Stefan Schwan

Master of Business Administration

Viadrina University Frankfurt (Oder)

September 2004

Internationalisation of

German Higher Education

A Case Study on the

Opportunities and Threats

of Internationalisation Processes

at the University of Bielefeld

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Content

Introduction 3

1. Context 6

1.1 Definition of internationalisation 6

1.2 The Development of the Idea of Internationalisation in Higher Education 7

2. The Stakeholders 10

3. Global Trends 14

4. The Framework 17

4.1 Government Policies on Internationalisation 17

4.2 EU integration and harmonisation 22

5. The Competition 26

5.1 Players on the higher education market in Germany 26

5.2 A short look at the world market for higher education 29

6. The Actor 32

6.1 Institutional profile and local environment of the University of Bielefeld 32

6.2 Shaping strategy at the UoB 36

7. Organisational and Support Structures 37

7.1 Organisation and structures 37

7.2 Planning and evaluation 43

7.3 Financial support and resource allocation 45

7.4 Support services and facilities 47

8. Academic Programmes, Students and Research 56

8.1 Internationalisation of the curriculum and international research institutions 56

8.2 Domestic students 64

8.3 Foreign students 66

8.4 Research and scholarly collaboration 75

9. Conclusions and Recommendations summarized 81

Acronyms 87

Annex A: Tables 88

Annex B: Figures 100

Bibliography 105

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Introduction

Over the past ten years the number of foreign students studying at German universities

has almost doubled. The short period of time between winter semester 2001/2002 and

winter semester 2002/2003 showed again an increase of more than 10 % on average.

Looking at the growth of the group of the

Bildungsausländer

1 only (excluding foreign

students having a German school diploma) the growth would have been even 14 % for the

year 2002 (DAAD 2004b:8).

Yet the quantitative figures don′t tell much about the objectives, purposes and

underlying strategies of internationalisation in German higher education, neither do they

give any insight into the international developments that influence those strategies. There

are only a few German universities that started to internationalize early and have an

explicit international orientation and managed to attract large numbers of foreign students,

researchers and international projects. Among them are a lot of smaller, often private

universities (St Augustin 54%, Bruchsal 54 %, Germersheim 44 %) but also some

renowned ones like the European University Viadrina (42%, all figures for 2000) and most

of the technical universities (Munich, Berlin, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Aachen), which still

have a count between 17 and 20% foreign students. (DAAD 2004b) These are brushing up

the average figures in a way. Excluding the

Bildungsausländer

the vast majority of

German universities is rather in the range below the average 8,4 % of foreign students

(

Bildungsinländer

excluded, DAAD 2004b) or just at the average.

This study does not focus on the "powerhouses" of internationalisation ­ as some other

studies do ­ but rather at the possibilities of an "average" university with up to now rather

average numbers of foreign students and an average degree of overall internationalisation.

The University of Bielefeld (in the following abbreviated as UoB) is taken as one example,

of how internationalisation can be implemented, what the key processes of

1 The term ,,

Bildungsausländer

" is in German used for those students, that have a foreign citizenship and

were not trained within the German education system. This term is distinguished from the

"

Bildungsinländer

", foreign students, that were educated within the German education system. Due to the

German immigration laws (the so called "ius sanguinis") the number of the

Bildungsinländer

is considerably

high.

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internationalisation are and which steps should be taken to foster internationalisation in the

future.

The first part of this study is having a look at what internationalisation of universities is

and how the idea has developed historically. It also describes, which general changes the

internationalisation debate has undergone within the last years and which developments in

internationalising universities have taken place.

The paper then in the second part describes the main stakeholders and their role in the

internationalisation of higher education. The different interests of those stakeholders,

influencing the internationalisation process, will be analysed.

In part three and four the key drivers of internationalisation for universities in general

and German institutions of higher education in particular are identified. Therefore this

paper outlines first the general global trends in higher education in part three and than

focuses on specific German and European developments in part four. Special attention will

be drawn on the legal changes in the German system of higher education and the EU-

harmonisation process. In Chapter five the competitive forces like new market entrants

and substitutes will be looked at. To reduce complexity of the study this part is

emphasising the German situation and just slightly touching up on the international

situation. A complete analysis should take the international situation into account.

