Employability skills as guiding principles for internationalising home curricula

The relevance of an internationalised home curriculum for all students is generally acknowledged. Other than study abroad, the home curriculum gives programs of study full control over the way students learn international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary perspectives. However, misconceptions, lack of strategies, lack of skills of academics, and lack of connection between stakeholders present major obstacles to internationalising teaching and learning “at home”. The practical trajectory outlined in this chapter presents programs of study with the opportunity to focus on employability skills instead of on a semantic discussion on internationalisation. By linking this orientation on employability skills with the articulation of intended learning outcomes (ILOs), a pathway for developing employability skills in all students will be created. Within this pathway, international, intercultural, interdisciplinary, and future-focused dimensions serve to enhance students’ acquiring employability skills. The trajectory presented here evolved out of action research on internationalisation with academics. During the action research, taking employability skills as a starting point emerged as an enabler for the internationalisation process. It helped to overcome lengthy and semantic discussions on the meaning of internationalisation. After that, international and intercultural dimensions are included in these employability skills. These skills are then translated into ILOs. This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in Internationalization and employability in higher education on 19/25/06, available online: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351254885

Why we should continue to ask critical questions about internationalisation at home

Long before the COVID pandemic, we had already realised that traditional forms of internationalisation had their limitations. Mobility of students had remained limited to a small minority of students, a ‘cultural elite’. We had also become aware that student mobility was mostly from the global north to the south and that some of its effects were unwanted, and could lead to ‘white saviourism’. Finally, before the COVID pandemic we were already discussing the CO2 imprint of mobility and considering ‘greener’ forms of mobility of students and staff. More than twenty years ago, around 2000, attempts had already emerged to bring the benefits of internationalisation to all students through internationalisation at home. At the time, this was defined as “Any internationally related activity with the exception of outbound student and staff mobility”. This definition did not mention explicitly that all students were targeted and also omitted the purpose of these activities

Intelligent Internationalization at Work in The Hague, the City of Peace and Justice

Intelligent internationalization, as outlined by Laura Rumbley in 2015, is a relevant notion to explore in specific institutional settings. The setting in this contribution is that of The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS) and in order to understand intelligent internationalization in practice, the specific setting of the institution needs to be clarified first. The Hague, with its approximately 530,000 inhabitants, is not the capital of the Netherlands, but is the seat of government and therefore houses the parliament, ministries, embassies, and is also the residence of the royal house. The Hague has a long tradition as the host of international institutions. The 1899 and 1907 peace conferences were held in the city and the Peace Palace, opened in 1913, is home to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). Since 2002, The Hague also houses the International Criminal Court (ICC). The city thus provides a learning environment for all students (both domestic and international) at THUAS, not only through the internships that are a key component of all programs, but also through engagement with cultural organizations and local communities. The Hague University of Applied Sciences provides higher professional education to about 28,000 students, in more than 50 bachelor’s programs, as well as in a limited number of applied master’s programs. Nine programs are delivered in English. THUAS is an UNESCO institution and aims to be the most international university of applied sciences in the Netherlands by 2020, focusing on world citizenship skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and intercultural competence for all its students. THUAS’ student body is highly diverse with approximately 40% of its students having a non-Dutch background

Internationalising learning outcomes: at The Hague University of Applies Sciences

This study aims to identify factors that impact on the internationalisation of learning outcomes of programmes at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS). The process of the articulation of learning outcomes has been studied at institutional, faculty and programme levels. Both document analysis and action research with trainers, managers and lecturers provided data for this study. The study describes the broader issue and the layers of contexts in which THUAS operates: the global, European, national, local and institutional. Within the latter two, several strategies are distinguished, i.e. research on employability skills of students and THUAS’ Educational vision. The strategies for internationalisation of learning outcomes at THUAS are then placed in an international perspective. The next section zooms in on current practice on the basis of self-assessment and management reports of THUAS faculties. The analysis of these reports is followed by more detailed observations from individual programmes. Analysis and observations are then connected to professional development for internationalisation of teaching and learning. Three elements of THUAS’ extensive programme for professional development are discussed in more detail. The study ends with the identification of priorities to internationalise learning outcomes across THUAS

A deeper dig into Global Learning: Inaugural lecture of Dr. Jos Beelen as Professor of Global Learning at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, introduced by Rajash Rawal, member of the Executive Board, on 26 September 2018.

International education is a relatively new field and until recently, there was no formal education to prepare practitioners. This means that people working in international education are a colourful and diverse group, coming from a wide range of disciplines, which definitely adds to the attraction of the field. I call international education a field rather than a discipline since it is composed of a variety of established disciplines, such as languages, educational sciences, psychology, business, anthropology, history and even, in my case, classical archaeology. For this lecture, I have chosen to return to my original discipline and discuss global learning as the stages of an archaeological excavation. Cutting though the subsequent layers represents a history of international education but also my own professional history. By digging deeper down, layer after layer, I hope to uncover the essence of global learning in order to make its benefits available for all our students. This lecture consists of four sections. In the first section, I want to go back to the time when archaeology was a new discipline and see what we can learn from the research conducted at that time. In the second section I will reveal the layers of internationalisation and global learning until we come to the layer that we are currently exploring. In the third section, I will look at some of the factors and trends that will have an impact on global learning in the years to come. This shows that circumstances are quite different from when the excavation started and that global education is therefore dynamic. Finally, I will discuss what research the Research Group Global Learning will conduct, how and with whom, in the coming years

Academic development to support the internationalization of the curriculum (IoC): a qualitative research synthesis

Little has been published regarding the training of academic developers themselves to support internationalization of the curriculum (IoC) initiatives. However, higher education institutions around the globe are responding to strategic demands for IoC which prepare students as ‘world-ready’ graduates. We employed qualitative research synthesis to identify recent journal articles which consider current trends in academic development to support IoC. Despite their diversity, we found common themes in the five selected studies. Our discussion and recommendations weave these themes with Betty Leask’s five-stage model of the process of IoC and Cynthia Joseph’s call for a pedagogy of social justice. “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in International Journal for Academic Development on 19/11/15, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2019.1691559

The missing link in internationalisation: developing the skills of lecturers

This article explores the development of skills of lecturers for internationalisation at home. It discusses backgrounds and the current situation, but also suggests ways forward. These suggestions are made mainly on the basis of experiences in The Netherlands, one of the few countries outside the English-speaking world, where a body of literature is emerging that discusses the implementation of internationalisation at home. The insights generated by this research may benefit universities in other countries in continental Europe, where English is not the standard language of instruction. Original Article at: https://www.zfhe.at/index.php/zfhe/article/view/109

Leading internationalisation in higher education: people and policies : portraits and papers presented to Susana Menéndez on the occasion of her farewell as a member of the Executive Board of The Hague University of Applied Sciences

On 13 June 2018, Susana Menéndez said farewell as member of the Executive Board of The Hague University of Applied Sciences. To mark that occasion, a symposium was held on leadership in the internationalization of higher education, of which Susana has been a champion over the past ten years

Integrating internationalised learning outcomes

Integrating internationalisation in learning outcomes and assessment has long been known to be a key issue in higher education. However, getting buy-in from academics and incorporating learning outcomes into a programme’s larger internationalisation goals can present a challenge. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josbeelen

Towards the new exclusive in internationalisation: perspective from the Netherlands

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) is considered an inclusive form of internationalisation because it would be accessible to all students. The authors challenge this assumption by exploring three exclusion mechanisms and make a plea for research into inclusion mechanisms that make COIL truly collaborative