline promotional offers for fear of how they might be treated when/if they get pregnant.

    Our study of premier universities in East Africa found that, despite gender equality policies, female leadership remains rare: only two of seven top universities had a female Chancellor (a ceremonial role), none had a female Vice Chancellor, and just one had a female Deputy Vice Chancellor (who was nearing retirement). With respect to enrolment, while most institutions claimed gender parity at admission, few tracked or reported gender disaggregated data at graduation or PhD completion, and evidence of tracking progress was limited.

    PhDs, research leadership, and grant management are important for university leadership, so we highlighted these areas and addressed implicit institutional norms.   Drawing on these lived experiences, we concluded that gender discrimination in university leadership persists through biased job criteria, age limits, and interview questions. Other barriers include a lack of accountability, inadequate strategies against sexual harassment, and poor support for women to complete PhDs.

    Co-created recommendations included trialling an adapted equivalent of the non-punitive Athena Swan Charter, which develops a culture of self-assessment while mitigating potential backlash. The Athena Swan Charter was initiated in the UK in 2005, and it is gaining global traction. It provides a sliding scale of progression towards gender equality, from bronze to silver and gold. Other proposed interventions included providing writing bootcamps with childcare and research advisors present, away from family and other distractions. Aspects of the quota system and structural frameworks in Scandinavian countries were discussed, but while lessons can be learnt from these transformational shifts, the real stumbling block is the lack of political will for changing norms rather than individual women within East African institutions. However, change is possible. Rwanda’s post-1994 Genocide national policies include quotas, and they are revised every three years to assess progress towards gender equality in all sectors. Currently, women hold 61.3% of the total seats in parliament, and they occupy 66% of the total seats in cabinets. Overall, Rwanda is now considered one of the best achievers in the world for gender equality. Perhaps lessons can be learnt from Rwanda’s progress that can give us all reason to hope.

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  • conflict, peace and international education 

    conflict, peace and international education 

    It’s that time of year again. On streets and in shops across the UK this, someone will have been be selling poppies. And today, on Remembrance Sunday, at War Memorials from tiny villages to Whitehall, people will gather for a period of silence. A moment to reflect, to remember. 

    For me personally, there is a family connection. My paternal great-grandfather was killed in WWI, leaving four young children. His name is on the vast Tyne Cot memorial in Belgium, one of 35,000 of the missing who died in the Ypres Salient after August 16, 1917, and have no known grave.

    But I also think of another memorial, the one I gathered around for the years I worked at Sheffield University. This is the moving tribute to the students and staff who lost their lives in two World Wars. 

    This carved stone monument at the University’s core was once located in the original library, and it contains arguably the most sacred and painful book in its collection – a Book of Remembrance.

    Sheffield University had its own battalion in WWI and it was almost completely destroyed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Some 512 young men lost their lives in a single day. I was once given permission to lift off the glass cover and open the book. It was shocking, each page crammed full of so many hundreds of names. 

    For many of those students, hopefully joining up and travelling to France was the first time they had been overseas, just as it was for my great-grandfather. He left his mining village on the unluckiest of journeys – first to Gallipoli where he was gassed, and then to France where he died in the mud. 

    Today, students have a very different opportunity for travel, for connection. A century after my great-grandfather died, I have travelled the world in peacetime thanks to international education. I’ve been to Delhi and seen the vast war memorial at India Gate with its eternal flame and walls of other names – Hindu, Sikh, Muslim. I have friends from China whose relatives long ago would have dug the trenches as part of as part of the 140,000 strong Chinese Labour Corps for the British and French armies.

    Remembrance Day isn’t a British only tradition – a whole world was drawn into those terrible events. 

    What international students teach us now 

    And I have international students friends who don’t need a poppy to remind them to remember because they come from countries with current experience of conflict. 

    Who are they? A refugee scholar from Syria working on environmental sustainability. A Gaza scholar who rejects the language of resilience and uses her research to build deep understanding. A friend in Singapore who has family in Russia and Ukraine. And the Afghan scholars who have become not only friends but family, those who teach us all that the peace to sit with your loved ones and share a meal is never to be taken for granted. That for young girls and women to access education, university, careers and have choices is a right hard won that must be cherished. Each of them is also my teacher. 

    As the world changes, nationalism grows and spheres of influence are fortified by economic and literal weapons, those who understand one another are more important than ever

    And this is also why I believe in international education. Peace takes understanding. It takes work. As the world changes, nationalism grows and spheres of influence are fortified by economic and literal weapons, those who understand one another are more important than ever. 

