Research on Internationalisation in Higher Education

The contribution provides an overview of the developments of research undertaken since the mid-1990s on the international dimension of higher education. It characterises the general state of research and changes in focus and importance. Despite an increase of theoretically and methodologically ambitious studies, no conceptual or methodological “home” of research on internationalisation in higher education has emerged. A second part describes the thematic landscape of systematic studies in this domain and emphasises a broadening of topics. A third part of the contribution discusses the main approaches, concepts and methods in research about internationalisation in higher education. Modes of enquiry have not changed substantially, comparative analyses are a minority, and it is estimated that the majority of studies is not available in English. In the conclusions the most important changes in research about internationalisation in higher education are identified and linked to changes in policies and public debates. In addition four themes for further research are proposed: (a) the relationship between core activities and peripheral activities in research on internationalisation; (b) overcoming the dichotomy of cooperative versus competitive internationalisation; (c) analyses of the effectiveness of ‘internationalisation at home’; (d) the dialectics of normalisation and specialisation of internationalisation in higher education.