According to the latest report from the IUNE Observatory of the A4U Alliance, 92% of scientific publications within the Spanish University System (SUE) originate from public universities, while only 8% are produced by private institutions. The report, developed by the INAECU Institute (a collaboration between the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, UAM,  and the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, UC3M), provides a comprehensive analysis of the performance of Spanish universities using nearly fifty indicators related to teaching, research, and knowledge transfer.

Education projects supporting marginalised girls in lower-income countries are more likely to achieve lasting transformations when they mobilise whole communities as “agents of change”. In many low and middle-income countries, girls face persistent inequalities and social norms that limit their learning and life chances; those who live in extreme poverty, rural areas, or have disabilities, are especially vulnerable. Although programmes supporting marginalised girls’ education exist, their effects often fade after the initial funding stops, and they are especially vulnerable to wider ‘shocks’ such as economic turmoil, pandemics and natural disasters. The new study evaluated 27 projects from a UK Government-backed scheme for marginalised girls’ education, including in-depth case studies from Zimbabwe and Nepal. It finds that when these projects engage entire communities – community leaders, local organisations, and young women themselves – to participate in supporting girls’ education, the effects, despite these projects’ general vulnerability, are sustained.

A Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researcher is developing a new class of medical adhesives by bringing together hydrogels and glue-like polymers to safely and reliably connect human tissues to therapeutic devices implanted in the body, such as pacemakers, insulin pumps, and artificial joints.