From 2016 to 2020 the British Council considered how national policies and regulatory frameworks can create an environment conducive to international collaboration and engagement in higher education.

During that time we benchmarked close to 3,000 pieces of HE policy and legislation across 57 countries and territories. The Shape of Global Higher Education series was developed to serve policy makers and professionals working in international HE. 

For policy makers the study identifies three areas where national governments can provide an enabling environment to their HE institutions to internationalise and forge collaborations:

  • Openness: government-level commitment to internationalisation; environment enabling international mobility of students, researchers, academic programmes and university research;
  • Quality assurance and recognition: A regulatory environment to facilitate the international mobility of students, education providers and academic programmes.
  • Access and sustainability: Promoting student/academic mobility and international research collaboration; consideration of possible unintended consequences of internationalisation. 

For those wanting to consider the measures from the perspective of a higher education institution, we grouped them into the following areas:

  • student mobility; 
  • research and researcher mobility; 
  • programme and provider mobility, ie transnational education (TNE).

The reports focus on different countries and also consider more generally applicable observations including:

  • Countries with supportive policies attract more students. 
  • Countries which attract more international students are more wealthy.
  • Countries that attract more international students, engage more in high quality international research.
  • Countries with policies to support international research produce research which has more impact.
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