Seher Asaf
Seher Asaf covers how political, financial and technological forces are reshaping European higher education, focusing on the points where policy, regulation and innovation intersect with academic freedom and institutional risk. She is a reporter at Times Higher Education, joining the masthead in January 2026 to cover Europe after working as a journalist at the BBC and as an editor at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. Her recent work combines news reporting and in-depth features, using interviews with rectors, policymakers and sector leaders to connect individual events to wider shifts in governance, funding, research collaboration and the student experience.
Budget cuts, infrastructure and private investment in universities
Asaf reports closely on how funding decisions and financial structures affect universities’ ability to maintain campuses, support research and plan for the future. She has covered fraud findings at a major European innovation network, explaining how irregularities uncovered by the EU’s anti-fraud office disrupted promised funding for university–business collaborations and raised questions about the underlying innovation model. In that piece she sets out how investigations into EIT Manufacturing led to halted funding, liquidation and calls for stronger governance and financial management across the network, making clear the operational risks for participating institutions.
Her reporting on budget cuts to French universities similarly follows the consequences for scientific research and academic freedom, documenting academics’ warnings that reduced resources put pressure on laboratories and teaching while narrowing room for critical inquiry.
Infrastructure and capital investment are another recurring thread in her coverage.
She has reported on Berlin universities pressing a new political coalition to tackle crumbling buildings, highlighting how long-delayed repairs and inadequate facilities shape both research capacity and the daily lives of students and staff. In the UK, she has examined growing interest from private firms in taking over struggling universities, showing how new investors see opportunities while experts warn that bringing traditional institutions under private control would face significant regulatory hurdles and scrutiny.
Her coverage of HEC Paris’ €230 million campus overhaul places physical redevelopment in the context of changing enrolment trends, geopolitical shifts and the impact of artificial intelligence, framing capital projects as strategic responses to a disrupted higher education landscape.
Academic freedom and university–state relations
Questions of academic freedom and universities’ relationship with the state run through Asaf’s long-form and news work. In an in-depth piece on Hungary, she traces how governance reforms under Viktor Orbán, including the long-running dispute that forced Central European University out of Budapest, became a symbol of wider pressures on academic freedom. That article sets upcoming elections and the possibility of reversing contested legislation against a decade of policy changes, drawing out why some scholars are sceptical that rolling back laws alone would quickly repair the damage to institutions and the academic climate.
Her reporting on French science after budget cuts similarly brings together researchers at a press conference to discuss the trajectory of academic freedom, showing how funding decisions and political rhetoric feed into a broader sense of constraint and uncertainty.
Asaf also follows how demographic and political debates affect cross-border research ties. She has covered a Swiss referendum proposal to cap the country’s population, underscoring warnings that such a move could again jeopardise Switzerland’s participation in the EU’s Horizon Europe programme and strain collaboration between domestic universities and European partners. In other in-depth work she reports on academic freedom issues in Turkey, situating individual cases within a wider pattern of state pressure on institutions and scholars.
Across these pieces, she consistently links national politics and regulatory choices to concrete outcomes for universities, from relocation and collaboration risk to shifting incentives for international partnerships.
AI, digital credentials and fraud in higher education
Technology’s role as both a threat and a tool in higher education is a central focus of Asaf’s reporting. In a widely cited article on fake degrees, published at Inside Higher Ed and written for Times Higher Education, she explains how artificial intelligence and digital tools have expanded the scale and sophistication of diploma mills, document fabrication and credential fraud.
Drawing on a UNESCO discussion, she reports that the global fake degree industry has grown into a multibillion-dollar business and that experts now see AI-assisted forgeries, contract cheating and identity fraud as part of a complex ecosystem that no country can tackle alone. She also explores proposed responses, including cryptographic verification and digital credentials, emphasising that technology can both enable fraud and strengthen defences depending on how systems are designed and implemented.
Her beat includes how AI is changing research practice inside universities. Asaf has covered a major survey showing that more than two-thirds of European universities report AI use among doctoral students, with leaders of doctoral education seeing more opportunity than challenges in emerging tools. In that story she focuses on how supervisors and institutions manage AI’s integration into research, balancing innovation with concerns over integrity and skills development.
The fraud-hit innovation network piece extends this technological thread to governance, as she reports on the need for strong internal controls, data systems and oversight mechanisms when universities partner with external bodies in digitally intensive projects. Together, these articles present a consistent interest in how AI and digital systems reshape both the risks and practices of higher education.