    It is a tragedy that language courses close because, as John le Carré said, learning a language is an act of friendship. But international education in all its forms is also what my NISAU friends call a ‘living bridge’.

    Whether it happens through traditional programmes of overseas study, short courses, institutional partnerships, TNE or internationalisation at home, global education offers a precious opportunity to meet in peace. To gain a perspective not only on what others think and how they see the world, but about yourself. 

    Why it matters that #WeAreInternational 

    When years ago we founded a campaign called #WeAreInternational , it was a statement not about a structure of higher education but about who we are and want to be. It doesn’t mean abandoning your identity, it means opening it up to possibility. That is in itself an education. 

    John Donne famously wrote that no man is an island but that we are deeply connected to one another, all of us connected to the continent. And when others are harmed, we are all diminished. That the bell that tolls for any life is ringing for humanity too. 

    On Remembrance Sunday this year, as we are urged never to forget, there is also an implicit call to action – not to wage war but to build peace. How do we do that? Nobody is pretending it’s easy, but I think the education we are privileged to support has a very human part to play. 

    I think of the words of my Afghan scholar friend Naimat speaking at City St George’s University of London to students earlier this week. As the minute’s silence begins on today, I will think of my great-grandfather Robert, the lost students of Sheffield University, and the words of this international student who knows of what he speaks. 

    To achieve peace at all times, we must do three things:

    1. Acknowledge the past: we must study and accept the hard lessons, the disconnected dots, and the mistakes of history.
    2. Act in the present: we must stand up against injustice wherever it occurs, recognising that a violation of human rights in one corner of the world eventually casts a shadow over all of us.
    3. Prioritise the future: we must commit to sustained dialogue – not just talk, but a genuine exchange of ideas where all voices, especially the most marginalised, are heard and valued.

    Dialogue, he says, is the non-violent tool we possess to sustain peace. It is how we convert fear into understanding, and resentment into cooperation. And international education offers a precious and powerful opportunity for both. 

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  • Aus explores Horizon Europe membership – Campus Review

    Aus explores Horizon Europe membership – Campus Review

    The Albanese government has asked universities, researchers and businesses for feedback on joining the world’s largest research program.

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  • Europe Must Do More to Protect Data Under Trump

    Europe Must Do More to Protect Data Under Trump

    Europe “needs to do more” to protect scientific data threatened by the Trump administration, the president of the European Research Council has said.

    Speaking at the Metascience 2025 conference in London, Maria Leptin said such data is in a “very precarious” position. Since Donald Trump began his second term as U.S. president, researchers have raced to archive or preserve access to U.S.-hosted data sets and other resources at risk of being taken down as the administration targets research areas including public health, climate and fields considered to be related to diversity.

    “We’ve heard the situation from the U.S. where some data are disappearing, where databases are being stopped, and this is really a wake-up call that we as a community need to do more about this and Europe needs to do more about it,” Leptin said.

    The ERC president highlighted the Global Biodata Coalition, which aims to “safeguard the world’s open life science, biological and biomedical reference data in perpetuity,” noting that the European Commission recently published a call to support the initiative.

    “Medical research critically depends on the maintenance and the availability of core data resources, and that is currently at risk. Some of these resources may disappear,” she said. “I really encourage all policymakers and funders to join the coalition.”

    “Right now is the worst time to not have access to data in view of the power of AI and the advances in computing, large language models, et cetera,” Leptin told the conference, noting that the Trump administration is not the only threat to accessible data. “The value of the data that are held across Europe is unfortunately massively reduced because of fragmentation, siloing, and uneven access.”

    A recent ERC workshop involving researchers, policymakers, industry representatives and start-ups raised some “shocking” concerns about health data, she added. “Even in the same town where researchers wanted to access the huge numbers of data that the hospitals in that town had, it was impossible because the hospitals couldn’t even share data with each other, because they used totally different data formats.”

    Boosting access to data will require “a huge effort,” Leptin acknowledged. “We of course need technical, legal and financial frameworks that make this possible and practical, [as well as] interoperable formats and common standards.”

    While not a data infrastructure in itself, the ERC “has a role to play” in improving accessibility, she said. “What we try to do is to set expectations around good data practices.”

    “We do need European-level solutions,” Leptin stressed. “The scientific questions we face, whether in climate or health or technology or [other fields], don’t stop at national borders—in fact, they are global.”

