National AI Security Strategies: Impacts on Universities

National artificial intelligence (AI) strategies increasingly shape university research priorities, creating complex tensions around academic openness and institutional autonomy. This analysis examines how universities navigate competing demands between international collaboration and national security requirements in AI research and development. It explores institutional responses as universities adapt to heightened scrutiny while striving to maintain their core academic mission and international engagement amid geopolitical tensions in a multipolar world

The University-Science Model and Global Megascience: 100 Years of Advancing Research

Global megascience highlights the transformative role of universities in driving global knowledge production through collaborative scientific networks. Rooted in the twentieth-century educational revolution and the global diffusion of the “university-science model,” universities evolved into pivotal research hubs, reshaping science beyond national borders. Since 1900, scientific output and collaboration have accelerated across disciplines and regions, exemplifying how research networks advance discovery and tackle global challenges. However, questions about the sustainability of megascience remain

Don't Go Climate Changing

Since the 1970s, the climate community has worked tirelessly to establish a credible scientific basis for anthropogenic climate change. Though climate change deniers still exist, ever since the International Panel for Climate Change (the IPCC) declared that “observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations,” there has been increasing global recognition of the issue.1 Yet, this global consensus has not directly led to the implementation of a singular global climate policy, but rather to several fragmented international agreements each varying in degree of success. These agreements have all failed to adequately address the entire issue, and with the absence of significant international action, the planet is now on track to warm by at least 2.5 degrees this century.2 Thus, I seek to investigate the conditions that explain this drastic variation in success. After examining the cases of both a successful climate deal, the Montreal Protocol, and a widely considered failed climate deal, the Kyoto Protocol, I will argue that there is one key method for obtaining a successful climate deal: a “carrots and sticks” approach, including binding emission reductions as well as an enforcement mechanism to incentivize them

Perfect Society or Voluntary Association?: Locke, Maritain, and the Autonomy of Church and State

This paper explores two different theories of Church-State relations proposed by John Locke and Jacques Maritain, focusing specifically on their account of religious autonomy within secular, pluralistic societies. Locke, writing shortly after Europe's great religious conflicts, envisions a society in which the state is charged solely with guarding "civil," or temporal, interests, with churches treated as mere voluntary associations devoid of coercive power. In this framework, one of the state's principal goals would be to secure each citizen's right to pursue their own conception of the good life, which would, in turn, grant the state authority to suppress religious viewpoints that might subvert this end. Maritain's theory, on the contrary, seeks to reconcile pluralistic democracy with the traditional teachings of the Catholic Church. He argues that the state, while retaining its secularity, should acknowledge the Church's sovereignty over spiritual and moral matters, pursuing cooperation with the Church to achieve the religious good of their citizens. As this paper argues, however, Maritain's position is untenable. His vision depends upon an impossible separation between the "temporal" and "spiritual" and overlooks their inevitable overlap. Locke, on the other hand, more accurately predicts the actual dynamics of Church-State relations in the Modern West. In examining this debate, we make progress toward answering two questions of fundamental importance to the issues of Church-State relations: what kind of status should spiritual entities enjoy in a democracy with no established religion? How should members of religious congregations, bound by specific moral dictates, participate in a political body composed of individuals of all faiths

How the American Media Sensationalized the Iran Hostage Crisis

This paper will address the immediate and long-term repercussions on Iran’s reputation in the eyes of the United States that arose from the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, in which Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy and took 52 Americans hostage. It will address how the ethnocentric American media impaired Iran’s reputation: it portrayed Iranians as radical Islamic jihadists, Iran as a violator of human rights, and the American hostages as hopeless, relatable victims. The discourse will also address how the hostage crisis directly and irreversibly damaged Iran’s relationship with the United States

An Uncertain Financing Future for Higher Education in the Global South

External funding plays an important role in the financing of higher education in many low- and middle-income countries. With many countries withdrawing from their development commitments (most dramatically the United States), governments and institutions are now under pressure to identify new, more sustainable sources of funding. However, it is unclear how this might work in practical terms. It will be vital to monitor the impacts of these changes in both the short and long term

The Influence of Chinese Social Sciences: Publication, Collaboration, and Citation Trends

The internationalization of Chinese social sciences is explored through publication, collaboration, and citation trends in the fields of economics, education, and political science. Analysis of 8,962 Scopus-indexed publications from 2016 to 2020 highlights global impact, disciplinary silos, and “Westernization” in research practices

Global Higher Education Transformation: The 2025 International Crisis

N

30 Years of International Higher Education, a Field of Study and a Publication

Over the past 30 years and 123 issues of International Higher Education, both the world and higher education have changed enormously. The publication has both followed these changes and made adaptations to them, but, in essence, its guiding principles, as well as its unique position, have remained the same