Internationalisation strategy: supporting all aspects of HE strategy?

The Dialogue 1 session at this year’s EAIE conference showed that international linkages at the policy level are necessary to solve higher education problems that relate to, for instance, the consequences of the economic crisis, or the risk of massification to the quality of education.

Internationalisation is increasingly used as a tool to raise the quality of institutional strategy and policy. But what do we mean by internationalisation and quality in the first place?

Context matters

'Context matters', Eva Egron-Polak , Secretary General at the International Association of Universities, argued at the recent ACA seminar entitled 'Internationalisation revisited'. Where you stand (as an institution or as a person) influences how you see internationalisation. It is therefore important to specify what we mean by internationalisation and what the aims of internationalisation are.

Originally, the reasons to internationalise higher education were to support peace and mutual understanding, and to increase the quality of education. However, this has changed in the past decade due to neo-liberal market reforms, a concern with global rankings and reputations, and the use of education as an export commodity.

Higher education as a political tool

Also, national governments are increasingly using higher education as a tool to support their foreign policy and trade. And new players have emerged in the international higher education market, such as the BRIC countries. They have different goals and ways of internationalising and therefore obtain different impacts.

Competition is here to stay

The ACA seminar showed that competition in the international higher education market is here to stay and that  there are two things we must do:

1. Respect the 'older' but still important academic values of mutual understanding, educational quality, opportunities for all and respectful international partnerships.
2. Make explicit in our discussions and strategies the academic values and benefits of internationalisation to the quality of higher education.

Know what you want

As professional in the field of internationalisation, we always need to have a clear idea of the aim of internationalisation in our institutions. To do this, we must critically assess our internationalisation policies and practices. The following five steps can help us in these efforts:

1. As return on investment becomes more and more important, the key question is: are we looking for private return (employability) or public return (knowledge workers)?
2. Determine what impact  we want and how we will measure it.
3. Become more politically involved, as Eva Egron-Polak suggested at the EAIE, so we can influence how internationalisation is used to reach certain goals and prevent misuse.
4. Ensure that we and our international partners equally respect each other, with equal benefits for all.
5. Use major developments around our universities (e.g. the establishment of a new international organisation in our region or city) to further internationalise.