Dynamics of Academic Mobility: Hegemonic Internationalisation or Fluid Globalisation?
Abstract
Two broad frameworks are used to describe and analyse the mobility of academic staff. The first, and dominant, framework focuses on flows from the 'periphery' to the 'core', although that 'core' is also evolving (and is no longer dominated by North America and Western Europe but is increasingly likely to embrace dynamic East Asia systems). This first approach is labelled 'hegemonic internationalisation'. The second framework focuses instead on issues of development, the emergence of global communities and social movements. This is labelled 'fluid globalisation'. The article argues that the latter may be more useful for understanding trends in academic mobility.
... Both international mobility and research collaborations have become indicators in higher education (HE) rankings, providing universities with an incentive to hire internationally mobile staff and support international collaboration (Marginson and van der Wende 2009;Times Higher Education 2018). The imbalance of flows of scholars and other highly skilled labour between "peripheral regions" and "metropolitan" centres (often framed in terms of regional "brain drain", "brain gain" or "brain circulation") has usually focused on migration to the United States of America (USA) or Europe, but may see a shift of destinations in light of rising new centres of HE in South and East Asia (Gaillard and Gaillard 1997;Scott 2015;OECD 2018). For the African context, the notion of "brain drain" predominates the perceived flow of highly skilled scientists from the continent to other world regions (Network of African Science Academies 2009). ...
... In contrast to the inherent growth potential attributed to international mobility, data regarding the movement patterns of academics and researchers is rather scarce and fragmented (Scott 2015;Teichler 2017;Sehoole et al. 2019;Rostan and Ceravalo 2015). Scott (2015) as well as Teichler and Cavalli (2015) highlight some reasons for this lack of reliable data: ...
... In contrast to the inherent growth potential attributed to international mobility, data regarding the movement patterns of academics and researchers is rather scarce and fragmented (Scott 2015;Teichler 2017;Sehoole et al. 2019;Rostan and Ceravalo 2015). Scott (2015) as well as Teichler and Cavalli (2015) highlight some reasons for this lack of reliable data: ...
In this chapter, we present an overview of the mobility patterns of our African early-career researcher (ECR) respondents during the different stages of their tertiary education and career. We discuss the benefits, challenges and barriers to international mobility they have experienced and provide an in-depth analysis of the relationship between mobility and the propensity for collaborative networks. In order to nuance the outcomes and recommendations, we distinguish mobility within Africa and mobility elsewhere in the world, as well as short and longterm mobility.
... The Erasmus programme affects the entire university, including academic and administrative staff (Scott, 2015) and students. Especially for the latter, it is a given that participation in the programme develops specific personal attributes (Teichler, 2017). ...
... Vasilopoulos and Pirgiotaki (2023), which is consistent with the policy of the Greek university more broadly (Stamelos & Vassilopoulos, 2013). 21 The relevant research is of particular interest (European Commission, 2014Scott, 2015;Shields, 2016;Teichler, 2017;Vossensteyn et al., 2010). ...
This paper addresses the gap between policy objectives for participation in mobility and their implementation in higher education institutions. It examines potential institutional impediments to mobility at the university level. To this end, it adopts a qualitative methodological approach based on semi-structured interviews with administrators involved in implementing the Erasmus programme from a diverse range of Greek universities (purposive sampling). Our findings align with the international literature, which identifies funding, complex bureaucratic procedures, difficulties in recognising study periods, and incomplete or inadequate information about the programme as crucial factors of institutional barriers to mobility. Furthermore, the interviewees' status and geographical origin provided insights into the non-supportive institutional context of participation in mobility. The university does not address student participation inequalities, and the existing institutional framework may discourage students from participating in mobility. Sometimes, this leads to cancelling students' participation in the Erasmus programme, which challenges higher education institutions. Research findings may have practical implications for institutional policies regarding institutional barriers to mobility.
... Economic and political rationales of internationalisation practice have become increasingly dominant (Bamberger et al. 2019;Brandenburg and De Wit 2011;Scott 2017;Robson and Wihlborg 2019). IoHE is steadily connected to, and being operationalised through, a hegemonic neoliberal framework (Bamberger et al. 2019;Robson and Wihlborg 2019). ...
... Rizvi and Lingard (2010) argue that neoliberalism and IoHE are so deeply intertwined because they are both strands of globalisation. Scott (2017) explains that IoHE is in its very nature linked to globalisation, but that the post-second war 20th century ideals of solidarity, mutual understanding, democracy and social justice became out of sync with new 21st century neoliberal forms of globalisation. He argues therefore that, in order to stay relevant in the 21st century globalised age ideology, IoHE increasingly focuses on new market imperatives such as wealth generation and competitiveness. ...