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  • Horizon Europe revisited in wake of Trump’s attacks on unis – Campus Review

    Horizon Europe revisited in wake of Trump’s attacks on unis – Campus Review

    Universities Australia (UA) has again called on the Albanese government to invest in research fund Horizon Europe amid growing uncertainty from the United States.

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  • A history lesson on Europe for Donald Trump

    A history lesson on Europe for Donald Trump

    “The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States, that’s the purpose of it.” So said U.S. President Donald Trump in February. He repeats this assertion whenever U.S.-European relations are a topic of debate.

    Trump voiced his distorted view of the EU in his first term in office and picked it up again in the first three months of his second term, which began on January 20 and featured the start of a U.S. tariff war which up-ended international trade and shook an alliance dating back to the end of World War II.

    What or who gave the U.S. president the idea that the EU was “formed to screw” the United States is something of a mystery. If he were a student in a history class, his professor would give him an F.

    Trump’s claim does injustice to an institution that won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012 in recognition for having, over six decades, “contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe” as the Nobel committee put it.

    So, here is a brief guide to the creation of the EU, now the world’s largest trading bloc with a combined population of 448 million people, and the events that preceded its formal creation in 1952. 

    Next time you talk to Trump, feel free to brief him on it. 

    Staving off war

    With Germans still clearing the ruins of the world war Adolf Hitler had started in 1939, far-sighted statesmen began thinking of ways to prevent a repeat of a conflict that killed 85 million people. 

    The foundation of what became a 28-country bloc lay in the reconciliation between France and Germany. 

    In his speech announcing the Nobel Prize, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjorn Jagland, singled out then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman for presenting a plan to form a coal and steel community with Germany despite the long animosity between the two nations; in the space of 70 years, France and Germany had waged three wars against each other. That was in May 1950. 

    As the Nobel chairman put it, the Schuman plan “laid the very foundation for European integration.”

    He added: “The reconciliation between Germany and France is probably the most dramatic example in history to show that war and conflict can be turned so rapidly into peace and cooperation.”

    From enemies into partners

    In years of negotiations, the coal and steel community, known as Montanunion in Germany, grew from two — France and Germany — to six with the addition of Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The union was formalized with a treaty in Paris in 1951 and came into existence a year later. 

    The coal and steel community was the first step on a long road towards European integration. It was encouraged by the United States through a comprehensive and costly programme to rebuild war-shattered Europe.

    Known as the Marshall Plan, named after U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the programme provided $12 billion (the equivalent of more than $150 billion today) for the rebuilding of Western Europe. It was part of President Harry Truman’s policy of boosting democratic and capitalist economies in the devastated region.

    From the six-nation beginning, the process of European integration steadily gained momentum through successive treaties and expansions. Milestones included the creation of the European Economic Community and European Atomic Energy Community.

    In 1986, the Single European Act paved the way to an internal market without trade barriers, an aim achieved in 1992. Seven years later, integration tightened with the adoption of a common currency, the Euro. Used by 20 of the 27 member states, it accounts for about 20% of all international transactions.

    Brexiting out

    One nation that held out against the Euro was the United Kingdom. It would later withdraw from the EU entirely after the 2016 “Brexit” referendum led by politicians who claimed that rules made by the EU could infringe on British sovereignty. 

    Many economists at the time described Brexit as a self-inflicted wound and opinion polls now show that the majority of Britons regret having left the union.

    In decades of often arduous, detail-driven negotiations on European integration, including visa-free movement from one country to the other, no U.S. president ever saw the EU as a “foe” bent on “screwing” America. That is, until Donald Trump first won office in 2017 and then again in 2024.

    What bothers him is a trade imbalance; the EU sells more to the United States than the other way around; he has been particularly vocal about German cars imported into the United States.

    Early in his first term, the Wall Street Journal quoted him as complaining that “when you walk down Fifth Avenue (in New York), everybody has a Mercedes-Benz parked in front of his house. How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not many, maybe none, you don’t see anything at all over there. It’s a one-way street.”

    This appears to be one of the reasons why Trump imposed a 25% tariff, or import duty, on foreign cars when he declared a global tariff war on April 2. 

    His tariff decisions, implemented by Executive Order rather than legislation, caused deep dismay around the world and upended not only trade relations but also cast doubt on the durability of what is usually termed the rules-based international order. 

    That refers to the rules and alliances set up, and long promoted by the United States. For a concise assessment of the state of this system, listen to the highest-ranking official of the European Union: “The West as we knew it no longer exists.”

    So said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the Brussels-based European Commission, the main executive body of the EU. Its top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, a former Prime Minister of Estonia, was even blunter: “The free world needs a new leader.”

