Internationalisation in higher education

A group of people is holding a globe. They are laughing.

Working with internationalisation in higher education helps to increase students' knowledge about the world around them. This knowledge is important so that, after their studies, they can work in a society characterised by international openness and global cooperation.

Key concepts

In the context of higher education, virtual mobility is when students and teachers study or teach at a university or other higher education institution outside of their own country for a limited time, without physically leaving their home.

Blended mobility is when students and teachers in higher education study or teach both digitally at a distance and on-site at a university or other higher education institution outside of their own country. For example, it could be a course that starts with a few weeks of remote digital teaching, then has physical sessions for a few consecutive days, and then ends with a number of remote digital sessions.

Örebro University has an action plan for internationalisation that extends until 2024. The action plan is based on the university's vision, mission statement, core values, approach, development areas and strategies.

The action plan is part of an internationalisation process that aims to raise the quality and increase the competitiveness of the education, research and collaboration at the university. Örebro University's Vision for 2023–2027 states that our study programmes should be “attractive choices for both national and international students”.

To achieve the goals of the action plan, internationalisation work needs to be integrated into all activities.

In addition to increasing the proportion of outgoing and incoming exchange students, Örebro University also aims to develop alternative and new forms of internationalisation within the university's programmes. This will be achieved by developing internationalisation at home as well as virtual and mixed mobility, especially for groups that have limited opportunities to move physically from one place to another.

Internationalisation at home

When you are not able to move physically from one place to another, internationalisation at home is a good option. Being in touch with the world without moving outside your own country's borders is not only sustainable, but also good from an equality perspective as it gives all students the opportunity to have an international flavour to their education.

Getting started with internationalisation

The Centre for Academic Development has compiled suggestions for how you can go about working with internationalisation in your programme. You can find both information and support materials on the How to integrate perspectives in your programme page.

Internationalisation at Örebro University

Collaborate with other higher education institutions around the world

Contact colleagues at other universities around the world and plan a collaboration. Collaborations can be completely independent or via Erasmus+ if funding is required. A collaboration can range from organising a digital meet-up where students from similar programmes around the world come together to discuss how their programmes differ, to year-long collaborations that end with a physical meet-up.

Discuss educational cultures in international classrooms

In an international or multicultural classroom, it can be a good idea to start a course by discussing how the Swedish education system works and allowing students to share their experiences from other education systems. Group discussions around some classic challenges can be a good topic to start with. It is also a good opportunity to highlight the diversity of the group and share one's own cultural and traditional experiences of education. Collectively reflect on the differences that exist and what these differences might mean in practice.

Examples of questions to discuss. What are your thoughts on

being on time (campus and online)
having the camera turned off during online classes
interrupting the teacher and commenting during lectures
asking questions during lectures
answering students' emails
students who have not read the literature before a seminar
the teacher's competences
the use of digital tools
using a mobile phone during class
staying in the classroom and asking questions after class?

Discuss interculturality using the Values game

Before starting to discuss interculturality and diversity in the classroom, it might be a good idea to start by reflecting on different dimensions of culture and diversity. You can do this using the Values Game of the Integrity, developed by Dr Abiola Makinwa at Hauge University.

The exercise basically consists of answering three questions and then reflecting on them.

Who am I?
What is my native culture?
What is the culture of the group I find myself in?

These exercises help us become more aware of interculturality in our own lives, with our own personal integrity frameworks, with generational shifts of culture and also with the norms and values of the societies we live in.

Using MOOCs as a teaching resource

MOOC is an acronym for Massive Open Online Course. As the name implies, MOOCs are open courses offered free of charge to everyone online. These courses are often self-paced and structured in modules or learning sequences where the participant determines the pace. Why not find a suitable MOOC and use it as a learning activity in your course or simply recommend a good MOOC as a supplement to your students.

Many universities around the world offer these types of courses, making it easy to offer your students a little insight into what it is like to study at an international institution.

You can search for subject-specific MOOCs online, but there are also websites that collect and organise these courses. Here are two examples:

The European Multiple MOOC Aggregator called EMMA