Internationalisation at home in higher education

‘Internationalisation at home’ (IaH) allows students to develop international skills and intercultural competences without having to go abroad. This can be achieved by incorporating and adding international and intercultural elements into your students’ study programme, as well as into the activities they undertake alongside their studies.

For example, you could invite an international guest speaker or set up an online international collaboration project with another foreign institution. But you could also consider a student association buddy programme, where students with different backgrounds are paired up. These are all examples of Internationalisation at Home.

Internationalisation at Home gives students the opportunity to learn to work together with people from different cultural backgrounds and ensures they are able to approach (global) challenges from different perspectives. This is an excellent way for them to become acquainted with the international society that they belong to, while at home in their own learning environment.

This is important, because it enables all your students to develop skills that will help them in international society and the international labour market. Internationalisation at Home is therefore an easy, inclusive and sustainable way to engage in internationalisation.

We have outlined the most important steps so you can quickly get started with internationalisation at home.

Read more about Internationalisation at Home

• What does internationalisation at home (IaH) mean in practice? You can read about this in the Internationalisation at home in practice blog by Elspeth Jones.
• An explanation of the definition and various other concepts related to internationalisation at home, such as internationalisation of the curriculum, can be found in Redefining internationalisation at home, by Jos Beelen and Elspeth Jones.
• Read about how Internationalisation at Home can promote inclusion in Internationalisation at home: an epistemology of equity, a blog by the EAIE.

Would you like to know more about internationalisation at home, or do you have useful tips about this page or are you interested in our IaH Community? In that case, please get in touch with Floor van Donselaar at fvandonselaar@nuffic.nl.

Would you like to discuss internationalisation at home with colleagues from other universities? Then join the IaH Community for Higher Education, which meets every six weeks to exchange experiences. This could prove useful if you have questions or are looking for examples from practice.

If you want to be kept informed about developments, good practices and activities related to IaH, please subscribe to the newsletter. Also make sure to regularly consult our IaH calendar to find out about our IaH activities.