Benchmarking

A Practical Tool to Measure the Quality of Internationalisation

Universities are operating in increasingly competitive environments which demand improved performance and reputation to attract students, staff and funding. Their engagement in internationalisation has been progressively shifting from disconnected international activities spread around the university to much more strategic approaches to internationalisation, addressing the entire teaching and learning process, research and support services for internationalisation. This article focuses on the practical steps for effective collaborative benchmarking as a management tool to measure the quality of internationalisation as well as identify institutional strengths and weaknesses with a view to set targets for improved performance, the essence of benchmarking. It is based on the findings of two EU-funded projects (DG Education and Culture) Benchmarking in European Higher Education carried out from 2006 to 2011 by a consortium led by ESMU1, on the work carried out in ESMU benchmarking groups and in courses on benchmarking internationalisation organised in the context of the EAIE2 Academy in November 2011 and April 2012.