The pandemic showed the downsides of an interconnected world with the rapid spread of the virus. However, to address the global challenges of our time, higher education needs to strengthen global discourse and international collaboration, delegates to the first general conference of the International Association of Universities (IAU) for six years were told. Addressing higher education leaders from the four corners of the globe who were meeting together in Dublin, Ireland, Patrick Deane, principal of Queen’s University, Canada and president of the governing council of the Magna Charta Observatory, said there were still some who need convincing that international cooperation must triumph over self-reliance if the world is to learn the lessons of a pandemic that could have extinguished the population.
