International Strategy for Higher Education Institutions
International Strategy for Higher Education Institutions
Student-centred internationalisation Posted on by Vicky Lewis
Regular readers with long memories may recall that, way back in June, I wrote two blogs which explored what it means to place students at the heart of internationalisation strategy, and offered some recommendations for anyone seeking to put this into practice.
At the end of the second, I invited feedback and suggested I might develop some of the themes from the commentary into a third blog.
It’s taken a while, but here it is.
The comments on both blogs were thoughtful and constructive. Rather than simply reinforcing the original arguments, they challenged and extended them – and highlighted some interesting tensions.
Here are four that particularly struck me.
My earlier blogs argued that clarifying institutional purpose should be an early part of strategy development. Some of the comments pushed this further.
Internationalisation can serve many purposes: educational outcomes, cultural exchange, research collaboration, capacity building, diplomacy and social impact, as well as income generation.
But how realistic is it to separate these purposes?
In the current UK environment, financial pressures may make an export-driven approach feel less like a strategic choice and more like a necessity.
So maybe student-centred internationalisation isn’t about setting up dichotomy between institutional or student interests. It’s about how we acknowledge and manage the relationship between the two.
Could being more explicit about that tension lead to better strategy?
One of my three original ‘emphasis flips’ was from the mobile minority to the whole student body.
The discussion reinforced the importance of thinking more expansively about what ‘the whole student body’ means.
It clearly includes home and international students, and those who are and aren’t internationally mobile. But it also includes students studying through TNE, including those who may never set foot on the university’s home campus.
This opens up an interesting connection between Internationalisation at Home and TNE (which, as Dr Cheryl Yu has pointed out, is the ultimate manifestation of ‘internationalisation at home’, if you think about it). Rather than viewing them as separate strands of international activity, what would happen if we treated them as interconnected and mutually enhancing?
Our UK institutional internationalisation strategies need to progress from focusing primarily on international students, to encompassing the experience of all students, wherever and however they study.
Context was a strong theme in my original research. The comments reinforced just how much national policy, funding pressures, institutional mission and available resources shape what universities can realistically do.
But, although context constrains strategy, it doesn’t necessarily dictate it.
Institutions still make choices about what they prioritise and – importantly – what they measure.
One contributor observed that leaders may naturally gravitate towards the aspects of internationalisation they know best. Institutions also tend to benchmark themselves against others using readily comparable numerical indicators (particularly those picked up by global rankings).
There’s an interesting strategic risk here.
If we all use similar measures of internationalisation success, we may well end up pursuing similar goals and trying to ‘be everything to everyone’.
As I’ve argued before, mixing in some qualitative measures can help an institution to demonstrate not only its impact on students, but also what is distinctive about its particular ethos and approach.
The comments also prompted me to reflect further on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
In my work supporting universities with internationalisation strategies, I routinely suggest involving EDI colleagues. Interestingly, they rarely feature on institutions’ initial lists of key stakeholders.
I think that tells us something.
If equity is integral to internationalisation, EDI expertise needs to help shape strategy from the outset – not simply be brought in afterwards to make existing activities more inclusive.
And there’s a wider point here about student voice.
In the previous blogs, I distinguished between students as beneficiaries and students as co-designers. The discussion since has flagged another useful distinction: between a strategy about students, one developed for students, and one developed with students.
That last version changes not only the content of a strategy, but the process – and, with that, the culture – through which it is created.
One of the contributors to the discussion was Professor Elspeth Jones, whose Integrated Framework for Student-Centred Internationalisation has itself continued to evolve in response to perspectives from different global contexts. An updated version will feature in Jones E. & Ammigan R. (2027). Student-Centred Internationalisation: Policy, Strategy and Practice. Routledge.
There’s a pleasing parallel here.
My initial research drew on the insights of practitioners from six continents partly to challenge my own Anglo-Western assumptions. Sharing the resulting ideas – via a conference presentation and my series of blogs – has opened them up to another round of challenge, refinement and extension.
And that’s exactly as it should be.
Student-centred internationalisation isn’t about creating a finished model to be adopted. It’s an invitation to our institutions to keep asking questions about purpose, priorities, inclusion and voice.
So, continuing the conversation: what would you add?
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Elspeth Jones
1 October 2026 at 10:57 (Comment 1 of 1)
Another great blog Vicky. Thank you so much for helping me think about these matters further. Several of the points you make also come up in the book you kindly mention here and, as you say, it's important to see this as an evolving series of reflections rather than a static viewpoint. Look forward to further comments on this and, once more, thank you for your excellent chapter in the book.