Regionalisation of Higher Education and the Academic Profession in Asia, Europe and North America

Abstract

This chapter focuses on regionalisation as one dimension of internationalisation of higher education in Asia, Europe and North America. The chapter includes four sections. The cases of Asia, Europe and North America are treated in Sects. 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4, respectively. Each section begins with a brief analysis of policies and assessment of progress of intra-regional cooperation of higher education systems in each region. Then, it provides an overview of physical mobility patterns with the region, intra-regional teaching and research activities and patterns in foreign languages usage based on major findings from the CAP surveys aggregated by region. The concluding fourth section explores the character of the international dimensions of academic activities in each region, identifies major issues concerning academic work and activities from the perspectives of regionalisation and also discusses strategies that can facilitate the regionalisation of academic work and careers.

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8.1 Introduction

The research on the regionalisation of higher education dates back to the 1970s (Fragnière 1976; Lane 1984). Since the 1990s, increased economic globalisation, the rapid growth of cooperation in the economy and trade and the internationalisation of higher education have generated demand in individual countries for a regional collaborative framework in higher education and other spheres (Mucchilli et al. 1998; Börzel 1999; Hix and Goetz 2000; Agarwala and Prakash 2002; Teichler 1999, 2004; Brooks and Stone 2010; Knight 2011; Neubauer 2012). However, a precise definition of regionalisation is difficult as it can be made from varying perspectives. In this chapter, specifically, regionalisation is understood as a process of working on commonly shared goals and promoting closer collaboration and confidence among member countries in the defined region by establishing generally acknowledged values and standards.

This chapter is mainly concerned with the regionalisation of higher education and the international dimensions or activities of the academy in Asia, Europe and North America. The chapter consists of four sections. The first three sections each present a case study of Asia, Europe and North America, respectively. Further, each section contains a brief analysis of policies and strategies for intra-regional cooperation of higher education systems specific to the discussed geographical region, followed by a general overview of the specific international activity of the academic staff, including their mobility, teaching and research and use of foreign languages based on major findings from the Changing Academic Profession (CAP) surveys. The concluding fourth section explores the character of the international dimensions and activities of the academy in each region, identifies major issues concerning academic work and activities from the perspectives of regionalisation and also discusses strategies that can facilitate the development of regionalisation of higher education in specific regions.

8.2 The Case of Asia

Compared to earlier research in Europe and North America, with the exception of a few research papers (Huang 2011; Marginson et al. 2011; Marginson 2012) and the paucity of data grounded empirically in statistical analysis and international surveys, little is known about the regionalisation of higher education in Asia and the international activities undertaken by the academy. Therefore, this case study on Asia is based on two main empirical sources: (1) archival analysis of relevant policy statements of stakeholders and existing studies on the topic and (2) statistical data from the UNESCO and national surveys implemented in 18 countries and Hong Kong in 2007–2008 based on the CAP project. It should be noted that though more up to date figures are now available, this study only uses data on the international mobility of students in 2007, in order to provide comparability with the 2007–2008 CAP data about the international movement of academics. Furthermore, the discussion of Asia refers to five case studies, including Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia. All five higher education systems took part in the CAP project in 2007–2008, using the common CAP questionnaire, along with 14 other countries representing North America, Europe, Latin America and Africa.

8.2.1 Emergence and Progress of Regionalisation Since the 1960s

Concrete action towards regionalisation began earlier in Southeast Asia than in Northeast Asia. Beginning in the 1960s, considerable initiatives, mainly driven by political factors, emerged designed to establish subregional collaboration and facilitate commitment to regionalisation in the Southeast Asian countries. Those efforts led to the foundation of various regional political organisations. Indeed, two organisations have played major roles in stimulating the regionalisation of Southeast Asian countries: the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), created in 1967,¹ and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) which dates from 1989.² Further, to foster educational collaboration, the South East Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), a regional intergovernmental organisation, was established in 1965.³

Fifty years later, as an organisation committed to nurturing human capacities and exploring peoples’ fullest potential, the SEAMEO, has worked to further aspirations of development in the region. Its agenda is to improve people’s lives through improved quality and equity in education, preventive health education, maintaining culture and tradition, promoting information and communication technologies, language programmes, the alleviation of poverty and the fostering of agriculture and natural resources. In recent years, the SEAMEO has carried out numerous joint projects with East Asian countries, particularly China, Japan and Korea, and has also collaborated with European organisations and individual countries on a wide range of education disciplines.

In order to promote political confidence and commitment to regionalisation, numerous declarations, treaties, conventions and agreements have been made in Southeast Asia. In addition to the official regional organisations, various summits, policy dialogues and task forces have been organised in the region. For example, the establishment of the Regional Institute for Higher Education and Development (RIHED) in 1970, the ASEAN Ministerial meeting in 1971, the Regional Centre for Higher Education and Development in 1993 and the ASEAN University Network in 1995, all clearly illustrate the impetus made by Southeast Asian countries towards the regionalisation of higher education.

Since the late 1990s, closer collaboration between individual countries in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia has gradually developed in both trade and education. In January 2010, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA)⁴ was officially launched. This created a free trade area four times larger, in terms of population, than the European Union. Specifically focusing on collaboration in tertiary education, the East Asia Vision Group (EAVG) was set up through an initiative of the South Korean government in December 1998. The EAVG is, so far, the closest East Asian nations have come to a preliminary constitutional effort to consolidate the ASEAN+ 3 (China, Japan, South Korea). A total of 20 intellectuals (two per country) met several times and, in 2001, submitted a landmark prospective report with recommendations on educational cooperation. These recommendations were incorporated into an East Asia Study Group, which submitted another report at a meeting in Cambodia in November 2002 (East Asia Vision Group, 2001; East Asia Study Group, 2002). Indeed, the EAVG’s short-term recommendations called for the provision of assistance and cooperation in human resources development and urged cultural and educational institutions to work together to promote a strong sense of regional identity and an East Asian consciousness. In accordance with the final report accepted by the ASEAN+ 3 leaders in October 2003, 14 recommendations were made in relation to the economic, educational and social/cultural sectors, and, therefore, working groups were established. The educational recommendations covered lifelong learning programmes; credit transfer systems; scholarships and exchange programmes for students, faculty and staff; cooperation in research and development; centres of excellence, including e-learning; and curricular development as the basis of establishing common, regional qualification standards among interested centres and institutions (Yepes 2006).

In the meantime, continuous and rapid expansion of intra-regional trade has allowed three countries, China, Japan and South Korea, to undertake a wide range of collaborative activities in education. The most recent effort of this kind was the launch of the Campus Asia Project in April 2010 (MEXT 2011), aimed at facilitating regional mobility of students, faculty and researchers and developing further collaboration in higher education. Its major priorities are as follows:

• Establishment of a mutual understanding concerning exchange programmes and quality assurance.

• Elaboration of guidelines for exchange programmes, including credit transfer and grading policies.

• Implementation of a pilot programme and identifying the necessary support.

• Enhancement of mutual understanding on university evaluation, including publication of a common glossary of quality assurance, information-sharing on university evaluation and mutual visits to study evaluation activities.

Within the framework of this programme, the three countries have formulated national policies and strategies to further integrate their higher education systems. These initiatives include the provision of financial support to build regional university networks, to design joint curricula and joint degree programmes that combine the three countries’ cultural and academic strengths and to provide more English-taught degree programmes. Currently, major universities in Japan and Korea are expanding their English language lectures and degree programmes for undergraduate and graduate studies in order to attract more students from other Asian countries (KEDI 2009; MEXT and KEDI 2009).

