ABSTRACT
Even though, historically, “universities have been among the most globalized institutions” (Marginson & Considine, 2000, p. 8), the last wave of globalization has tremendously changed the world and higher education (HE). The resulting development of new technologies has accelerated communication in general and intensified networking in HE, enabling a much quicker exchange of ideas among academicians and facilitating global mobility. At the same time, however, globalization has aggravated world-wide competitiveness and opened the door for marketization in HE.
While globalization prompted many changes in HE, internationalization has always been a part of the university. It tended to blur the borders in the academic context and develop collaborations among researchers by encouraging mobility processes. In recent decades, internationalization has become an important integrative part of universities’ strategies and national HE policies, with various effects and outcomes in different parts of the world.
Globalization and internationalization, two very interconnected processes, sometimes perceived as mutually opposite, tremendously influenced changes in the HE landscape. While globalization might be understood as a worldwide connecting in the area of HE, the concept also raises some negative connotations which are often questioned by scholars and policymakers. Yet internationalization is largely perceived as a process 75 that covers everything related to the international dimension in HE and generally has more positive connotation.
This conceptual paper aims to question relations between globalization and internationalization in HE. As globalization’s effects cannot be avoided in reality, we raise several questions: How have globalization, and Europeanization as a part of globalization, influenced HE systems in European countries? What impact has globalization had on their internationalization policies at different levels in Europe? Has it created (even greater) imbalances in internationalization policies in various countries?
The paper brings a perspective from southeast Europe and compares states that belong to this specific geographic and geopolitical European region. It also analyses differences in the internationalization policies across Europe, which strongly depend on political actors’ decisions, public funding, and overall, the entire social context.
