ABSTRACT
Many nations now view their higher education system as a potential st rategic asset to bolster economic competitiveness, drive innovation, enhance their soft power and attract and retain their educated citizenry (Lane 2012, 2015; Wildavsky 2010). Some of these same nations, wanting to grow and expand their postsecondary infrastructure to be competitive with other nations, have turned to external benchmarks such as rankings to set goals, guide policy and establish accountability metrics. This pursuit to be competitive has led to a sometimes awkward marriage between competition, government policy, rankings and higher education internationalisation. As applied to college and universities, internationalisation has been defined as the ‘process of integrating an international, intercultural, and global dimension into the purpose, functions (teaching, research, and service) and the delivery of postsecondary education’ (Knight 2003, 2). In many ways, these internationalisation efforts have historically been mostly driven by grass-roots efforts of faculty who incorporate international experiences in their curriculum, develop study-abroad programmes for students and collaborate with colleagues in other countries on joint research projects or dual degree programmes. Even with the dominant grass-roots orientation, government involvement in higher education internationalisation has also had a prominent role. There are decades of examples of governments enabling student and scholar exchanges; providing developmental aid to build another country’s higher education capacity; and supporting the development of international partnerships (Guruz 2008; McBurnie and Ziguras 2006; Lane 2015). For example, in the wake of World War I, Germany created the Akademischer Austauschdienst, the predecessor to the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD); and the United Kingdom created the British Council’s predecessor, the British Committee for Relations with
Other Countries. Both had a mission to support the international engagement of their higher education institutions and support individual mobility.