These initiatives have been influenced considerably by the Bologna Declaration and the subsequent activities in Europe. For, the trilateral collaboration in Northeast Asia shows that these three countries have realised the importance of facilitating mobility, collaboration in educational programmes and the establishment of frameworks for quality assurance on a regional basis, as a means to enable their graduates to work in more than one country, thereby increasing trade and commercial activities in the region. Indeed, these new initiatives differ from their predecessors by placing an emphasis upon operational and practical measures. Several working groups have been formed to promote the regionalisation of Asian higher education through growing intra-regional mobility of students, faculty, researchers, university campuses, higher education services and online learning programmes; through institutional agreements, including an expansion in numbers of both joint higher education programmes and institutional agreements within Asia; through an increasing emphasis on collaborative regional research; and through the establishment of regional university networks and quality assurance frameworks. Altogether, this project can be considered as a first step towards the regionalisation of higher education in Northeast Asia and an early stage in the formation of an Asian Community.

8.2.2 Individual Mobility in Asia

8.2.2.1 Student Mobility

According to UNESCO, the proportion of all students from Asia and the Pacific region studying abroad within (rather than outside) the Asian region rose from 36 % in 1999 to 42 % by 2007 nearly equalling the proportion studying in North America (43 %). Students from Asia and the Pacific opt for a broad range of host countries. In some countries and territories, such as Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Macao, students from Asia and Pacific have accounted for more than 90 % of the foreign students (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2009). In China, Japan and Korea, the lists of the top five countries of origin of foreign students comprise, in addition to the United States, countries of the region, e.g. Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Mongolia and Chinese Taipei⁵ (Editorial Board of China Education Yearbook 2009; MEXT 2008; UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2009).

Among students from the region (also including Macao and Hong Kong) studying outside the region, the top destinations are the English-speaking world, most notably the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. The pattern is different though, for students from Cambodia, Laos PDR and Myanmar, the major host countries are France, Vietnam and Thailand, respectively.

8.2.2.2 Mobility of Academics

Parallel to the rapidly increasing student mobility within the region, there has been a corresponding growth in the regional mobility of academics. For example, according to some data, 717 full-time foreign faculty members were recorded as employed in Japanese higher education institutions in 2003; 431 of them were from Asia, specifically China and Korea (Yamanoi 2007). According to a wider definition, the total number of foreign faculty members in all tertiary education institutions in Japan has increased by 35 % from 4,563 in 1995 to 6,152 in 2010 (MEXT 2010). For example, the number of faculty members from Asia at the University of Tokyo has grown from 23 in 2003 to 45 in 2010 (University of Tokyo 2010). Similarly, the number of professors from China and Japan at Korean higher education institutions has grown from 244 to 728 in 2008, although the share among all foreign professors (24 and 23 %) has not grown.

The CAP survey is a unique source by not confining itself to mobility at a certain historical moment, but rather, it illustrates the migration and mobility of academics over their lifespan. Altogether, as Table 8.1 shows, 39 % of the academics surveyed in Asia have crossed borders for study or research. Interestingly, this rate is higher than among the academics surveyed in North America (25 %) and Europe (22 %). However, in contrast to the other regions surveyed, most of the border-crossings of Asian academics have been between Asia and other regions (notably for study and doctoral training). The intra-regional migration and mobility of academics surveyed in Asia is slightly lower (9 %) than among those surveyed in North America and Europe.

Table 8.1 International mobility and migration within and outside region in Asia, Europe and North America, by country mean percent^a 2007–2008

With regard to the movement of academics among the individual higher education systems in Asia (see Table 8.2), the proportion of academics with a migration and mobility biography is by far the highest in Hong Kong (83 %) and also quite high in Malaysia (56 %) and Korea (46 %). In all three cases, intra-regional mobility holds true for a minority. As Table 8.2 shows, it is highest for Malaysia (18 %), almost as high for Hong Kong academics (15 %) and clearly lower for Korea (9 %). In contrast, cross-border movement is relatively rare among Japanese academics (4 %) and rare among Chinese academics (2 %).

Table 8.2 International mobility and migration within Asian countries and outside Asia, by country mean percent 2007–2008

8.2.3 International Academic Activities: A Comparison Across Regions and Within the Asian Region

While internationalisation of higher education is often described in terms of physical mobility of persons, such physical mobility can be understood just as one method of transferring knowledge across borders. The CAP survey also explored the extent to which the teaching and research activities, themselves, can be considered international. Unfortunately, no distinction has been made in the CAP questionnaire between regionally oriented and worldwide international activities. Therefore, this section only shows the extent of differences in international teaching and research activities between the regions and within Asia.

8.2.3.1 International Aspects of Teaching

Table 8.3 shows a surprising similarity in the extent of involvement in international aspect of teaching across regions. On average, 63–65 % of academics in the three regions emphasise international content and perspectives in their teaching. Ten to twelve percent of the academics in the three regions teach a majority of foreign graduate students. In contrast, teaching abroad varies by region: Academics in Asia are, to a lesser extent, involved (7 %) when compared to North America (11 %) and Europe (15 %).

Table 8.3 Internationalisation of teaching and students in Asia, Europe and North America, by percentage 2007–2008

Within Asia (Table 8.4), academics of the various countries differ substantially less in the international aspects of teaching than in the extent of mobility and migration. The data in Table 8.4 shows the highest integration of international aspects into teaching in Korea (74 %) and Hong Kong (72 %), and the lowest in Japan (51 %). Similarly, about one-seventh reported that they taught a majority of foreign graduate students in Hong Kong compared to 8 % in both Japan and Korea. Finally, teaching abroad varied between 12 % of the academics surveyed in Hong Kong and 4 % of those in Japan.

Table 8.4 Internationalisation of teaching activities and students in Asian countries, by mean country percent 2007–2008

8.2.3.2 International Aspects Research

Table 8.5 suggests that academics in Asia more closely resemble academics in North America than Europe in terms of the international aspects of research. The proportion of those collaborating with international colleagues is lowest in Asia (32 %) as compared to 44 % in North America and 60 % in Europe. This also holds true for co-authoring with colleagues located in other countries (8 % as compared to 10 and 18 %, respectively) and for obtaining international research funds (5 % as compared to 10 and 16 %, respectively). However, the proportion of academics in Asia emphasising the international scope of research and publishing in a foreign country (52 %) is higher than that in North America (47 %), but lower than that in Europe (64 %). We note a similar pattern in regard to publishing in a foreign county (30 % as compared to 26 and 46 %).

Table 8.5 Internationalisation of research activities in Asia, Europe and North America, by mean country percent 2007–2008

The proportion of academics internationally active in research varies, to a greater extent, among Asian countries than the respective proportion active internationally in teaching. Again, we note that academics in Hong Kong are the most internationally active. Indeed, about two-thirds report that their research is international in scope (65 %), collaborate with international colleagues (60 %) and publish in foreign countries (70 %). Also, they are more active in co-authoring publications with colleagues in other countries (16 % as compared to 1–10 % in other Asian countries). However, involvement in international research does not differ substantially among the four indicators, as displayed in Table 8.6, for Japan, Korea and Malaysia. China is a special case. On one hand, two-thirds of the academics in that country underscore that the scope of their research is international (67 %), while, on the other hand, they are least visibly active internationally – in collaboration (13 % as compared to 24–60 %), joint authorship (1 % as compared to 7–16 %) and publishing abroad (12 % as compared to 20–70 %).

Table 8.6 Internationalisation of research activities in five countries, by percentage 2007–2008

It should be noted, however, that there exists a considerable difference in the magnitude of international teaching and research activities within Asian higher education systems when considering institutional type. Indeed, university faculty members were far more involved with these activities than those in “other” higher education institution. Moreover, senior academics conducted more international teaching and research activities than junior academics. This is especially true within the university sector. For example, with respect to the three major international teaching activities mentioned earlier, on average, the percentage of responses from university senior academics was 74, 11 and 13 %, respectively, while the percentage of junior academics’ responses from universities was 67, 7 and 5 %, respectively. Further, with regard to research activities, except for “co-authored with colleagues located in other (foreign) countries”, senior academics from universities were also more involved with all other international research activities than junior staff in universities.