As the world is becoming more globalised, intercultural competence development within higher education is at a crossroads between the competing aims of neoliberal and cultural social imaginaries. On the one end, the global market demands graduates that are interculturally competent. Higher education is attempting to meet this demand with internationalisation endeavours, specifically virtual exchange programmes. There exists a widely held assumption that these programmes will lead to intercultural competence development. However, this article questions this assumption due to the neoliberal hegemony within which higher education functions, which emphasises market rationales. This is placed in contrast to intercultural competence development within a humanistic educational setting, which emphasises cultural pluralism. A strong link is drawn between the importance of intercultural competence and the ability of graduates to navigate diverse cultural social imaginaries. This paper argues that the neoliberal social imaginary poses a risk of trivialising the humanistic meaning of intercultural competence development in higher education to mere neoliberal cosmopolitan capital for the human consumer.
... Which brings me to internationalisation, and the neo-colonial price of playing the "hegemonic" game of CIHE (Scott, 2015). Based on a "template" developed by "Anglo-Saxon countries" (Takagi, 2016), Japan perpetuates their domination when it uses English as a lingue franca, borrows curricula from Australia and the UK, sends the best students to graduate school in the USA (Mok, 2007) or builds flagship worldclass universities -and, in the case of Tōdai, even constructs its "Uchida Gothic" style buildings themselves -in imitation of Cornell or Glasgow. ...
Via an autoethnography of internationalisation, the article highlights the ethical dilemmas transnational scholars face when universities fail to denationalise their organisational culture. Section one explains the pertinence and pitfalls of autoethnography — writing oneself into existence over against a context experienced as domination — for grasping the ethical quandaries of transnational scholars in a Japanese national university (JNU). As section two shows, the persistence of ethno-national working practices in JNUs precludes both the equal treatment of transnational scholars and the recognition of their difference. Specifically, the discussion documents two mechanisms of marginalisation at the JNU in question, Tōdai (University of Tokyo): section three links the rejection of ethno-national diversity to absolutisation, viz. the generalisation of prejudice by gatekeepers in order to stigmatise transnational scholars as unfit for organisational life; and section four contends gatekeepers defend their territorialised academic culture through normalisation, which is underpinned by academic inbreeding that produces a hermitic community of sameness blind to its ethno-national prejudices. The article concludes with the ethical gymnastics of transnational scholars situated in universities that solicit their multiplicity without renovating their ethno-national culture. It also reflects upon the limited leverage of autoethnography beyond the Anglosphere, notably in a JNU organisational environment that does not recognise the strop of agency with structure. Finally, the article suggests Japan would be better off promoting a cultural form of internationalisation rather than following a commercial iteration with neo-colonial costs.
... The ongoing discussion on terminology is explored by Glorius et al. (2013) while geography's role in mobility is studied by Yang & Welch (2010) and Scott (2015). ...
The paper explores the phenomenon of "Faux-educational tourism" in Thailand, a newly conceptualized construct that is better defined as a form of migration with explicit non-academic purpose, but where the visit is legalized through the academic status of a visitor. As such, this work examines the experience of using student visas as a source of prolonged stay in the country and the factors that have an impact on the country’s economy.
... For example, Nussenzveig (1969) references the causes of migration in Latin America to be complicated and changeable. Scott (2015), on the other hand, explores academic mobility in terms of two broad frameworks namely hegemonic internationalization and fluid globalization. The former denotes scientific migration from the periphery to an evolving core, while the latter looks at scientific mobility within the broader context of social movements, global communities, and economic issues. ...
Comprehending the characteristics or potential benefits of global mobility of scientists has been inadequate from academic/practical perspectives. The authors attempt to fill a theoretical gap by focusing on the nature/dimensions of the mobility of highly educated people to other countries. They analyze data from the Open Researcher and Contributor ID-ORCID database and examine the characteristics of scientists as well as the propensity of these highly qualified individuals to migrate. Using 6000 migration records of PhDs from 194 countries, the authors utilize visual analytics to explore the various dimensions of scientists and their movements. Results show that the largest numbers of researchers reside in developed countries; there is net inflow of PhD researchers to developed countries. Also, scientific immigration is impacted not only by the availability of research positions in academic institutions, but also by economics (supply/demand) as well as contemporary immigration policies and social trends.
There is a great controversy between academic talent mobility and academic output. This paper obtains the list of mobile academic talents (experimental group) from NSF. It matches them into the control group list according to the indicators of an academic institution, department, research direction, entry time, age, and NSF fund obtained in the near year. It carries out a seven-year follow-up survey on the quantity and quality of papers published by the experimental and control groups, using the "quasi-experimental research" method for the first time. The results show that, on the one hand, the academic output of Chinese academic talents is highly stable. Mobility is not the critical variable affecting academic output, indicating that academic output is more related to talents' research habits and research ability, which shows the highly stable academic quality of scholars; on the other hand, the study finds that scholars returning from overseas manifest the stability of academic output whose number and quality of academic papers remain highly stable even if the mobility happens again. This study reveals the objective relationship between academic talent mobility and academic output. It has significant reference value for China in the next stage of attracting talent from the international academic labor market.
