A changing world: the internationalisation experiences of staff and students (home and international) in UK higher education
November, 2008
Much has been written about the internationalisation of higher education (e.g. Knight, 2008; Caruana & Spurling, 2007), and international student numbers have increased greatly in the UK with the Prime Minister's Initiative (PMI, 1999 & PMI 2, 2006) being one of the main driving forces for recruitment (Trahar, 2007). This project was instigated because a need was felt by the Subject Centre Network and the Higher Education Academy to hear from the ground, how staff and students viewed internationalisation and to explore how an internationalised curriculum might look from the perspective of different disciplines. Fifteen focus groups were run with staff and with students, both home and international, to listen to their views on what internationalisation meant to them, how it had influenced teaching and learning, and what challenges and successes they had experienced. Participants came from a range of disciplines and from across the UK.