8.2.3.3 Foreign Language Use

As Table 8.7 shows, more Asian academics use foreign languages in their teaching and research activities than North American academics, but fewer than European academics. In teaching in a foreign language (i.e. a language different from that usually spoken in that country), the respective proportions are 18 % in Asia as compared to 6 % in North America and 33 % in Europe. In terms of publishing in a foreign language, 30 % of Asian academic do so as compared to 18 % of North American academics and 53 % of European academics.

Table 8.7 Institutional and personal foreign language use in teaching and research in Asia, Europe and North America, by mean country percent 2007–2008

The use of foreign language in academic activities varies substantially among Asian countries, as Table 8.8 shows. The proportion of those teaching in another language is substantially higher in Korea (30 %) than in the other countries (12–16 %). Publishing in another language is most widespread in Japan (42 %), but also quite common in Korea (35 %) as compared to the other cases (12–26 %). One should bear in mind that the respective figures for Hong Kong are low because neither English nor Chinese is considered to be a foreign language there.

Table 8.8 Institutional and personal foreign language use in teaching and research in five countries, by mean country percent 2007–2008

Undertaking academic activities by using a language that is not the first one or the mother tongue is quite frequent in the Asian countries. As the two bottom lines of Table 8.7 show, in teaching, this is more widespread in Asia (25 % on average across countries) than in Europe (16 %) and North America (13 %). In research, the use of a language that is not the first language or the mother tongue is more widespread in Asia (37 %) than in North America (25 %), but less than in Europe. As Table 8.8 indicates, the situation within Asia differs widely by country. Most academics in Malaysia (78 and 84 %) as well as in Hong Kong (58 and 67 %) primarily use a language that is not their first or mother tongue in teaching and research. In Korea, this is true for quite a number in research (44 %), but not for so many in teaching. In Japan (0 and 13 %) and China (4 and 6 %), using a language other than one’s first or mother language in teaching and research is not widespread.

However, if we make a further analysis of differences in foreign language use by academics from universities by seniority, interestingly, in Asian universities, except for the fact that there is the same percentage of responses from both senior and junior academics to the item “Prime research language not first/mother tongue language”, in university sector slightly more junior academics than senior academics seem to employ foreign languages in the four activities discussed above. The CAP international surveys suggest that, on average, the percentages of junior academics from universities who utilised another language that is not their first language or mother tongue in all the fours activities are 27, 37, 35 and 46 %, respectively, while the percentages of senior staff in these activities are 21, 34, 34 and 46 %, respectively.

8.3 The Case of Europe

8.3.1 Major European and International Higher Education Policies

In outlining the major policies of internationalisation and Europeanization in higher education and research in recent decades, we have to distinguish clearly between higher education polices (including those directed at the higher education system in general, academic staff at higher education institutions as well as notably teaching and learning), on the one hand, and, research policies (including research and technology across various institutional sectors) on the other. In the former area, a recent study argues that four waves of European higher education policies have stood out after the World War II. These were championed by four different supranational actors, each addressed to different national audiences, and varied in their conceptual underpinnings (Teichler 2010, on the history of higher education in general see Rüegg 2011).

First, in the 1950s, efforts started to facilitate student mobility in Europe with the help of conventions for the recognition of entry qualifications, study periods and degrees of mobile students. The key actor for these activities was the Council of Europe at the outset. Since the 1970s, it has collaborated with the UNESCO European Region in promoting recognition conventions, and, subsequently, with the European Union. Such efforts are visible, most recently, in the Lisbon Convention of 1997 (Teichler 2003). It should be noted that the Council of Europe is a supranational body that was comprised, in the 1950s, of all European countries of that time, except those with a communist regime. Further, the definition of the UNESCO region changed over time. Currently, the European-North America Region (ENA) comprises all of geographic Europe as well as Canada, the United States and Israel.

Second, European market-oriented countries collaborated closely in the 1960s and 1970s in the search of modernisation of higher education, whereby emphasis was put on the expansion and restructuring of higher education with the aim of contributing both to economic growth and the reduction of inequality in education. The key stimulating and coordinating supranational force behind these activities was the OECD – already boasting more than 20 members at that time – mostly European countries but also including Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. One of the major structural effects of the discussions and recommendations of that time was the upgrading of higher vocational schools to non-university higher education in various European countries and the strengthening of short-cycle higher education in most OECD countries (OECD 1973; Papadopoulos 1994).

Third, the promotion of student mobility was the most visible focus of European higher education policy in the 1980s. The ERASMUS programme, established in 1987, provides funds for the additional cost of studying temporarily in another European country, for short-term teacher mobility and to cover some institutional costs under the condition that partner institutions facilitate mobility administratively, collaborate in the substantive coordination of learning abroad with curricula at home and are willing to recognise study achievements abroad upon return (European Commission 1994). The number of students participating annually increased from a few thousands over time to more than 200,000. The European Union (or its predecessor organisation) is the key actor here. It has only been involved in higher education policy since the mid-1970s and only under the conditions that it respects the existing variety of national higher education system and that it takes actions only in areas not covered similarly by national policies. From the onset, it got involved in European student mobility and started, in 1976, the so-called Joint Study Programme, which eventually was transformed and expanded into ERASMUS. The ERASMUS programme includes all EU countries – 12 countries in the late 1980s, 15 in 1992 and eventually 27 countries in 2004, when many Central and Eastern countries became members, as well as a few additional countries (currently Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Turkey).

Fourth, most European countries have collaborated since the late 1990s in the so-called Bologna Process in establishing a convergent system of cycles of study programmes and degrees, thereby aiming at eventually realising a European Higher Education Area. A similar system of study programmes and degrees is advocated in the Bologna Declaration of 1999 in order to support student mobility – in terms of both making study in Europe more attractive for students from outside Europe and to facilitate intra-European mobility. The Bologna Process is coordinated by the national ministers in charge of higher education, forming a loose network, and sets the agenda for collaboration every 2 years in ministerial conferences. The number of countries involved has increased from 29, in 1999, to 47, in 2010 (most of them from geographical Europe being concurrently members of the Council of Europe).

In summing up the major regional higher education policies in Europe, we note that:

• Emphasis is placed on student mobility.

• Temporary student mobility (mostly half or one academic year) is the focus.

• Student mobility is supported between institutions considered to be on equal terms as far as academic quality is concerned; mobility in Europe should be “horizontal”.

• Efforts are made to facilitate student mobility financially and administratively.

• A strong need is felt to coordinate study in another country and study at home substantively and thereby to increase the chance of the recognition of study achievements at another university upon return to the home university.

• The desire to foster the “European dimension of higher education”.

The discussion on temporary mobility in Europe traditionally has had a stronger curricular focus than, e.g. the respective discussions in the United States. Curricula in European countries tend to be considered as a configuration of many indispensable elements for the competencies eventually to be achieved at graduation. This requires a careful choice of courses being taken abroad in another country in order to be considered equivalent to those otherwise taken at home – no matter whether the students are expected to have clearly contrasting educational experiences in another country or somewhat similar experiences to those at home. This also explains why issues of recognition of study achievements abroad are so high on the agenda in the European discourse on student mobility.

The purpose of the promotion of temporary study in another European country was predominantly international, not regional. Indeed, temporary study in another country of a similar academic quality helps students to understand the variety of academic approaches and cultural environment and to reflect the specific features of one’s home experiences. This can be more easily achieved through mobility in the “neighbourhood”, than across continents. In addition, the hope was expressed occasionally that an understanding of a common European heritage, common elements of a European culture and the development of a European identity could be fostered through intra-European mobility.

Mobility of academic staff played only a limited role in this context. Short-term academic mobility for teaching purposes is promoted as well in the framework of ERASMUS – partly as support for the mobile students and notably as an opportunity to provide international experience to the non-mobile students. In contrast, professional mobility of academics and its implication is addressed predominantly in the domain of research policies.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the discourse on regionalisation of higher education in Europe addresses not only the financial, organisational and curricular frameworks of temporary student mobility but also structural issues. The underlying assumption is that similarities of higher education systems – types of institutions, length of study programme, the role of degrees for further study and for employment, etc. – facilitate mobility and cooperation and possibly even further steps towards regional integration (Curaj et al. 2012). The Bologna Process calls for similarity of study programme and degrees, while officially respecting the curricular variety of study programmes in the various European countries. The interpretations vary, however, whether the Bologna Process is a milestone towards increasing activities in favour of a greater similarity of higher education in Europe in many respects.

