Articulating transboundary education: Growing IJCE to cultivate innovation frontiers

Pandemic-related changes have revealed the transboundary nature of education. Education institutions have long sought to influence everything in the universe, from nanoparticles, to socioeconomic affairs, to far-away galaxies. In recent years it has become clear how much the rest of the world also shapes education. This carries huge consequences for how we understand, design and deliver education. Matters external to the ‘education sector’ become preconditions and determinants rather than mere recipients or derivatives. This means that social issues define education and research ventures, a much broader array of stakeholders participate in education and academic work, and the appraisal of education value draws from beyond an elite group of peers. Education is not valued all or only by money or credentialling, but by the value it generates for different people and communities. Such a shift to transboundary education (TBE) carries huge implications for the substance of education, and for how people move around the world to teach, learn and do research. Simply put, as Nicol and Bice convey in their recent IJCE article, TBE means moving beyond all different kinds of prevailing boundaries. It goes beyond existing academic partnerships. TBE invokes rosscrossing pathways, new accessibilities, industries, modalities, partnerships, communities and standards. It makes the task of education and other academic work much more complicated yet also inspiring, giving fresh impetus and placing new demands on research and analysis. Internationally, TBE bursts beyond all kinds of boundaries well worn by established forms of transnational education (TNE). TNE, in its broadest sense or instantiation, involves the provision of education to students in or from another country. While TNE has many and varied permutations, it typically involves one or more kinds of borderor passport-crossing/hopping. TBE can involve such venturing, but also engagements beyond the education sector, expanded topics, new sources of value and funding, and ramped-up demands for greater social returns from education.