Published by Paeradigms | April 2026 On 23 April 2026, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), in partnership with the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation, hosted a high-level webinar titled Leading the Future: Women at the Helm of Mediterranean Science and Higher Education. Convened to shift the conversation from participation to leadership, the event brought together university leaders, policymakers, and scientists from across Europe and the wider Mediterranean region

by Nina Volles On 24 March 2026, the RECI-FoBBIZ network convened an online webinar on the theme “Bridging the gap: involving the formal and informal private sectors in dual vocational training in West Africa.” The session addressed a central tension. In much of West Africa, informal learning remains the primary route into employment for young people. At the same time, economic transformation requires more structured, responsive, and forward-looking training systems. The ques

Author: Nina Volles Figure 1: Ai-generated image The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI⇣) has intensified long-standing questions about the purpose of higher education. Early institutional responses have mostly focused on academic integrity⇣ and the perceived threat to assessment. However, recent research suggests that the real disruption lies elsewhere. GenAI reveals the fragility of curricular models built on performance, reproduction of knowledge and te

By Dr Nina Volles Every so often, a piece of writing lands not just in our inboxes, but in our gut. It disrupts. It clarifies. And it refuses to be shelved as “an interesting read”. Anne Menzel’s paper, Situating liberal rationality: unacknowledged commitments in progressive knowledge production and policymaking, is one of those. Published as SCRIPTS Working Paper No. 23, it challenges the foundational assumptions of how we think, work, and justify what we do in international

I almost accidentally got into international development. My background is in managing higher education, and I got into the field in a...