8.3.2 Major European and International Research Policies

A European research policy with a strong underpinning of research priorities and research funding had already emerged in the 1950s. The predecessor organisations of the EU had research on the agenda from the onset. Initially, they were primarily active in supporting agricultural and nuclear research. The first joint research centre, established around 1960 in Italy, focussed initially on nuclear research and extended its activities in the 1970s into a broad range of research fields. The support of mobility of young researchers was an integral dimension of research promotion from the outset and eventually was established as an activity in its own right in 1968 in the EC Training Fellowship Scheme.

In the early 1970s, moves started towards the coordination of national research policies in science and technology and the development of a common research policy. This was not confined to the European Economic Community (EEC) of 6 member countries in 1970. Rather, ministers of 19 countries decided in 1971 to cooperate regularly in COST (European cooperation in the field of scientific and technical research). Also, the research promotion agencies and the major consortia of public research institutes cooperated across a wider range of European countries in the European Science Foundation (ESF). Within the EEC, however, various resolutions followed and various committees were set up subsequently, which, among others, do not set priorities for research but provide research funds along those lines. Therefore, emphasis was placed, from the onset, on applied and technology-relevant research, while national research promotion in the European countries was expected to take care of basic research.

In the 1980s, concern grew about a technological gap with the United States and Japan. Discussion about a “common strategy” and a “Framework Program” of targeted support for science and technology for a period of 4 years began for the first time in 1983. This was accompanied by various specific promotion programmes, e.g. in the field of computers and communication technologies, whereby all the programmes accepted associate member countries from outside the European Community.

When the European Union eventually was established in 1992, a clear legal basis was given to European research promotion and joint research strategies. The EU was given the explicit authority to define a research and innovation policy (de Elera 2006). Since 1995, research promotion of the EU also comprised the economic and social sciences, though on a smaller scale than in most national research promotion schemes in Europe. Support for the mobility of young researchers was substantially extended – eventually under the name “Marie Curie Programme”. A large extension of European research policy, however, was not supported by the national governments having the final say on EU policies in the so-called European Council, i.e. the council of the national governments of the EU.

Finally, around 2000, concern grew again that Europe might fall behind in the wake of growing worldwide competition on the way to the “knowledge economy”. The European Council defined, in March 2000, the so-called Lisbon Strategy, delineating which research policies on the European level should be strengthened, funding of research on the European level should be enlarged and total R&D expenditures in Europe (public on European and national level as well as private) should be raised to 3 % in 2010. By then, the so-called European Research Area should be realised and the European Union should be the “most competitive economy of the world”. The ambitious aims of this research promotion obviously were not reached (cf. the figures in comparative perspective in UNESCO 2010; OECD 2010), but experts agree that funding of research fared much better in Europe in recent years due to the joint aim of moving towards a European Research Area.

Altogether, European policies in the area of research were not monopolised by the European Union and its predecessor organisation, but the substantial monies involved in science policy – far more than a 100 times as much as in higher education policy – had an enormous impact. They created a strong incentive for universities and scholars in the areas of science and engineering to follow the EU priorities, to emphasise the applied nature of research and to strengthen their collaboration with industry. However, controversy persisted about the relative role of national and European research coordination, the balance of basic and applied research, the weight of humanities and social sciences in research promotion, the relative weight of targeted innovation objectives for research, the concentration or decentralisation of research resources, etc. As a high level of agreement has to be reached between European member countries in order to opt for joint policies, symbolic agreements are often more impressive than actual European research policies.

8.3.3 International Student Mobility: Intra-European and Across Regions

Recent available statistics focus on a European region comprising 32 countries: the 27 EU member countries, the four additional ERASMUS-eligible countries – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Turkey – as well as Switzerland (Teichler et al. 2011). Accordingly, 3.3 % of students in these 32 European countries are citizens of other European countries. The figures presented on study abroad of students from these 32 European countries in other European countries correspond to 2.8 % of the students enrolled in the countries of origin. The number of foreign students from outside Europe studying in these European countries is slightly higher according to these statistics, i.e. 3.6 %. In contrast, students from these European countries studying outside Europe only make up for 0.5 % of all students of these European countries, i.e. less than one-fifth of those studying abroad.

Some European countries collect data on international mobility for the purpose of study – in most cases in addition to data on foreign students and study abroad. A comparison of these data sets allows one to conclude that about one-quarter of foreign students in Europe have not been mobile for the purpose of study but rather had already lived and learnt in the country of study prior to enrolment. Information on foreign inwardly mobile students (defined as students with a nationality different from the country of study who have moved to the country of study for the purpose of study in contrast to foreign non-mobile students who have lived and learnt in the country of study already prior to enrolment) for the academic year 2007 is available for five of the seven countries participating in the CAP survey: They comprise 13.6 % of the students in the United Kingdom, 9.1 % in Germany, 4.7 % in the Netherlands, 2.7 % in Finland and 2.0 % in Norway.

It might be added here that information is collected in some European countries on inwardly mobile students not being foreigners. These students have lived and learnt abroad prior to study and have moved to the country of their nationality for the purpose of study (see Kelo et al. 2006). Available information suggests that they are one-tenth as many as foreign inwardly mobile students. Many of them lived and learnt abroad prior to study and returned to their country of citizenship for the purpose of study. Some of them might have had another citizenship prior to study and later became citizens of the country of study.

As was already pointed out, the institutions in charge of international educational statistics recommend their national partners to not include temporarily mobile students. In reality, some countries include – while other exclude – temporally mobile students. Overall, we estimate that less than half of the students in Europe who are temporarily mobile are registered in the statistics collected by UNESCO, OECD and EUROSTAT. Available knowledge from other sources suggests that the majority of inwardly mobile students in Europe coming from other European countries are temporally mobile. In contrast, this holds true only for a small minority of inward mobile students in Europe coming from outside Europe.

Putting all the available information together, we might estimate for the 32 European countries taken into consideration here:

• About 3 % of the students are foreign mobile students from outside Europe (most of them for degree study).

• Less than half a percent of European students are outward mobile to countries outside Europe.

• About 2 % of the students in these European countries are foreign mobile degree students from other European countries; similarly, the number of European students being degree mobile to other European countries corresponds to 2 % of all students in the country of origin.

• About 3 % of the students are foreign temporarily mobile students from other European countries; similarly, the number of European students being temporarily mobile to other European countries corresponds to 3 % of all students in the country of origin.

As already pointed out, figures on the number of students studying in another country at a certain moment in time cannot be viewed as the best possible measure for the magnitude of students’ experience of study in another country. Rather, according to a communication of the 2009 meeting of ministers in charge of the Bologna process, the factual event of having studied in another country during the course of study is the best possible measure. And graduate surveys are the best available source for establishing the frequency of this event.

The graduate surveys recently summarised in a publication focusing on the impact of the establishment of a bachelor-master structure in Europe, show, for some countries included in the CAP survey, the following results: more than 20 % of the graduates in the Netherlands and Norway had studied temporarily in another European country; the respective figures are around 15 % in Germany, about 10 % in Italy and less than 5 % in the United Kingdom. The average of European countries might be estimated to be somewhat higher than 10 %. This comprises temporary mobility only. We have to add the approximately 2 % of European students who pursue an entire study programme in another country. Thus, altogether, at least 12 % of students from these European countries experience study in another country during the course of study, whereby the rate of intra-regional mobility during the course of study is at least 10 % (Schomburg and Teichler 2011).

