Internationalisation in challenging times: practices and rationales of internal and external stakeholders

ABSTRACT This is the introduction to a Special Issue which addresses the rationales for and practices of the internationalisation of higher education and research in Europe and Eurasia. The contributors look at a variety of activities within internationalisation, such as collaborative degree/joint programmes, student and staff mobility, and research collaborations. In particular, the articles examine how and why rationales, or motivations and goals for internationalisation, vary or coincide at different levels, for example at the supranational (e.g. regional), national, institutional, programme and individual level. This Special Issue pays a special attention to the political environment in which the internationalisation takes place, and how the given environment – e.g. formal political institutions, or policies – encourages, enables or prevents the internationalisation of higher education and research. The contributors focus on internal university stakeholders relevant to the internationalisation, relations between different internal stakeholders and/or their interplay with key external stakeholders.