The International Association of Universities’ sixth Global Survey on the Internationalisation of Higher Education received responses from 722 higher education institutions in 110 countries and territories.

The report looks at seven different aspects of internationalisation:

• Importance, benefits and challenges to internationalisation
• Internationalisation governance
• Internationalisation of teaching and learning: activities
• Internationalisation of teaching and learning: Internationalisation of the curriculum at home
• Internationalisation of research
• Internationalisation and societal/community engagement
• Emerging issues and the future of internationalisation

Key findings showed that 77% of HEIs surveyed placed a high level of importance on internationalisation. The sense of importance has increased over the last five years across all types of HEIs, including those who did – and still do – place a low level of importance on internationalisation.

Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA, highlighted that this change – even though slow – is significant.

“There is something that is changing. It is changing very slowly. For many of us who have been in the field for 30+ years, it has not moved as much as we would’ve liked it to move.”

According to the report, the main driver for the increase in the importance at the global level is the “increased need to strategically connect with other HEIs globally”.

This underlies the “strategic nature of internationalisation as an intentional process undertaken by HEIs”, it went on to say.

Globally, “enhanced international cooperation and capacity building” remained the most important benefit of internationalisation in all regions except North America.

Meanwhile, North American institutions felt that “increased global, international and intercultural knowledge, skills and competences for both students and staff” is the most important benefit.

Although Aw agreed that intercultural competence is an important factor for North American HEIs, she added that questions exist around how stakeholders can effectively overlay internationalisation with diversity, equity and inclusion.

“For a long time we’ve seen these as parallel tracks but I think now more than ever we need to have the conversation about what the intersection is of the work of internationalisation and DEI, simply because that is an important dimension of the work that is taking place within university settings.”

The report showed that the overall majority of institutions – some 87% – said their international policies and activities take DEI into account in some manner.

“We need to have the conversation about what is the intersection of the work of internationalisation and DEI”

Some 77% of respondents have elaborated a strategy for internationalisation, with Europe recording the highest percentage of HEIs indicating the presence of such a policy or strategy.

Meanwhile, Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest percentage of HEIs with some sort of strategy at 61%. However over a quarter said they are in the process of preparing one.

Another area for concern for Aw is the report’s analysis on links between internationalising and the SDGs.

The report showed that Asia Pacific is clearly the region where the link between internationalisation and sustainable development is more advanced, with 52% of institutions indicating that they have a policy or strategy in place to use it as a means to support sustainable development.

“What is happening with the rest of the world?” asked Aw. “Internationalisation has to be outcome-driven. It’s not just inputs and outputs.”

North America is the only region where the percentage of HEIs linking internationalisation and sustainable development is less than 50%.

More public HEIs are linking it with sustainable development than private HEIs, according to the survey.

When it comes to risks associated with internationalising, the report found no common institutional risks for HEIs at global level. The most common risk was “increased workload for academic and administrative staff” and this was selected by only 42% of respondents.

However, regional analysis revealed one societal risk – “brain drain” – was a serious concern in Sub-Saharan Africa, where it was selected by three quarters of HEIs. “Insufficient financial resources” was also identified as a major internal obstacle for internationalisation by HEIs, selected by 60%.

North American institutions put “insufficient financial resources” as a close second to “competing priorities at institutional level”, however.

Published five years after the previous survey, Hans De Wit, senior fellow, IAU, noted that the significance of the report as it captures trends and changes over a period of unprecedented turbulence for higher education and its international dimensions.

The survey took place over the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, war in the Middle-East and in Africa, during geopolitical tensions between China and the Global North and in a time of “increased concerns about climate change and the prospects of (not) achieving the Sustainable Development Goals as defined in the UN 2030 Agenda”.

Both this report and the recently published 2024 Barometer from EAIE were assumed to provide insight into the main challenges and opportunities.

“In that respect, one could say that both survey results were a little bit disappointing and did not reveal major surprises or new insights,” De Wit told The PIE.

De Wit noted that this may be linked to the fact that respondents in both surveys were primarily senior in the case of IAU, and in the case of EAIE, primarily junior administrators of international offices.

“But as long as we keep this in mind, the surveys give valuable insight in their perceptions of needed change in internationalisation: more attention to equity and inclusion, more focus on socially responsible internationalisation, more relevance of virtual exchange and collaborative online international learning.”

“For Europe in general, internationalisation is a way both of internally uniting but also a way of building relationships and cooperations with other parts of the world while retaining our diversity and our basis of European values,” said Ligia Deca, minister of education for Romania, during a webinar launching the report.

“For Romania, it is a way of modernising higher education. As any transitioning country, we have had three decades of catching up after 50 years of communism.”

Deca said that during this time, Romanian universities have rediscovered their roots, autonomy and have devised their own institutional strategies, including how to to cooperate and compete internationally.