We do not know how these figures on student mobility to Europe from outside, from Europe to other regions and within Europe would compare to respective figures in other regions in the world, but estimates are possible. In taking the UNESCO, OECD and EUROSTAT data on foreign students and study abroad as a rough approximation for inward and outward degree mobility (i.e. students intending to study in another country up to award of a degree in contrast to students studying in another country for a short period), we come to the conclusion, first, that inward and outward degree mobility in the 32 European countries analysed here is about three times as high as on average all over the world. Second, we can estimate that the proportion of regional mobility among all international mobility is higher in Europe than in other regions of the world. Third, temporary student mobility across borders is far more frequent in Europe than in other parts of the world. If temporary mobility was included more or less completely in international statistics, one could see that international student mobility – inwards to and outwards from European countries – is even more impressively high in worldwide comparison and that temporary student mobility and intra-regional mobility is even more exceptional in Europe as compared to other regions.

8.3.4 International Academic Mobility: The Lack of Appropriate Statistics

The Science Directorate of the European Commission (i.e. the government body of the European Union in charge of science) commissioned, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, various studies to examine the strengths and weaknesses of statistics on careers and on international mobility of researchers (all information in this section is taken from Teichler 2011). In regard to mobility, they noted that reliable information on genuine mobility, i.e. crossing borders for the purpose of academic activities, is only available across European countries for specific promotion programmes of mobility, notably teaching staff mobility within Europe in the framework of ERASMUS and young researchers’ mobility within Europe within the Marie Curie Programme.

According to statistics provided for the academic year 2008, about 32,000 scholars received teaching mobility grants in the framework of ERASMUS for short-term teaching (often 1 or 2 weeks) in another European country, i.e. one-eighth of the figure of ERASMUS students being mobile mostly for half or one academic year. About 1,600 “early stage researchers” were awarded a Marie Curie fellowship. According to the European Commission, the total number of Marie Curie fellowships corresponds to about 4 % of doctorates awarded in the respective countries.

As regards foreign scholars, the conclusion was drawn that the single best statistical source is that on foreign doctoral degrees (not doctoral students, because these figures tend to be incomplete). This might come as a surprise, because doctoral degrees are named in educational statistics as degrees at the successful completion of the highest level of study (ISCED 6 according to the UNESCO definition). Moreover, the Ministers in charge of higher education cooperating in the Bologna Process name doctoral training the third cycle of the Bologna cycle system of study programmes and degrees, and efforts are praised to strengthen and extend doctoral “programmes” instead of individual supervision. In contrast, doctoral candidates are understood in science and research statistics as early-stage researchers, and the European Commission supports mobility of doctoral candidates (notably, but not exclusively, in science and engineering) with Marie Curie fellowships for “early-stage researchers” (defined as persons with 0–4 years of research experience).

8.3.5 Life-Course Migration and Mobility of the Academic Profession: Findings of the CAP Survey

Given the paucity of international statistics on academic staff mobility, the CAP survey itself is a highly valuable source of information on academic mobility. Actually, the CAP collected information on citizenship and residence at various stages of the life, study and career course. On average, of the seven European countries surveyed in the CAP study, 22 % of European academics have elements of a mobile or migrant career. On average, this is less frequent than among academics in the North America and Asia countries surveyed, but international migration and mobility within the region, as opposed to outside it, is more frequent in Europe (see Table 8.1).

There is a clear difference between Europe and the other regions. Most of the migration and mobility of academics in Europe has taken place within the region, i.e. within Europe. Conversely, about half of North American academics have moved within and outside that region and the majority of academics in Asia have moved across regions. The regional dominance of mobility and migration among European scholars is certainly facilitated by various mechanisms of promoting academic mobility and cooperation in Europe. On the other hand, less need for migration and mobility is felt in Europe than in other regions of the world in order to enhance one’s competencies, to have access to good resources for academic work and to improve one’s economic situation.

One might interpret these data in comparison with different reference groups. The international migration of the academic profession in Europe is clearly higher than the international mobility of university-trained persons in Europe working in nonacademic professional areas. Also, more academics in Europe study abroad and do their doctoral training and work abroad than university-trained persons working in nonacademic professional areas.

Table 8.9 shows that differences by country are substantial. The proportion of those with any migration and mobility background is only 5 % among academics in Italy, on the one hand, and almost half in Norway, on the other hand.

Table 8.9 International mobility and migration of academics within and outside Europe, by country mean percent 2007–2008

Finally, we note that migration and mobility in the course of study is more often reported by senior academics, both at universities and other higher education institutions than by junior academics at both types of higher education institutions. In part, this is due to the fact that there are the more opportunities for migration and mobility the longer persons are active academically. However, it might also be a selection effect that those who had been internationally mobile are more likely to be promoted to senior positions.

8.3.6 International Activities of the Academic Profession in Europe

8.3.6.1 International Aspects of Teaching

A comparison across the three regions addressed here shows that the proportion of academics in the European countries surveyed are on average as internationally active in two aspects of teaching as their colleagues from other regions. Teaching abroad is even more widespread in Europe than in the other regions (Table 8.3).

As Table 8.10 shows, the majority of academics in all European countries state that international content and perspective play a substantial role in their teaching; the affirmative responses vary by country from 51 to 81 %. Differences by country are more striking in the proportion of academics having taught abroad recently (from 7 to 26 %) and in the dominance of foreigners among their graduate students (less than 10 % in five countries and more than 20 % in two countries).

Table 8.10 Internationalisation of teaching activities and students in European countries, by mean country percent 2007–2008

8.3.6.2 International Aspects of Research

As far as research is concerned, European academics are clearly more active internationally than their colleagues in other regions. As Table 8.5 has shown, the difference is small, as far as the scope of research is concerned, but substantial regarding most international activities.

Table 8.11 suggests that academics of the seven European countries differ strikingly in the extent to which they are involved in most of the international research activities addressed in the survey. In all seven countries, the majority of academics point out that they are international as far as the scope of their research is concerned (ranging from 55 to 75 %). The proportion of those publishing abroad ranges among six countries from 39 to 59 %, whereby in a single country the respective proportion is clearly lower (27 %). Joint publications with foreign authors range from 14 to 24 %, and research funded by international sources ranges from 11 to 19 % in six countries (26 % in the seventh country). Also, research collaboration with foreign scholars varies more substantially between European countries (ranging from 26 to 60 %).

Table 8.11 Internationalisation of research activities in European countries by mean country percent 2007–2008

One should bear in mind, though, that the figures presented in Tables 8.10 and 8.11 refer to all academics in the respective countries. A closer look reveals that the extent of involvement in international activities differs strikingly according to the academics’ status and institutional base. University professors are, to a higher extent, clearly internationally active. The respective average proportion of international activities referred to among university professors is about one and a half times as high as among junior staff at universities and senior academics at other institutions of higher education, as well as, about twice as high as among junior academic staff at other institutions of higher education.

8.3.6.3 Foreign Language Use

Using a foreign language – mostly English as lingua franca but also other languages – is quite frequent in European higher education. The proportion of academics employing a foreign language in teaching and research is clearly higher than in the other regions with the exception of more frequent teaching in English in Hong Kong and Malaysia. It is generally assumed that English has played an increasing role in teaching and research activities in recent years in Europe as a consequence of growing border-crossing mobility and cooperation.

Altogether, the data presented in Table 8.12 cannot be easily understood as indicators of internationalisation. No distinction has been made in the survey across all countries between English as the academic lingua franca and other foreign languages. Moreover, we do not know whether teaching and research in another language is a rare exception or even clearly modal. Finally, the question regarding the prime language defines foreign not institutionally, but rather individually. If, e.g. a Portuguese scholar employed at a German university teaches and undertakes research in Germany primarily in the German language, this will be counted as “foreign” in the two bottom lines of Table 8.13.

Table 8.12 Institutional and personal foreign language use in teaching and research in European countries, by percentage 2007–2008

Altogether, Table 8.12 confirms what is known from other studies. Foreign language use in higher education varies substantially by country. It is most frequent in the relatively small northern and central European countries (here Finland, the Netherlands and Norway). It is less widespread in the large European countries and the smaller southern European countries (here Germany, Italy and Portugal), and it is rare in the English-speaking countries (here the United Kingdom), where internationality of academic activities without foreign language use often is believed to be reached by communicating only in the lingua franca.

