ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a novel approach to internationalization implemented at a rural-based South African university, which may be suitable for other rural institutions of higher education in developing contexts. It uses the University of Venda in South Africa (Univen) to demonstrate how an innovatively structured internationalization process can contribute to transforming a tertiary institution, previously labelled as ‘historically disadvantaged’, into a locally relevant, but globally competitive university. It provides an in-depth case study of the internationalization process at this rural-based South African university and explains how internationalization can be entrenched in the core business of a university that had, in its earlier history, only limited exposure to the mainstream process of internationalization.1
