Blogs
Here Nuffic staff and external experts provide background information on current events and analyse ongoing developments in international higher education.
International student mobility: European, Dutch and institutional policies
On 5 June, the Dutch National Agency for Lifelong Learning organised a well-attended conference to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Erasmus programme. And where better to celebrate this than in Rotterdam, Erasmus’ own city!
Four steps to creating sustainable academic partnerships
Are you considering collaborating with one or more higher education partners to add value to your institution? In our rapidly changing global society, HEIs need academic partners to exchange people, ideas and methods, and institutional partnerships have become big business. But how do you create partnerships which are truly sustainable? In this blog, Nico Evers and Jenneke Lokhoff provide you with some essential tips based on the recommendations of experts involved in European-Asian partnerships.
Finalised IMPI tool for benchmarking internationalisation
The final symposium of the IMPI project took place in Brussels on 10 May and was attended by participants from all over Europe. The symposium obviously included detailed information on the IMPI project but also provided information on related projects, such as AHELO and MAUNIMO.
Gender in Dutch international capacity development programmes: scholarships
This is Part 1 of a two-part blog summarising the lessons that Nuffic has learned with regard to mainstreaming gender in three key programmes of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Part 1 focuses on the scholarship-based programme NFP while Part 2 focuses on the project-based programmes NPT and NICHE.
Gender in Dutch international capacity development programmes: projects
This is Part 2 of a two-part blog summarising the lessons that Nuffic has learned with regard to mainstreaming gender in three key programmes of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Part 1 focuses on the scholarship-based programme NFP while the current blog focuses on the project-based programmes NPT and NICHE.
EAR2 – online recognition manual and training
On 24 April, the kick-off meeting for the EAR2 project took place in The Hague. EAR is short for European Area of Recognition, and EAR2 is one of the follow-ups to the successful EAR project that ended last January with the delivery of the European recognition manual. This manual aims to provide clarity in the divergent world of recognition procedures for foreign qualifications by agreeing on recognition standards and providing examples of good practices in Europe.
Recommendation EAR manual in Bucharest Communiqué major boost for fair recognition practices in the EHEA
On 26 and 27 April the ministers of education of 47 countries gathered in Bucharest, Romania to take stock of the Bologna Process and set out the key policy issues and goals for the next three years. The outcomes have been published in the Communiqué, one of the main political documents of the European Higher Education Area EHEA. One of its recommendations is the use of the European Area of Recognition manual.
Can we measure the impact of scholarships?
Recently I participated in a seminar organised by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) in the United Kingdom on measuring the impact of international scholarships. In 2007 the Commission organised a similar event which focused on methods to measure the results of scholarship programmes through tracer studies. DFID, the major sponsor of the Commonwealth Scholarship Programme, wanted to see some hard evidence of the results of the scholarships that had been awarded over the years
8% of Dutch Language & Culture students has travelled prior to entering university
Ideally, to ascertain learning outcomes, we need to know what students know and can do before they enter university. This would be the same for learning outcomes in intercultural and international competencies: we would like to know how much (and what type of) intercultural and international experience students have at entering university.
Capacity building of developing countries good for international business
Development cooperation, particularly through educational capacity building, contributes to growth of the middle class in developing regions, which, in turn, contributes to the sustainability of international business.
Benchmarking internationalisation
In this blog we look at how higher education institutions can benchmark their internationalisation initiatives.
Internationalisation in support of teaching staff
For once, let’s talk about staff and internationalisation without looking at staff mobility. If only because the majority of teaching staff are, in fact, non-mobile and they constitute a considerable group of professionals in any country.
Heading in the same direction?
Within Europe, national policies on international student mobility are influenced by European-level policies, developed by the European Commission or in the framework of the Bologna Process. Does this mean that national policies on student mobility in Europe are converging? And if so, in which ways?
Tulips, Guus Hiddink and joint master programmes
The longstanding relationship between Turkey and the Netherlands.
NVAO launches platform for good practices in internationalisation
In Australia good practices in Quality Assurance have been made public through a digital archive for many years now. Personally I find this a very good source of information. So why not launch one in the Netherlands as well? That is exactly what NVAO, the Dutch Flemish Accreditation Organisation, did earlier this month.
OBHE report on international branch campuses
The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE) recently published its fourth report on international branch campus (IBCs), one of the intriguing developments in internationalisation in higher education of recent years.
Dutch impact on Mozambican Higher Education
Earlier this month the vice minister for Education of Mozambique, Dr Arlindo Chilundo, visited Nuffic to celebrate Nuffic's 60th anniversary and to attend the Mozambique day organised for Dutch institutions that participate in the NPT and NICHE programmes.
Gender in the Dutch international cooperation strategy
The more than 20 private sector development cooperation programmes that have recently been established in the Netherlands barely include a gender equality focus. Yet, at the national level, the government has articulated its intention to pursue women economic empowerment in its foreign policy. Can this gap between intention and action be closed? And how?
Student mobility to the Netherlands, compared with other EU countries
In an earlier blog I referred to Dutch students studying abroad. The same OECD data also allow for comparison between countries regarding student inflows, or better, regarding foreign students registering in the country.
Dutch students abroad in the academic year 2008-09
The most recent data on Dutch students registering in other countries for study (diploma mobility), reveal a further growth of the number of students studying abroad.