Su progresiva internacionalización y el refuerzo del enfoque basado encompetencias, han hecho proliferar las críticas frente a un sistema de EducaciónSuperior que se considera cada vez más mercantilizado. Sin embargo, a través delpresente trabajo se pretende defender una todavía muy necesaria cooperacióninternacional entre instituciones educativas radicadas en Estados con distinto nivelde desarrollo. Los argumentos teóricos a tales efectos presentados se acompañaránde un ejemplo de cooperación a través de una red de universidades de caráctertransformacional.
University rankings have gained popularity worldwide because they appear to fulfil demands by students, parents, policymakers, employers, and other stakeholders for information and transparency. They are often equated with quality, and are now a significant factor shaping institutional reputation. Today, there are eleven global rankings, experiencing varying degrees of popularity, reliability and trustworthiness, and national rankings in over 40 countries. Despite their popularity, how much do we really know and understand about the influence and impact of rankings? This book is the first comprehensive study of rankings from a global perspective. Based on original international surveys and interviews with universities and stakeholders, Ellen Hazelkorn draws together a wealth of international experience to chronicle how rankings are helping reshape higher education in the age of globalization. Written in an easy but authoritative style, the book makes an important contribution to our understanding of the rankings phenomenon. It is essential reading for policy makers, institutional leaders, managers, advisors, and scholars.
This article is an initial attempt to illustrate how patterns of academic mobility in the history of universities have been framed by the international politics of particular time periods. The article briefly looks at ‘the medieval period’ and then at the emergent colonial and nationalist periods, including the ways that institutions as well as academics themselves were mobile. More contemporaneously the powerful political forces of both the interwar period and the Cold War period (which are well known) are sketched. The final part of the article shows in some detail how, in the contemporary period, the scale and speed of cross‐border academic mobility has changed. There are new actors and new ideologies. What is clear from the article is that there is not merely a need to keep information about the flows of academics up to date for policy purposes. It is also clear that we are a long way from being able to theorise the problem, sociologically and comparatively.
This article begins with the contemporary context of transnational academic mobility, and sketches a typology of mobile academics according to their self-identification. UK examples are offered as the main case study here. The article will then explore the relations of mobile academics and their embodied and encultured knowledge. It employs a concept of ‘transnational identity capital’ to discuss the position of transnational mobile academic intellectuals as a ‘stranger’ as inspired by Simmel's sociology of space.
Globalization and internationalization are related but not the same thing. Globalization is the context of economic and academic trends that are part of the reality of the 21st century. Internationalization includes the policies and practices undertaken by academic systems and institutions—and even individuals—to cope with the global academic environment. The motivations for internationalization include commercial advantage, knowledge and language acquisition, enhancing the curriculum with international content, and many others. Specific initiatives such as branch campuses, cross-border collaborative arrangements, programs for international students, establishing English-medium programs and degrees, and others have been put into place as part of internationalization. Efforts to monitor international initiatives and ensure quality are integral to the international higher education environment.
At the Allied Colonial Universities Conference, held in London in 1903, delegates from across the universities of Britain's settler empire professed the existence of a British academic community, defined not by location, but by shared culture, shared values and shared ethnicity. This article examines the extent to which these claims reflected actual patterns of academic mobility in the settler empire between 1850 and 1940. By mapping the careers of the 350 professors who served at the Universities of Sydney, Toronto, and Manchester during this period, it concludes that, between 1900 and 1930 especially, there existed a distinctly British academic world within which scholars moved frequently along different migratory axes. Though not as united, extensive and uncomplicated as that in which the 1903 Conference delegates believed, this world nonetheless shared more in common with their vision of an expansive British academic community than it did with the image of an unconnected and isolated periphery that has characterised portrayals by subsequent university historians.
Incl. abstract, graph., bibl. In Europe, academic mobility has a long tradition which began with the birth of the European universities in the middle ages. Recently, European policies were strongly oriented towards the promotion of student and academic mobility and the creation of research networks and projects within Europe. Nevertheless, academic labour markets in Europe remain highly national and many obstacles hinder the development of European careers and the europeanisation/internationalisation of academic recruitments. Two different perspectives will be developed in this paper. First we will document the strong divergences among the national recruitment and careers processes within Europe and the problems raised by this situation. Second, we will draw on two empirical studies we conducted on academic mobility, the first one, led in 1995 in France, Germany and the UK and the second this year in France. Both studies show that most post-docs conceived their foreign experience as a personal strategy and aimed at improving their chances for recruitment in their own country. Within Europe, foreign country careers still are an exception due to "accidental" opportunities.
The transforming power of metaphor
- N Howard