Internationalisation for researchers
Internationalisation is one of the most powerful forces for change in contemporary higher education. This web page contains a range of journal articles, papers, reports, and presentation slides that provide perspectives, strategies and applications to the process of becoming an internationally focused researcher, with an ability to collaborate across different cultures and contexts. Such competence will enable academic staff to extend their field(s) of expertise globally, resulting in: (i) widespread research networks, (ii) appreciation of other academic environments, (iii) understanding international student education needs, and (iv) higher citation rates by publishing with international authors.
The following points link to the sections below:
- Global university
- Global university: The Australian context
- Research performance and internationalisation
- Collaborations
Global university
Journal article: The research university in transition: The emerging global model (Mohrman et al., 2008) (PDF, 158kb)
This seminal paper sets the context for internationalisation by academic researchers in universities. In a knowledge intensive society, the research university is a key institution for social and economic development. Federation University needs to aspire to leading the internationalisation of the regional Victorian community. Eight characteristics are set out for such a global university and the role of campus leaders in internationalisation.
Journal article: Global and national prominent universities: internationalization, competitiveness and the role of the State (Horta, 2009) (PDF, 481kb)
This paper places a sought-after global ranking of universities in context. This ranking is strongly based on research, but this paper also reveals that the internationalisation of research universities' student population actually enhances the university's research capacity.
Journal article: Internationalization as a response to globalization: Radical shifts in university environments (Stromquist, 2007) (PDF, 213kb)
This case study probes recent developments in a number of academic and non-academic aspects of a private research university in response to current globalisation trends. This study shows problems in the service of knowledge if internationalisation means only searching for student markets overseas.
Journal article: Internationalization of higher education: Towards a conceptual framework (Qiang, 2003) (PDF, 155kb)
This paper calls for a broad definition of internalisation that embraces the entire functioning of higher education. A framework is provided to understand this.
Global university: The Australian context
Journal article: Going global? Internationalizing Australian Universities in a Time of Global Crisis (Welch, 2002) (PDF, 244kb)
This paper places in an Australian context the problems with internationalisation raised by Stromquist (2007) in the article above. The internationalised marketing of Australian universities undermines values and principles of internationalism.
Book chapter: Internationalization of Australian Higher Education: A Critical Review of Literature and Research (Harman, 2005) (PDF, 450kb)
This chapter from the book, Internationalizing Higher Education: Critical Explorations of Pedagogy and Policy (Ninnes & Hellstén, eds), critically reviews scholarly and professional literature (including government reports) produced since1990 on the process of internationalisation of Australian higher education. It finds a lack of effective interaction between scholars with distinctively different theoretical orientations and interests.
Research performance and internationalisation
Journal article: The relationship between scientists' research performance and the degree of internationalization of their research (Abramo et al., 2011) (PDF, 215kb)
This case study examines the determinants of research collaboration and their impact on research performance by studying international collaborations of researchers at an Italian university for the period 2001–2005.
This is a review of the scholarly literature on the outcomes of international education provided by Australian universities. It identifies shortcomings, and outlines a prospectus for future research to redress some of these shortcomings.
Collaborations
Presentation slides: China research and the Business School – A new trajectory (Courvisanos and Zhai, 2012) (PPT, 1.9mb)
This set of presentation slides outlines how the Business School based at Ballarat embarked on a process to collaborate with Chinese universities, first through partnering with the School to teach undergraduate and MBA degree programs. Then it shows how this approach has matured into a broad teaching and research collaboration with the latter value adding research output to the relationship.
Journal article: Studying research collaboration using co-authorships (Melin and Persson, 1996) (PDF, 720kb)
This paper discusses the relationship between collaboration and co-authorship, the nature of bibliometric data, and exemplifies how they can be refined and used to analyse various aspects of collaboration.
Journal article: Research collaboration and productivity: is there correlation? (Abramo et al., 2009) (PDF, 195kb)
This study draws on a number of empirical analyses with the intention of measuring the effects of extramural collaboration on research performance and, indirectly, verifying the legitimacy of policies that support this type of collaboration.
Journal article: The limits to internationalization of scientific research collaboration (Ponds, 2009) (PDF, 411kb)
This case study analyses international research collaboration for eight science-based technologies in the Netherlands for the period 1988–2004. It was found that the share of international research collaborations is high, but did not rise during the period investigated.