Universities have a major role in building knowledge economies, as well as civil society. Governments across the world are increasingly placing huge demands on them, usually without commensurate funding. Until relatively recently, universities’ international activities have comprised of building international research links and, for many UK universities, recruiting international students.
As many more players, both public and private, enter the global market place, universities are being forced to examine what ‘going global’ means for them. What are the challenges in moving from an institution with international activity to a global university? Do all global universities have common characteristics or can there be different versions of the global university? Must universities always be top-class research institutions to be global? Or does the global marketplace provide unique opportunities for a diverse range of institutions to be global players? In either case, what are the implications in terms of structure, strategy and funding? Will institutions need to take a more holistic approach to internationalisation, for example, building links between a strong international research portfolio and their attractiveness to students from overseas? How might they do this? And how is all of this to be funded, if public funding continues to decrease? Will one of the implications of ‘going global’ be that universities will also ‘go private’ as they seek financial partners outside the public realm?
