Internationalization of higher education institutions

: drivers and tools

Abstract

In the last decades internationalization has become increasingly important for universities. However, and despite its importance, there is still a lack not only of a conceptual broad consensus but also, of structured information to assist administration officers or academics in charge of Higher education institutions’ management so they can make informed decisions on internationalization. For these reasons, there is a general leaning towards an uninformed use of the concepts, and the implementation of ad hoc policies that fail to achieve the intended goals and that often result in costs rather than investments with visible return. This study intends to consolidate information regarding the possible motivations and objectives for internationalization as well as the current available tools (in the sense of activities) for Higher education institutions. It is also intended to support decision making processes by establishing which tools are the most suited, considering the intended objectives. We defend the idea that it is possible to reach a best match between motivations and tools in order to maximize returns on internationalization investments. Through the categorisation of the main rationales for internationalization, the identification and description of the available tools as well as the analysis of different internationalization strategies, we have found that not all tools serve all rationales and that there are benefits in carefully choosing one over another or in addition to the other. Through the categorization of the main rationales, the identification and description of the available tools, as well as an analysis of cases of successful implementation regarding the different internationalization ix strategies, used by Australian and Chinese HEIs, we have confirmed that the used tools change along with the modification of rationales. There are thus, more advantageous links than others when it comes to tools and rationales. That is to say, that not all tools are suitable to all rationales and there are clear benefits in carefully choosing one instead of the other or along with another tool.

Date of Award	9 Jul 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rita Ribeiro (Supervisor)