Again, foreign language use differs by academics’ status and institutional base. It is among university professors about one and a half times as high as among senior academics at other institutions of higher education as well as about twice as high as among junior academic staff at other institutions of higher education. However, in contrast to the international activities discussed, foreign language use among junior staff at universities is almost as high as among university professors.

8.4 The Case of North America

8.4.1 Emergence and Development of the North America Region

In an increasingly globalised world, countries engage themselves in internationalisation efforts as a way to deal more effectively with both local and global demands. In this context, the last three decades have seen individual countries not only involved in internationalisation efforts at a global level but also at the level of cross-border “regional” alliances designed to improve their member states’ well-being through collaborative efforts that enhance their competitiveness in relation to countries outside the region (Blumenthal et al. 1996).

The region notion, however, is not simple and unique. Although originally (and largely) associated with geographic criteria, a region can be identified on the basis of a diversity of criteria (historic, social, cultural, economic, etc.) that are used to present and defend the notion that their member states behave, at least partially, in an interdependent way. Countries that are members of a region are assumed to share goals, a framework for their specific interaction (collaboration is usually stressed here), and a set of values and general standards about their involvement in the region. While border-crossing regions can be identified on the basis of factors having to do with their past development, they are also created or strengthened around certain explicit and negotiated purposes, which of late are usually economic. Irrespective of its economic relevance, the region notion incorporates social, cultural and political dimensions as well.

Canada, Mexico and the United States have, as part of North America, a long, historic and common heritage, particularly in the areas where current national borders are located. During the last and current century, two subregions could be “naturally” identified: the United States and Canada as well as the United States and Mexico (Katz 1996). The relationships within these two subregions have culminated in the creation of one formal region with the signing, in 2002, of the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This economic treaty, which began effectively in 2004, did not consider higher education as such but incorporated the provision of professional services. According to NAFTA, North America would be a free space by 2005 in which professional service providers and businessman could transit and work in which ever of the three countries they selected.

On the path towards a “knowledge-based economy”, the prospect of economic integration of North America created a considerable amount of pressure on Mexican higher education, as the country lacked, in contrast to the United States and Canada, a “mature” higher education system, an adequate financing scheme, a strong tradition on quality assurance and, finally, highly qualified academics. Following the path recommended when Mexico became a member, during the 1980s, of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), various quality improvement actions (e.g. programme accreditation, professional certification and the improvement of faculty profiles) became essential to Mexican higher education institutions (Marúm Espinosa 2004).

So, prior to NAFTA, higher education collaboration in the North American region became an issue of interest during the early 1990s. Regional meetings were held at Wingspread (1992), Vancouver (1993) and Guadalajara (1996), and several trilateral reports were issued. One by-product of these meetings was the creation of the Consortium for North America Higher Education Collaboration (CONAHEC) that published a series of comparative reports on diverse aspects of higher education in North America, although not all of them dealt concurrently with all three countries (Maella et al. 1998).

In addition to the creation of various organisations and, concurrently, the arrangement of political-academic events, NAFTA was instrumental in promoting collaborative actions like the Program for North American Mobility for Higher Education, funded by all three North American countries (International and Foreign Language Education Service, US Department of Education 2009). Also, bilateral programmes, like UC-MEXUS established in 1980, gained legitimacy and strength (see University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States 2012).

With the signing of NAFTA, higher education was scheduled to pursue economic internationalisation and regional efforts. Within a complex history of interactions, including substantial asymmetries between the economies of the three nations involved and different higher education structures, North American countries persisted in making efforts to build an agenda for increasing and improving higher education collaboration (Maella et al. 1998).

8.4.2 Mobility of Students and Academics in North America

As pointed out earlier, there has been, before NAFTA, quite a significant relationship between Mexico and the United States, on the one hand, and between Canada and the United States, on the other. In the former case, the relationships centred largely on the training of Mexican graduate students by way of a federal scholarship programme coordinated by the National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT, Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología), while in the case of Canada, it involved both student and faculty exchange in response to initiatives taken mostly at the level of individual scholars and institutions (Egron-Polak 1996).

More specifically, according to UNESCO figures for 2007, the United States receives around 66 and 57 %, respectively, of Canadian and Mexican students studying abroad. Canada, on the other hand, receives about 16 % of United States students studying abroad, and is not one of the five destinations of Mexican, internationally mobile students (UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2009).

With respect to mobility of academics, data are more difficult to obtain, and it is necessary to incorporate figures indirectly related to academics. Indeed, the number of government funded Mexican students pursuing a graduate degree in Canada and the United States has actually decreased from 2001 (39.7 % considering both countries) to 2010 (32.7 %) (CONACYT 2011). With the United States, on the other hand, figures from the Fulbright program, which supports students and academics going abroad for periods up to 1 year, show that there is no North America region. Together, Canada and Mexico received, in 2009–2010, only 3.7 % of all bursaries (Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board 2011).

Constituing unforeseen developments, the 9–11 events and a difficult global economic situation have done little to encourage higher education initiatives involving Canada, Mexico and the United States to evolve in a more significant, formal and visible way. So, although North American countries are not involved in a formal common higher education area, as in the case of European countries, the existence of a common economic area opens, despite the obvious differences in their respective higher education systems, an important avenue for collaboration. The extent of it will depend greatly, however, on the destiny of the economy of the region.

8.4.3 Academic Mobility and Migration in North America: The Findings of the CAP Study

8.4.3.1 Mobility and Migration of North American Academics

Globalisation, internationalisation and regionalisation processes have increased significantly during the last two decades and, in parallel with these tendencies, so have the demands for academics to become more global, international and, at the same time, regional. What is the current international and regional status of North American academics? The Changing Academic Project (CAP) provides a lens through which we can look at this situation. It shows the frequency and destination of border-crossing and migration during the life-spam – ranging from multiple moves to complete non-mobility. Therefore, mobility and migration within the region can be disentangled from that across regions.

As can be observed in Table 8.1, 25 % of academics in North America were identified as internationally mobile or as migrants, clearly fewer than in Asia (39 %) but somewhat more than in Europe (22 %). More specifically, the mobility and migrations of North American academics is evenly split between within region and across region; in contrast, intra-regional mobility and migration dominates in Europe and cross-regional mobility and migration in Asia.

When data is differentiated according to type of institution and academic rank, a more diverse picture appears. First, academics in North America are more internationally mobile at universities (35 and 30 % for senior and junior faculty, respectively) than in other institutions of higher education (14 and 13 % for senior and junior faculty, respectively). Second, senior academics at universities tend to be more internationally mobile outside the region than junior faculty (19 vs. 16 %, respectively). Third, such a difference does not exist between mobile senior and junior faculty at other institutions of higher education.

Of the 25 % of academics in North America that reported being internationally mobile, those that were citizens at birth (study and PhD internationally mobile academics) represented 13 %; almost the same proportion (12 %) are immigrants (early and PhD) and professional migrants (see the definition below Table 8.1). Among the immigrant and professional migrant academics, two-thirds (8 %) have moved across regions and one-third (4 %) within the region. In contrast, among study – and PhD – mobile faculty, a smaller proportion has moved cross-regionally (5 %) than within the region (8 %). These differences suggest that immigrant and migrant academics might have a larger academic network which is not confined to the North American region. It also speaks of the attractiveness of these three countries, particularly the United States, for academics trained in other regions of the world.

The spatial patterns of mobility and migration vary substantially by the academics’ type of higher education institution. For academics at universities, the above described patterns hold true whereby migration and mobility is more frequent than among academics at other institutions of higher education. For example, the respective figures (inter- vs. intra-regional) for migrant university professors are 13 % versus 5 %, and 7 % versus 10 % for mobile academics. Among academics at other institutions of higher education, however, intra-regional moves are more frequent than interregional moves in the case of migration and professional mobility. The respective figures are 7 % versus 4 % among senior mobile academics and 5 % versus 2 % of junior mobile academics at other institutions of higher education. This suggests that networks and perspectives of academics at other institutions of higher education are more regional and less global than those of academics at universities.

