This paper looks at a number of recent factors which have affected universities. Some trends like the tremendous growth in participation in higher education worldwide and the equally rapid growth in investment in R&D indicate progress and reasons for optimism. Yet the context of higher education is more unstable and troubled than such developments suggest.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is expanding its research collaboration with universities outside of China. Since 2007, the PLA has sponsored more than 2,500 military scientists and engineers to study abroad and has developed relationships with researchers and institutions across the globe.

In 2016, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) began offering postdoctoral fellowships in software curation. Four institutions hosted the initial cohort of software curation fellows. This article describes the work activities and research program of the cohort, highlighting the challenges and benefits of doing this exploratory work in research libraries.

This report concludes that to unlock innovation in New Zealand in the future, it is important for policy-makers, universities and investors to consider focusing on strengthening the contribution of universities to innovation.

The Social Science Research Council convened the To Secure Knowledge Task Force to examine the new research landscape and identify areas of action. In this, the council drew on its nine-decade history of convening and collaborating with scholars to facilitate conditions to produce world-class, independent research.