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On the English version of its website, Kim Il Sung University has listed past, current and alleged partnerships with “sister universities” and claims, “international academic exchanges are in full swing”. Many of the named universities disagree and do not want to be associated with North Korea. They try to have their names removed from the website, but so far the University has failed to respond to their requests.

In a surprise move, the president of the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz in Germany this week announced plans to overhaul controversial contracts governing the use of a €150 million donation from a philanthropic foundation. Critics have charged that the agreement gives the donor too much control over publishing decisions and faculty appointments at the school’s Institute of Molecular Biology, which the foundation helped create in 2009. The move, which could eventually influence similar funding arrangements at other German universities, only partly satisfies critics. They are pushing for greater transparency from universities and donors.

German university heads have welcomed proposals by the Stifterverband – a network of foundations, businesses and individuals supporting the country’s higher education and research – for improved transparency in collaborations between universities and industry. The recommendations, issued in mid-April, stress the “responsibility of universities, as autonomous institutions, to regularly and appropriately inform the public about their collaborative projects with industry”.

More than 600 academics in Germany have signed a petition demanding that cases of plagiarism and data manipulation be settled in discourses at subject level. The campaign is critical of a move by the German Rectors' Conference to have such issues treated confidentially in university committ

The University of Düsseldorf has withdrawn the doctoral title of Germany's Minister of Education and Research, claiming that she lifted material for her thesis. While the Minister is seeking to contest the university's verdict, the opposition in parliament has called for her resignation. A Bonn academic and law expert has claimed that the case may have damaged higher education as a whole in Germany.

Weeks after Germany's defense minister was forced to resign in a plagiarism scandal, three German universities say they are investigating similar complaints about the academic work of three figures from the country's political sphere.