Altogether, we note that mobility and migration is a more widespread phenomenon among academics at universities in North America than among academics at other institutions of higher education, differences between juniors and seniors at both types of institutions are low in comparison. While migration and professional mobility of university academics is predominantly interregional, mobility for study and doctoral work dominates within the region. In contrast, international mobility of academics at other institutions of higher education is to a higher extent concentrated on the region.

8.4.3.2 Mobility and Migration of Academics of the Individual North American Countries

In analysing the situation within the individual countries of the North American region, we note – see Table 8.13 – that academics surveyed in Canada have moved in their career to a much larger extent (47 %) than those in Mexico (19 %) and those in the United States (13 %). The differences are so striking between the three countries that the region means presented above might be viewed as artificial. Notably, Canadian higher education has a migratory history and current reality of its own (Egron-Polak 1996).

In comparing mobility and migration between universities and other institutions of higher education, we note only small differences in this respect in the United States (15 % vs. 10 % for senior academics and 13 vs. 14 % for junior academics), but substantial differences in Mexico (31 % vs. 15 % as well as 34 % vs. 12 %, respectively). It should be noted that Canadian institutions of higher education were not classified in the CAP survey as either “universities” (i.e. in charge of research and teaching) or “other institutions of higher education” (i.e. predominantly in charge of teaching).

In the case of Canada, the percentage of those mobile and migrants is higher among senior (49 %) than junior university faculty (42 %). This is not the case in the United States (15 % vs. 13 %) and in Mexico (31 % vs. 34 %).

Table 8.13 also shows that the ratio between intra-regional and interregional mobility and migration varies substantially by country. Among academics at Mexican institutions of higher education, the share of those having moved within the region is clearly higher than those across regions (12 % vs. 7 %). The opposite holds true for the United States: Those academics who have moved across regions are more than twice as high than those within the region (9 % vs. 4 %). Canadian academics move often both across regions (27 %) and within the region (20 %). There are close ties on the one hand with the United States, influenced among others by the partial share of their official languages (English and French are the official language in Canada) and on the other hand with the United Kingdom and France and other economically advanced countries with the same languages.

Table 8.13 International mobility and migration within North America and outside North America, by percentage 2007–2008

8.4.4 International Academic Activities: A Comparison Across Regions and Within the North American Region

8.4.4.1 International Aspects of Teaching

As already stated above, the CAP study provides information about international aspect of academic activities. However, no distinction has been made in the questionnaire in regard to the spatial dimension of these activities, i.e. whether they focus on the region, address other regions or have a worldwide scope.

Further, in regard to the international aspects of teaching, Table 8.14 shows an interesting contrast for Mexico. On the one hand, academics in Mexico show that their teaching comprises international content and perspectives (77 % as compared to 53 % in the United States and 62 % in Canada). On the other hand, the figures are smallest for Mexico when it comes to teaching-related and learning-related mobility. Only 6 % report that the majority of graduate students are international (as compared to 7 % in the United States and 23 % in Canada). Equally, 6 % in Mexico state that they recently have taught abroad (as compared to 11 % in the United States and 16 % in Canada).

Table 8.14 International teaching activities of academics in North American countries, by mean country percent 2007–2008

International aspects of teaching play a similar role among academics in the North American countries, both by type of higher education institution and by academic rank both with respect to content of teaching and the proportion of foreign graduate students. In regard to teaching abroad, however, we note that more university professors, both in the United States and Canada, are mobile for the purpose of teaching than junior staff in these countries (13 % vs. 6 % and 17 % vs. 7 %). In Mexico, such a difference does not hold true, however. More academics at Mexican universities teach abroad than those at other institutions of higher education in Mexico.

8.4.4.2 International Aspects of Research

Academics in Canada reported themselves as more internationally involved with as regards three of the aspects of the research addressed in the CAP questionnaire. As Table 8.16 shows, more of them characterise their research as international in scope (57 %) compared to the academics in Mexico (44 %) and the United States (41 %). Also, international research collaboration (64 % as compared to 35 and 33 %) and co-authorship with colleagues located in other countries (14 % as compared to 10 and 6 %) are more frequent among academics in Canada. However, publishing in a foreign country is almost as widespread in Mexico (33 %) as in Canada (35 %), but substantially less frequent in the United States (9 %). Finally, substantially more Mexican academics reported receiving international research funding (14 %) than their colleagues in Canada and the United States (7 % each) (see Table 8.15).

Table 8.15 International research activities in North American countries, by mean country percent 2007–2008

In Canada, senior and junior academics do not differ substantially in the frequency of international research activities. However, more senior academics than junior academics collaborate internationally (67 % as compared to 53 %). In the United States, university professors report that they have an international scope in research and collaborate internationally in research more often than junior academics at universities, as well as academics at other institutions of higher education. It is surprising, though, to note that junior academics at other institutions of higher education in the United States are more internationally oriented in research in various aspects than senior academics of this institutional type.

Finally, academics (both seniors and juniors) at universities in Mexico are more internationally research oriented than academics (both senior and junior) at other institutions of higher education. For example, an international scope of research is reported by 53 % of university professors, 47 % by junior academics at universities as well as by 38 % of seniors and 33 % of juniors at other institutions of higher education in Mexico.

From a small set of questions, information is available in the CAP study on the target countries of these international research activities. Accordingly, more than ten times as many Canadian research-active academics report that they collaborate with colleagues from the United States (38.0 %) than that they collaborate with colleagues from Mexico (3.3 %). Mexican academics report that they collaborate with colleagues more than four times as often in the United States (10.8 %) than with scholars in Canada (2.3 %). Finally, almost four times as many academics in the United States collaborate with colleagues in Canada (20.8 %) than with academics in Mexico (5.8 %) (Metcalfe et al. 2009).

These figures support the impression of North America being composed of two different “subregions”: Canada and the United States, on the one hand, and, on the other, the United States and Mexico. Language, level of development, demographics and higher education sector size and traditions are probably all factors that help explain why this finding.

8.4.4.3 Foreign Language Use

Using another language for teaching and publishing constitutes another measure of the degree to which academics’ work is international. As already pointed out, the CAP survey addressed both the use of a language different from the home country of the institution of higher education and different from the respondents’ first language or mother tongue.

Teaching in another language is not frequent in any of the North American countries. Only 4 % of the academics in the United States do so as compared to 6 % in Mexico and 9 % in Canada, as Table 8.16 shows. It is worth noting that junior academics in Mexico are more active in teaching in a foreign language than senior academics (11 % vs. 6 % at universities and 7 % vs. 4 % at other institutions of other institutions of higher education). Interestingly, this might signal a generation change in this respect.

Table 8.16 Institutional and personal foreign language use in teaching and research in North American countries, by mean country percent 2007–2008

Publishing in a foreign language is by far more widespread among academics in Mexico (32 %) and in Canada (20 %) than teaching in a foreign language. In contrast, the proportion of academics in the United States who publish in a foreign language (4 %) is as small as the respective proportion teaching in a foreign language. The respective differences by type of higher education institution and by academics’ status are relatively small.

The pattern is different with regard to the proportion of those using primarily a language in teaching and research that differs from their first language and mother tongue. We can assume that many of these, in United States and in Canada as well, are persons who are immigrants and migrants who have moved to the country where they teach and research at the time when the survey has been undertaken. Moreover, some Franco-Canadians might use English as the prime academic language and in reverse some Anglo-Canadians might use French. Thus, it does not come as a surprise to note that teaching in a language different from the first language or mother tongue is most frequent in Canada (18 %) and also clearly more frequent in the United States (14 %) than in Mexico (8 %).

