Giorgio Marinoni and the internationalization strategies of the International Association of Universities (IAU)

 

Monsuni welcomes Giorgio Marinoni, Manager of Higher Education and Internationalization at the International Association of Universities (IAU), since February 2015. He oversees Internationalization as one of the four strategic priorities of the Association.

Among his responsibilities at IAU are research projects, the coordination of the ISAS (2.0) programme of advisory services for advancing internationalization, and external representation of the Association in internationalization. He published in 2019 the report of the 5th Global Survey on Internationalization of Higher Education and recently the reports of the first (2020) and second (2022) IAU Global Survey on the impact of COVID-19 on higher education. In addition, he is the coordinator of the Network of International Education Associations, NIEA.

Before his current position at IAU, Giorgio Marinoni worked for UNICA, the Network of Universities from the Capitals of Europe, in the field of internationalization and higher education policy and reform at the European level and beyond. He has been an active member of the Erasmus Student Network (ESN) at the local, national and international levels, and served the ESN as its President from 2007 to 2008.

Monsuni:

Thanks for being here, Giorgio. You are part of the permanent administrative staff of IAU, and you are in charge of one of the 4 priorities: “Internationalization”. Could you tell us how IAU’s members’ perspective on internationalization has changed over the last years?

Giorgio:

It is difficult to reply to this question because IAU is a global association and has a very diverse membership all around the world, from big comprehensive universities to small specialized institutions. Moreover, the way internationalization is perceived and understood varies from context to context. The majority of the conceptual work on internationalization has been done by scholars in the Global North, many of them coming from Anglo-Saxon countries, and it is only in recent years that different voices from the Global South have started contributing to the debate, often with critical regard towards it. This has definitely helped to enrich the discussion and to look not only at the positive consequences but also at the negative consequences of internationalization.

The COVID-19 pandemic also worked as an eye-opener for many institutions around the world, as disrupting mainly student mobility demonstrated that internationalization is much more than student mobility and that internationalization of the curriculum at home could be strengthened also thanks to the development of virtual internationalization. At the same time, the pandemic exposed and somewhat also increased the inequality present in the world, in terms of access and success in internationalization, both in teaching and learning and in research. The COVID-19 pandemic is therefore a great opportunity to rethink internationalization and solve the challenges which were present even before the pandemic. Other than the COVID-19 pandemic, in recent years it has become clearer the link between internationalization and sustainable development has. Even if it is too often looked at only from the perspective of the relationship between mobility and climate action, more and more institutions around the world are framing their strategies using the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and using internationalization as a means to contribute to sustainable development.

Monsuni:

If we were to ask IAU what IAU’s members’ internationalization priority #1 is, could you guess a tentative answer?

Giorgio:            As said before, due to the diversity of IAU members, I believe that it does not exist single answer, different institutions in different countries around the world have different priorities. Overall, the priority for the association as a whole is as stated in our vision for internationalization “to be the facilitator and promoter of internationalization for all, in which all the different voices of nations, people and cultures of the world are represented and heard equally; an internationalization which allows students to grow as global responsible citizens, which promotes collaboration in research to find answers to most pressing challenges at the global level; an internationalization which allows the sharing of experiences to find solutions to local problems and benefits local communities; an internationalization for society and the global common good, an internationalization that incorporates a global outlook in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) “

Monsuni:

In 2021 IAU published a seminal survey report: “The Second IAU Global Survey Report on the Impact of COVID-19”, based upon the replies of almost 500 universities worldwide. Do you believe COVID affected permanently the institutions’ perspective of what internationalization should be?

Giorgio:            Yes, as I wrote before, COVID-19 was really an awakening moment for many higher education institutions. It made clear that the dominant model of internationalization based mainly on student mobility and especially the attraction of fee-paying international students was neither fair nor sustainable. It helped speed up the digital transformation, opening up new opportunities for virtual and blended (hybrid) forms of internationalization that have the potential for increasing access to internationalization opportunities. I think after COVID-19 many institutions became more aware of the importance of internationalization to be more inclusive, both in terms of people and ideas, more sustainable, also but not exclusively in terms of environmental protection, and more oriented towards societal benefit.

Monsuni:          Year after year, International rankings seem to gain weight as a relevant element of any internationalization strategy. In your opinion, are rankings overrated or otherwise do they constitute an essential part of the game? Also, what are your thoughts on U-multirank? Seemingly, U-multirank still has to gain full consideration worldwide, despite being established more than a decade ago.

Giorgio:            Somebody said that international rankings are the worst thing that happened in the world of higher education in the last 20 years. International rankings have many flaws and criticism towards them has been expressed multiple times by multiple actors in the field of higher education. However, higher education institutions are not hesitant in using rankings to promote themselves whenever the occasion arises. In time, rankings have evolved, taking into account more parameters to mitigate the overfocus on research and new rankings appeared (for instance it is interesting to mention the Times Higher Education impact ranking that tries to capture the contribution of HEIs towards the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)).

In my opinion, international rankings are not a problem per se, they could even be useful, for instance, they can stimulate institutions to collect information they would have not collected otherwise, or to act as a driving force to improve in certain aspects. It is the use, or better the misuse, of ranking which can be extremely deleterious. When HEIs base their internationalization strategies only to advance in position in rankings when governments decide to allocate funding to HEIs depending on the position in rankings, when rankings which promote a single model of higher education institution become a reference and a standard of quality, then rankings become a problem.

The world is diverse, societies are different and have different needs, and higher education institutions themselves are different and need to remain so to address their specific societal needs. U-multirank was an attempt to move away from the league format of international rankings and propose a more comprehensive benchmarking tool. However, this makes U-multirank much more complex to understand and less attractive to the media. The other disadvantage of U-multirank is that it was created as a pilot project financed by the European Commission and lacks the financial support and organizational structures that the other private companies which publish international rankings have.

Monsuni:

Turning to Italy, how do you see the participation of Italian HEIs in IAU’s operations?

Giorgio:

IAU has 17 member universities in Italy, both public and private and some of them are very active members of the association. For instance, just to mention some recent engagement by Italian universities in IAU activities, the University of Bologna is the leader of the IAU global cluster on SDG 5: Gender Equality and undertook the IAU’s Advisory Service ISAS (2.0) on advancing internationalization, the Milan Polytechnic recently worked with IAU to pilot a global survey on the state of digital transformation in the administrative services of higher education institutions and a post-doc fellow of the University for Foreigners of Siena coordinated together with IAU a quantitative research project on the impact of COVID-19 on internationalization and the digital transformation of teaching and learning.

We are living in difficult times, faced with global challenges that affect not only the present but also the future of our lives and our planet as a whole. Global challenges manifest themselves in the daily life of each one of us and that can be solved only through global cooperation. Therefore, the importance of higher education and internationalization of higher education cannot be underestimated. More than ever, we need HEIs that form the globally responsible citizens of tomorrow, that engage in research which is at the same time globally and locally relevant and which engage with local communities to improve society as a whole. Thank you very much to Monsuni and Enrico for giving me and IAU the opportunity to share these thoughts with all of you and looking forward to engaging in a fruitful discussion.

Monsuni:          Thanks for joining us, Giorgio!

 

Photo credits: IAU