This is an interesting resource, a podcast interview with an author of a major research report on internationalisation, drawing on a survey of institutions representing 95 countries. Though much of the internationalisation agenda in the US tackled by the
resources on the Center for Internationalisation in Higher Education at Boston College focuses on the US Study Abroad agenda, which is about the promotion of study abroad schemes for US students. However, the discussion of the IAU Global Survey Report on 
Internationalization of Higher Education with Prof Jane Knight is based on an international survey of universities and their internationalisation approaches. In this 18 minute podcast interview, Prof Knight compares the different motivations for internationalisation. Prof Knight highlights the diversity of institutional motivations for internationalisation. For example the top ranked motivation was to work with staff, faculty, students to engage them in intercultural skills, i.e. people – oriented. Second was to
engage in international research agendas. She contrasts these top-ranked motivations with the bottom ranked motivations of the universities which were focused on income generating activities. However, amongst those institutions indicating this as a motivation, those in the developed economies as being largely about income generation, while the motivation of universities in developing economies is more driven from capacity building and developing an international profile.
She spent some time talking about the issue of risk in internationalisation. 95% of the responding 95 institutions said there were benefits to internationliat6ion, while 70 per cent indicated there was risk. The main risk identified by the medium and low income countries as commoditsation. The second key risk was focused around quality assurance and accreditation issues. Thirdly, was the issue of the ‘brain-drain’ – again a key concern for lower income countries.
Prof Knight identifies the issue of the lack of strategic planning as institutions move from a reactive to a proactive approach to this issue. Also future growth areas were identified as:
- institutional agreements and networks – particularly networks [should the PRSI build in the Forum and have an international Forum ion the future?]
- student mobility – and the impact on internationalisation and institutional stratgegy
- research – particularly collaborative activities and networks
- geography – 4 of the six regions said their first priority was within their own region – Europe, Africa, Latin America. The Middle East and Asia did not focus on their own region.
Europe came out as the main region which institutions wanted to focus their internationlaisation activities own. Prof Knight put this down to activities such as the Bologna Process. however, she did point out that students till prefer the US as a destination.
Some interesting ideas here. Such a major comparative study will inevitably highlight medium and low income countries as they were well represented in the survey, however, there are some themes in this podcast that could identify trends worth pursuing collaboratively. However, are our institutional motivations similar or complementary? Is there scope for research?
She finished on the comment that more data is needed – therefore more research is needed – watch this space??
Kenny
