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World in brief - 25 September 2014

CanadaEncouragement to study abroadMore Canadian students should be spending time studying in a foreign country, according to the Canadian Bureau for International Education. In a submission to the...

Economists’ ivory tower isolation is not an option

In Germany as elsewhere, says Brian Bloch, the economic crisis has shown the limitations of neoclassical economics

Egypt tailors reforms on UK model

A government delegation has been inspired by British funding bodies

Views on pensions depend on principles

Re the proposed changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (“Reforms seen as ‘radical attack’ on pensions”, News, 18 September): in non-academic terms we are getting done over royally.This is...

Chairs make a class act

In the news story “Plymouth defends ‘£150K spend on seven chairs’ ” (timeshigher­education.co.uk, 20 September), David Coslett, Plymouth University’s deputy vice-chancellor, argues that new...

Pay for the skills you want

I have the greatest respect for my colleague Dame Ann Dowling, but I wonder if industry is being entirely straight with her when it claims to need double the current number of graduate engineers (“...

He scores, in two fields

Your report in The Week in Higher Education (28 August) on the student turned professional footballer and the possibility of his prize-winning essay being published (“surely the first academic...

The power of the eternals

Perhaps Greek universities should be wary of removing their “eternals” (News, 4 September). Was it not the Eternals who enabled the Greeks to defeat their Persian counterparts, the Immortals, at the...

A haven for the hungover

I enjoyed Dale Salwak’s feature “Make a class a haven” (18 September). How innovative to create a space without the distractions of talking, groupwork and computers, and with bare walls and soft...

Piled Higher and Deeper, by Jorge Cham - 25 September 2014

Israeli scholars asked to drop Ariel University affiliation

Academics from controversial university were due to present papers at the European Association of Israel Studies’ annual conference

Half of all new PhDs undertaken are in the sciences

Almost half of all students starting PhDs are working in the physical sciences, the biological sciences or engineering and technology fields

Fall in top A-level applicants gives BTEC entrants a boost

Ucas shows more high-tariff places going to those with vocational qualifications

Buying their way to the top

Tackling inequality and broadening access to higher education has knock-on benefits for the whole of society

The Trilobite Book: A Visual Journey, by Riccardo Levi-Setti

Euan Clarkson admires an exquisite collection of images of an iconic arthropod’s fossil traces