Again, a different pattern can be found in regard to research activities in language different from the first language or mother tongue. The prime language of research is not the first language or mother tongue among both 30 % of academics in Canada and Mexico – in both countries clearly more often than the prime language of teaching. In the United States, the prime language of research is different from the first language or the mother tongue only among 15 % – this is more or less the same as in the case of teaching. Almost four times as many academics in Mexico report that their language of research is not their mother tongue as those stating it for teaching. This seems to resemble, in most cases, academics in Mexico with Spanish as first language who believe that they have to move to English in order to be involved in international research networks.

8.5 Final Observations

International activities in higher education, until recently, have not been characterised by a regional emphasis. Even though costs incurred might have been an argument in favour of links with neighbours, the academic map, as far as knowledge transfer, cooperation and physical mobility are concerned, has been, for a few decades, more global than regional.

This is understandable, first, in regard to knowledge transfer. Seeking the highest quality and the highest relevance of knowledge, as a rule, is not defined spatially. It is worldwide in principle, as, e.g. has been expressed in the Meiji Oath in Japan as an early strategic case of knowledge-based modernisation policy, and it is even more global today when virtual knowledge dissemination completely overrules any spatial consideration. Second, student mobility has been primarily “vertical”, i.e. from countries considered to be less successful economically and academically to countries considered to be more successful in this respect. In addition, language proficiencies played a major role: language or languages learnt at home in relation to the language taught abroad. This has led to a higher number of students going to countries where English – the lingua franca of academia these days – is the mother tongue or the language of instruction. Last but not least, political factors also have played a role in various respects: legacies of colonialism and political blocks, visa rules, provisions of fellowships, etc. Third, international research collaboration has had two arenas: the larger one was that among locations of similar quality and thematic interest, and was most frequent and intense in the high quality sector, and the smaller one was “vertical”, i.e. primarily assistance for locations of lower academic level gradually to catch up with places of higher quality. Again, these rationales do not reinforce regional cooperation. Fourth, mobility of academics is closely linked to the two above issues. On the one hand, academic and student mobility is often “vertical” in the search for an academically and economically superior place of temporary study or long-term professional migration. On the other hand, mobility of academics often is an integral part of research collaboration, thus being more frequent among high quality places and having a less frequent focus on targeted assistance.

Though it is very challenging to define the term regionalisation of higher education, historically speaking, it began on a substantial scale in the 1950s in Western Europe as well as among the countries linked to the Soviet Union. Many years later, and initially with less strong underpinnings, regionalisation policies followed in other regions of the world, especially in Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and North America.

In spite of varying conditions, we note some common features of regionalisation of higher education across regions:

• Regionalisation of higher education is primarily a political claim and not primarily a more or less automatic trend. The discussion about the regionalisation of higher education in Asia and Europe mentioned earlier suggests that regionalisation, in contrast to “globalisation”, does not seem to “happen anyway”.

• Experts name similar factors in play for a growing regional emphasis in higher education. First, the more higher education expands and the more is expected to be socially and economically relevant, the more effects of knowledge transfer, cooperation and mobility demand attention. But attention is not only growing regarding the worldwide arena, where views of a vertical order of academia prevail (competition among unequal competitors for top ranks). Attention is growing as well as regards the value of student mobility on a mass scale, the training of students for subsequent professional mobility among neighbour countries, increasing knowledge transfer between higher education and industry on a more limited spatial dimension than the globe. Second, the spreading paradigm of the “knowledge economy” – that the world is characterised by worldwide economic competition increasingly shaped by technologically and economically relevant systematic knowledge – reinforces the idea that individual countries can fare better if they form strategic partnerships for mutual enhancement, whereby regional partnerships are currently more fashionable in contrast to previous colonial ones or political-ideological ones.

• Third, the mechanisms designed for regionalisation of higher education are similar across regions: For example, facilitating study mobility, regional research promotion and cooperation in quality assurance. It is difficult to say to what extent these policies have turned out to be successful or to what extent imitation is in play.

There are two thematic areas, however, where it is not clear whether it is seen as a normal element of regionalisation in higher education and whether similar policies are pursued in the various regions: first, the extent to which national higher education systems should become more similar, e.g. in the structure of degree programmes, in order to achieve the goals on the agenda, and, second, the extent to which powerful supranational coordination is considered desirable or even necessary.

This chapter began by providing an overview on regionalisation trends and policies of higher education in three regions: Asia, Europe and North America. It showed that a regional higher education emphasis started first in Europe, has elicited the most far-reaching joint policy actions and has had the most salient impact on intra-regional knowledge transfer, cooperation and mobility there. In the two other regions analysed, regionalisation trends and policies emerged later have remained more cautious and have not (yet) yielded comparable results. Then it discussed aspects of physical mobility. In regard to the regionalisation of student mobility, the increase of outgoing temporary horizontal mobility is the prime policy objective which was realised with some success but even more ambitious targets: that students in Europe learn from contrasts and widen their intellectual and cultural competencies by spending a short period in another European country. In other regions, some of the measures established in Europe are adopted without any similar clear priority for “horizontal” and for “short-term” mobility. Currently, the regions vary as well substantially according to the ratio of study abroad among all students and according to the proportions of intra-regional versus interregional student mobility. Statistical material – though far from being adequate to analyse student mobility in a reliable way – suggests that intra-regional mobility is clearly more frequent in Europe than in the other regions; this reflects the fact that the majority of students in the majority of high-quality higher education systems are interested in mobility among countries and partners with a similar level of academic quality. Moreover, “vertical” mobility seems to remain predominantly interregional.

With regard to academic staff mobility, this chapter presents findings of a comparative survey (“The Changing Academic Profession”) on the proportions of academics active in various countries of the three regions discussed who have been mobile, or have migrated during their lifespan, up to the moment when the survey was conducted. Therefore, a distinction is made between intra-regional and interregional mobility and migration. The survey provides evidence that the share of intra-regional mobility and migration does not differ substantially between the three regions. In contrast, interregional mobility is the higher the more one expects a higher academic quality than at home in the foreign country.

Both available statistical information on student mobility and the survey findings on mobility and migration of academics show enormous differences in mobility rates between the countries in each of the regions. Some factors which seem to be in play are discussed, but a detailed analysis of the causes of the heterogeneity of the regions in this respect has not been intended.

It should be noted that the report of the findings of a comparative survey on the academic profession undertaken in 2007 was not meant to be a more or less ideal tool for examining the impact of trends and policies of regionalisation in higher education. This would not have been timely anyway, as most of the academics, professionally active in 2007, had formed in their views and activities long before the recent regionalisation policies could have shaped higher education systems. Beyond that, the CAP survey has addressed the international approaches and activities of the academics without any distinction between an intra-region and interregional or a global emphasis. Yet, the results have been presented here in order to show the extent to which the academics’ international approaches and activities vary by country in each of the regions. This extent of homogeneity or heterogeneity is certainly important background information regarding the conditions under which regionalisation policies work.

In all countries, of all three regions, we note that the majority of academics consider their teaching to be international as far as the content and perspectives are concerned. In regard to an international scope of research, we note differences by country across all regions from one-third to three quarters. Further, international research collaboration ranges from 13 to 70 %; international co-authorship from 1 to 24 %; and publishing abroad from 12 to 70 %. The differences within Europe are often interpreted as substantial, although they are smaller than in the other regions (e.g. international co-authorship ranging from 14 to 24 %). Differences in North America are clearly higher and one often talks about two separate subregions: Canada and United States, on the one hand, and on the other, United States and Mexico, with completely different conditions of interaction. Finally, differences between Asian systems look absolutely extreme at first glance; even if one excludes Hong Kong because of its exceptional situation, the international dimension plays such a diverse role in the four Asian countries that they do not seem to be promising preconditions for strong intra-regional ties for the time being.

Academics are certainly influenced, in many respects, by their national context. It is also obvious that many academics have a worldwide academic arena as a point of reference. Regional trends and policies have lead in some instances to remarkable results, most prominently the growth and popularity of temporary “horizontal” student mobility between European countries. It remains to be seen, though, whether an emphasis on a regional identity will become, in the foreseeable future, as important as national and worldwide references for academics.