How can universities work with sustainable internationalisation?
KI's internationalisation work was presented at the Internationalisation Days in Gothenburg November 5-6.
Karin Röding, Director General of the UHR, opened this year's conference on the theme of sustainable internationalisation and was followed by Pam Friedman from the International Association of Universities, IAU, who talked about the university's global and social responsibility.
Internationalisation vs sustainability
This year's theme can be seen as a dilemma, which was discussed in a panel discussion. where great focus was placed on the climate aspect. Internationalisation at home (IaH) and digitalisation were highlighted as important sustainable alternatives to physical mobility.
This year's "Erasmus+ aktör"
Uppsala University received the award "Årets Erasmus+ aktör" as they doubled the numbers of outgoing students in the Erasmus program. To encourage sustainability, Uppsala university has introduced an extra scholarship for those who choose to travel by train to their European exchange destination. It is an initiative that has inspired several other universities to follow, including KI.
Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC) at KI
From KI, Jennifer Valcke and her team presented how they implemented the STINT-funded project Internationalisation of the Curriculum (IoC). A great success in the work has been that the participants in the project group come from different units within the university and have thus been able to contribute with different skills and networks to reach out widely within the unviersity. Karin Båge, Jennifer Valcke, Unit for Teaching and Learning (UoL), Karen Gustafsson, Support for Programs and Education Committees (SPUN) and Emma Hägg from the International Relations Office presented the extensive work that among other things has resulted in instructions and tools to implement internationalisation. The project will end in June 2020 and then more material and results will be made available. There was great interest among the other educational institutions and the two workshops held by KI were well attended.
Other topics on the agenda of the conference were virtual exchanges and teaching in the global classroom.
The Internationalisation Days were arranged by the Swedish Council for Higher Education (UHR) in Gothenburg together with the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers. The conference attracted 300 participants from Sweden's universities and colleges, which is the largest number ever for this conference. Next year’s Internationalisation Days will be held at KTH in Stockholm.