Tuition fees, campuses and graduate employability
Asaf regularly reports on how policy changes and institutional strategies affect students’ costs, mobility and preparation for work. In her coverage of France’s decision to impose much higher tuition fees on most non-EU students, she details how new rules multiply costs for international undergraduates and master’s students, and how the shift has sparked debate over whether universities are departing from long-standing egalitarian principles.
She highlights the tension between revenue needs and access, noting concerns that fee hikes could foreshadow broader increases and alter who can afford to study in the country. Her reporting on gaps in understanding between universities and their external partners similarly points to how misaligned expectations can leave students in a vulnerable position, especially when work placements and collaborative programmes are not clearly structured.
Institutional responses to changing student demands and labour markets are another strand in her work. At HEC Paris, she describes how a major campus redevelopment is framed around what students need to succeed in an era marked by AI, geopolitical disruption and shifting enrolment patterns, connecting physical design with curriculum and career preparation. In a piece on graduate employability, she reports calls for universities to co-design curricula with employers from the outset rather than consulting businesses only at the end of programme development, underlining the argument that closer collaboration can improve outcomes for graduates. Her coverage of university reputations adds a communications dimension, relaying rectors’ view that European institutions can no longer rely solely on research performance but must articulate a clear narrative about what they stand for in a competitive global environment. Across these stories, Asaf’s reporting shows a sustained interest in how fees, campus planning, employer engagement and institutional storytelling combine to shape the student journey and graduates’ prospects.
4 more education journalists.
Ajit Niranjan
Ajit Niranjan links climate science, policy and hard numbers to how extreme weather and environmental damage disrupt daily life, public services and industry. He is European environment correspondent at the Guardian. His beat includes violent heat, pollution, wildfires, air quality, EU green policy, corporate responsibility, energy transition, clean home heating, public health and long-term risks to landscapes and ecosystems. He examines how lobbying, supply chains and regulation shape environmental harm, from data centres and fish farms to fossil fuel industries. His reporting covers schools, hospitals, transport, homes and infrastructure as climate stress points. He previously reported on climate for DW News. He combines data, scientific research, eyewitness accounts and on-the-ground reporting. He also produces explainers, dossiers, factsheets and Q&As that translate complex technical debates into clear, precise language.
Albert Tait
Albert Tait is Education Editor at The Telegraph, leading coverage of schools and universities as institutions whose decisions have direct consequences for staff and students. He focuses on how regulators, senior leaders and governing bodies respond when safety, standards or integrity are under scrutiny, and how those responses affect classrooms and lecture halls. His work links school inspections and teacher safety to regulatory frameworks and conditions on the ground, and he reports on incidents such as knife attacks and “Code Red” alerts with attention to immediate impact and emergency protocols. He produces multi-part investigations into university governance, including extensive reporting on Cambridge’s handling of Jason Arday’s appointment and resignation. He also covers curriculum debates such as changes in how scientists view evolution and inheritance. He began at The Telegraph as a news reporter and previously covered community news at a local paper.
Beth Kennedy
Beth Kennedy is editor at The PIE News and stands out for reporting on how UK policy, institutional strategy and new delivery models reshape international education. Her beat covers UK study visa rules, international student flows, Home Office and UCAS data, alternative study pathways, language schools, and mergers and acquisitions across the sector. She reports on the practical effects of visa changes, scholarship schemes, online and transnational education, school closures, job losses and sector consolidation. Her work is direct and data-led, with clear explanations of complex systems and a focus on what policy and market shifts mean for universities, language schools and private training organisations. She has over a decade in specialist media, including years reporting for primary healthcare professionals before joining The PIE in 2024.
Callum Clark
Callum Clark is a multimedia journalist at STV News who covers education through the lens of university finances, restructuring and their impact on students, staff and local services. He focuses on stories where cost‑saving plans, job losses and service closures reshape community life, such as Dundee University’s nursery and botanic garden closures, and sets those decisions within wider restructuring efforts. His reporting is direct and fact driven, built on official documents, statements and precise figures that show both the scale of savings targets and monthly losses, and the number of posts at risk. Clark’s background in local news and public service coverage, including mental health service reforms and redundancy schemes, shapes a methodical style that tracks formal processes while keeping the lived experience of workers, families and service users in view.