Project information
Project name
Inclusive or selective internationalization? Gender and diversity aspects of internationalization policy at Swedish universities
Project manager
Charlotte Silander
Timetable
1 Jan 2023–
Subject
Physics (Department of Education and Teachers' Practice, Faculty of Social Sciences)
More about the project
Together with excellence, internationalization has become a policy keyword for universities across the globe. Striving for excellence through internationalization and recruitment of international researchers is strongly emphasized in European and Swedish higher education policy, and today, various Swedish higher education institutions have established internationalization policies and international recruitment policies to attract international talent from abroad.
Although international research cooperation and mobility today are regarded as essential in universities’ pursuit of excellence and for the development of individuals’ academic careers, we know little about how policy relates to aspects of gender and diversity. In the same way as excellence often is assumed to be gender-neutral and unaffected by context, research on internationalization has often been normative and uncritical, where internationalization is viewed as something natural and always desired. This often-assumed neutrality stands in contrast to the vast amount of research showing that for some groups, mobility opportunities are highly restricted.
This project investigate how aspects of gender and diversity is accounted for in internationalization policy in Swedish higher education. By investigating policy of Swedish universities, we seek to understand How internationalization of research is conceptualized by Swedish universities and how policy of internationalization is related to gender and diversity?
The project is part of the research in the Linnaeus University Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies research group and the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment Education in change.