     

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why was the European Union formed in the first place?

    2. How can trade serve to keep the peace?

    3. In what ways do nations benefit by partnering with other countries?

     

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  • QS boss wins lifetime achievement award at PIE Live Europe 2025

    QS boss wins lifetime achievement award at PIE Live Europe 2025

    The PIE Live Europe, held between March 11-12 in central London, brought together leading figures in the international education sector. Delegates at the two-day conference heard key immigration updates, debated the future of the ELT sector and highlighted the value that international students bring to the UK.

    As the conference drew to a close, the winner of the event’s lifetime achievement award was revealed to be Nunzio Quacquarelli, who founded the global higher education and insights company QS in 1990.

    Famed for its university rankings, QS has expanded under Quacquarelli’s leadership to employ more than 900 people from over 30 countries.

    Quacqarelli said it was a “great feeling” to win the award, having been a supporter of The PIE since it was a “fledgeling business”.

    On what was next for QS, he added: “We’re really committed to providing trusted data and insights to the higher education sector and we really believe in the need for universities to transform, to adopt AI – so we’ve launched a responsible AI consortium with Imperial College.

    “And we really believe the need to deliver the emerging skills of the fifth industrial revolution, so we are developing huge amounts of insight on skills and occupations… to identify whatever skills are going to be demanded by employers of the future to guide curricular reform and university transformation.”

    You can watch his full interview in the video below.

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  • My robot university counsellor – The PIE News

    My robot university counsellor – The PIE News

    The PIE’s Director of Research and Insight, Nicholas Cuthbert tests the limits of virtual counsellor software!

    Can he tell the difference between a human and a machine? The video shows how AI is revolutionising recruitment, with powerful WhatsApp integrations and offer-letter capabilities making lead conversion faster and smoother than ever.

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  • Traveling to Europe with Rural Communication Students

    Traveling to Europe with Rural Communication Students

    Hi everyone! It’s September and summer and officially over! 🙁

    Summer is one of those sacred times of year for faculty to determine the next steps of their faculty career. From my dear colleague who is focused on his retirement to new faculty members who are focused on their new research agenda, everyone is focused on renewal. Our department faculty members usually travel to work at state parks, volunteer in the community, and participate in professional development activities.

    This summer, we traveled on a study abroad experience to Scotland, Ireland, and England. This was an incredible journey with 17 students from our university. I have not traveled outside of the country for a year and the students were filled with excitement from the end of the spring semester. 

    The trip to Europe was long and uneventful. We traveled with EF Tours and it was definitely an adventure. Many of our rural students have never traveled outside of the country before this adventure and they learned many new skills along their journey. I was proud of their progress.

    During the study abroad experience, I also had an opportunity walk a mile by myself in Ireland. Previously, I have ALWAYS traveled in groups – large groups and small groups. However, when most of the attendees wanted to participate in an activity together and I had to travel back to the hotel to pick up an item – I had the opportunity be independent. I walked by myself across the city to the hotel. This prepared me for another big adventure that I had this summer. Summer 2023 was filled with solo adventure travel for this female faculty member.

    We also had an opportunity to view the Book of Kells in Ireland. It was a great experience and the library that housed the book of Kells (the Bible) was one of the most beautiful libraries I’ve ever visited.

    This was my second time to visit the palace in England. There is always a crowd at Buckingham palace and the students enjoyed snapping pictures with the statues.

    Who am I kidding? I enjoyed snapping pictures as well! It was crowded and it was definitely an adventure.

    I’ve only heard about it on YouTube from flight attendants, but Primark lived up to its reputation. The clothes were inexpensive, high quality, and were gorgeous! I was very excited to buy professor clothes at Primark!

    Overall, we had a great time. The students enjoyed themselves and I did as well. I learned a lot about European culture and I added two additional countries to my list. In fact, I added THREE new countries to my list (more about that later). Another day, another post. 😉

    Let me know if you have any questions about traveling with students. They are a trip – literally! I cannot remember the last time that I laughed so hard. Traveling with rural students enables them to be themselves while experience a whole new world.

    Until next time!

    J. Edwards

    ***

    Check out my book – Retaining College Students Using Technology: A Guidebook for Student Affairs and Academic Affairs Professionals.

    Remember to order copies for your team as well!


    Thanks for visiting! 


    Sincerely,


    Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
    Professor of Communication

    Executive Director of the Texas Social Media Research Institute & Rural Communication Institute

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