In the light of escalating restrictions in the UK and abroad because of the global pandemic and the uncertainty in terms of when any restrictions will be lifted, we have taken the decision to postpone HER2020.

Inspired by the surreal accounts of the explorer and ‘man of a million lies’ Marco Polo, Imaginary Cities (Influx Press, 2015)  charts the metropolis and the imagination, and the symbiosis therein. A work of creative nonfiction, the book roams through space, time and possibility, mapping cities of sound, melancholia and the afterlife, where time runs backwards or which float among the clouds. In doing so, Imaginary Cities seeks to move beyond the clichés of psychogeography and hauntology, to not simply revisit the urban past, or our relationship with it, but to invade and reinvent it.

In early January, at the 107th annual Indian Science Congress held in Bengaluru, the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India shared its draft policy on Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR), inviting discussion. As a leading country with a strong base of modern science and its institutions, India’s efforts to prepare a framework of social responsibility of science is really very meaningful and important.

We are pleased to announce that the University of Johannesburg in collaboration with the University of Zululand and the University of Glasgow has been awarded a grant of 3,976,000 Rand by the Department of Higher Education and Training in South Africa and the British Council through the Newton Fund in order to enhance the capacity of 10 permanent academics in South Africa through doctoral studies in the following fields: local development; entrepreneurship, sustainable development goals 1, 2 and 4, education and fourth industrial revolution technologies that will support municipalities in local development to improve the quality of lives of communities.

The draft National Education Policy (NEP) of India has many important suggestions to make higher education more purposive towards enabling India achieve its constitutional vision and future aspirations. On the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, for Dr Rajesh Tandon, UNESCO Co-Chair in Community Based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education, the draft NEP must be informed by Gandhi’s vision for higher education in India.