SGHE Summit – Plenary The Global Campus – Higher Education goes International

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Apr 272010

SGHE Summit – Plenary The Global Campus – Higher Education goes International

IAU - International Association of Universities

New: Internationalizations Strategies Advisory Service (ISAS)

Key Concepts

Diversity – national (regional) and institutional, contexts, resources, goals/rationales
Shared Definition of internationalizations prevails – a multidimentional and comprehensive process to introduce international and intercultural dimensions into learning, research, services and deliver of higher education
Multiplicity of implementation approaches

Principles

proactive effort
cooperation and partnerships among equals
ethical behaviour, mutual respect and shared benefits
priority to academic rationales and to models that safeguard or improve quality and accessibility
promotion of geographically balanced and contextually relevant approaches by identifying and minimizing risks

3rd IAU Global Survey

Methodology

an international task force
online questionnaire in 5 languages
continuity of questions from 2003 and 2005

n=745 – majority of responses from Europe 44%

Why Internationalize?

improve student preparedness for international studies
internationalize curriculum
enhance international profile
Africa and Middle East reason strengthen research and knowledge capacity
Europe reason increase profile

Increase in importance in 3 years of internationalization up by 80%

Only 67% of institutions had a policy for internationalization, 72% have a budget attached, but monitoring frameworks (QA) down to 48%

Bologna Process – Europe striving to be the most attractive higher education location for international students but Africa, Latin America and the Middle East see themselves as the most important source of international students

Barriers – External Obstacles

difficulties of recognition for credits and courses
language barrier
Visa restrictions also limit options
#1 obstacle – funding and cost to the student

Conclusions

primary focus is on student’s preparedness
congruence between rationales and expected benefits but regional differences
student mobility opportunities are important but the impact is different
international research collaboration is important
growth of importance of internationalization as a policy area with budgets being allocated
linkage between prestige and internationalization but has related risks by limiting collaboration
disaggregation of data and regional analysis shows divergence on many aspects
- Middle East and Africa are challenging areas because they are only focusing on their own region
- Europe is the most popular region
- funding is the most important obstacle
- problems of credit and course recognition persist
Key Challenges
- finding funds = main barrier to increased HEI internationalization (can the private sector step up as employers)
- overcoming visa restrictions and process bureaucracy for student and faculty
- pursing efforts to ease recognition of credits and credentials
- respecting different interest of partners
- partnering with HEI’s in all world regions
IAU International Agenda
- publish report in July 2010
- ISAS service will be available to support institutional policy development and improvement
- http://www.iau-aiu.net – e.egronpolak@iau-aiu.net