Last week, I was part of a very interesting webinar put on by ICEF involving myself, Allan Goodman of the Institute of International Education (IIE), and the ex-head of Universities UK, Vivienne Stern. The webinar covered the future of higher education internationalization.  I am not quite sure when it will be posted, but prepping for it made me think about a few of the big new directions in which internationalization is heading. I spoke to three specific trends that may dominate the next decade or so.  To wit:

i) New Markets Ahoy. I have said this before, but I think that the “normalization” of remote teaching is going to accelerate the creation of new higher education markets.  Some of that is going to happen domestically, but the big money changes are going to happen in international education.  Most Canadian institutions have built their internationalization programs in a way that minimizes their costs (no new programs or delivery sites) but also maximizes the costs to the students (high tuition plus displacement plus living expenses).  But what if there’s a market for a cheaper alternative: same degree, similar product, but no displacement costs?  It’s probably not a big deal at the undergraduate level, but at the Master’s level, I suspect there is quite a demand.

But this will be a bifurcated market: places like UBC, McGill, or Toronto could probably go big in global direct remote provision, because they the reputation to do this.  Smaller institutions won’t have the same ability to go it alone, but there is lots of room for them to do joint degrees with overseas institutions.   Indeed, there’s nothing saying an enterprising institution couldn’t have a portfolio of dozens of joint degrees delivered this way.  Or further: that alliances of institutions couldn’t join together and jointly market hundreds of degrees delivered this way.  For small and medium sized institutions, this might be a way to compete in ways they could not before.  Of course, regulatory bodies will need to be brought along on these plans: some of these joint-degrees are going to require external oversight and approval. But the potential is considerable.

ii) Micro-internationalization.  Lots of professors – probably a majority – hate the remote teaching thing and never want to do it again.  But there is a significant minority who, even if not thrilled about the whole situation, are finding ways to make the medium work.  And one of the ways it can work is by having students from different countries work together on coursework or projects without leaving their own institution.  I was involved in one of these efforts over the summer as a judge in Humber’s Global Systems Gap Challenge, but these need not be institutionally-driven initiatives.  In fact, what’s probably going to be more common is professors teaching similar courses with colleagues at other institutions, brining their two classes together for exchanges of ideas and joint works without involving their institutions at all.  Think of it as internationalization that flies under the radar, at the micro-level.  For those people who have always wondered how to make “internationalization at home” work, this kind of activity is a simple and effective solution. 

iii) The Sustainable Development Goals.  A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how research is increasingly being organized around big challenges, and how the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are de facto becoming the way that those challenges are defined and expressed.  I suspect that over time, a majority of serious research institutions are going to organize and communicate their major areas of research strengths in terms of these 17 SDGs.  In fact, precisely because these goals are standardized and easy to communicate, it may make institutional research objectives more intelligible and transparent to other institutions, and thus make it easier for institutions to match up for strategic research purposes.  Or, alternatively, it could make it easier for to arrange for institutional teaching alliances such as the ones described above.

These three trends all speak to the increased permeability of institutions.  They all allow institutions to project themselves around the world, but also blur the boundaries of the institution, to allow them – perhaps force them – to work intimately with other institutions not just in Canada but around the world.  To make it all work, institutions are required to be a lot more outward-facing and flexible.

It’s going to make for some tough but exciting changes.