Internationalisation in European Higher Education

Institutional internationalisation is diverse and multi-layered, with potentially competing or contradicting rationales. The results of the EUA membership consultation 2013 with responses from 175 HE institutions in 38 countries show an interesting snapshot.
The main findings include that about one-third of the responding institutions indicate to have an international student population above 10% of total students enrolled. The predominant characteristic here seems to be large differences between institutions within the same country, rather than between countries. Moreover, 99% of the institutions that replied to the survey either have an internationalisation strategy in place (56%), intend to develop one (13%), or have considered internationalisation in other strategies (30%).   The top institutional priorities mentioned for internationalisation are:
•    Attracting students from abroad at all levels (30%)
•    Internationalisation of learning and teaching (19%)
•    Providing students with opportunities to have a learning experience abroad (12%)
•    Developing strategic research partnerships with other institutions (10%)
Survey respondents testify that internationalisation strategies have a significant impact on:
    * Developing partnerships with new regions and countries (73%)
    * Sending more students abroad (72%)
    * Growing the international student population (68%)
    * Offering international opportunities to staff (67%)
    * Offering more courses in English (67%)
    * Developing double and joint degrees (61%)
EU strategy for internationalisation
91% of respondents felt that there would be an added value to an EU strategy for internationalisation, particularly in promoting internationalisation to university leadership, national bodies and to the wider university community. Regarding the expected impact that the EU strategy would have at the institutional level, most frequently mentioned were
    * funding opportunities for exchange and collaboration
    * support to the institution’s internationalisation strategy development
    * enhancement of specific EU support measures for internationalisation
The “open answers” from the respondents clearly indicate two aspects that can be improved at institutional level to stimulate and support internationalisation: language skills of students and staff and increased funding.
Link to the 24-page report.