The sixth part will describe the specific motivation for internationalisation at the UoB and

sketch the environmental situation of the university like the history of the institution,

geographical aspects, its profile etc. It then focuses on strategy formulated so far. Parts

seven and eight examine the internationalisation efforts on the side of resource allocation

(Chapter 7) and international programmes (chapter 8). Both parts will have a close look at

certain areas of internationalisation of the UoB, on how internationalisation is implemented

in the field of support structures, academic (exchange-) programmes and international

exchange and cooperation in research. It describes the present situation, the weaknesses

and strengths of these areas of internationalisation and how the university could develop

from these prerequisites. The analysis of implementation of internationalisation on human

resource level, thus how staff and administration is involved in the internationalisation

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process and which measures are taken to involve staff into the internationalisation process

had to be left aside due to lack of data, but would have been desirable.

The last chapter tries to summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the

internationalisation process at the UoB and to derive recommendations for a coherent

future strategy of internationalisation. This part is opening perspectives for chances, but

also tries to focus on the dangers for the UoB. Therefore in the preceding parts the

internationalisation efforts and its effects will be analysed and compared to developments

at other universities focussing especially on other universities in North Rhine Westphalia

(NRW), but also worldwide.

Due to considerable different legislation in the German

Länder

and also worldwide

concerning tuition fees, general financing, marketing etc., which build up the framework of

internationalisation, the limitation to North Rhine Westphalian universities is justified ­

although where suitable, the general German and even international context will be taken

into account. A detailed extension to the international situation is just randomly achieved,

but a structured analysis of the international context taking more than general

developments into account would have exceeded the limits of this study. Due to the

authors strong personal commitment to the topic, range of the study has quantitatively

gone far beyond planned scope anyhow, which gave more reason to limit the study to the

situation in NRW. Further more access to financial data has been very limited, thus

recommendations on this have to be taken with care. Finally, for some information the

sources are undisclosed, while they base on interviews and internal university data.

Nevertheless this is indicated e.g. by referring to them as internal data.

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1. Context

1.1 Definition of internationalisation

There is no common definition of internationalisation. Maybe due to the inflationary use

of different terms referring to the emerging "world society" during the past 10 years, the

most frequent confusion is caused by the distinction between globalisation and

internationalisation. KNIGHT and DE WIT (OECD/IMHE 1999:14) differentiate between

globalisation and internationalisation with internationalisation being one of the responses

to the impact of globalisation. This still being rather a definition of what internationalisation

is not, KNIGHT specified more precisely that very general notion. She is stressing its

impact on "the national, sector, and institutional levels" and emphasising the ongoing

nature of internationalisation "as the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or

global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of postsecondary education"

(KNIGHT 2003)2. This definition, being a modified version of an earlier one dating back to

the year 1997 (KNIGHT 1997:8), was broadly used by many authors and even by most

international organizations working in the field of education like the International

Association of Universities (IAU), the OECD and the UNESCO. While Globalisation is a

result of market forces and technology, internationalisation is ­ in its best interpretation ­ a

pro-active strategy to deal with globalisation.

Internationalisation of higher education can be looked at from different perspectives,

politically, economically, culturally and, of course, from an educational point of view. These

viewpoints are not always congruent, often even conflicting. Further more

internationalisation of higher education can be interpreted on different levels, the macro

level, national and supra national, the meso level, the university and the micro level, the

international classroom. (cf. TEEKENS 2000) On the different levels the impact of

internationalisation might appear differently. In this study all these levels will be looked at,

but the main focus will be on the meso level, thus the university itself.

2 Internet sources are only quoted with page numbers, if available in a portable document format.

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1.2 The Development of the Idea of Internationalisation in Higher Education

Undoubtedly science has been "international" since it′s early beginnings as the first

European universities have been in a true sense international ­ or at least "European" ­

since their early years. Hence there are some authors that take a contradictory stance on

this and see internationalisation of higher education (HE) as a rather unique, new

phenomenon, emphasising, that "At no time since the Middle Ages [...] higher education

[has] been more international in nature" (cf. ALTBACH 2001:5). But as an example, today′s

discussions about a common language of science and its "Anglo-Americanisation" should

remind us, that sciences were always using "international" languages, at times absolutely

unequivocal common ones like Latin. ALTBACH (1999b:16) argues, that in the same extend

Latin was replaced by national languages, universities got less international in their

student bodies and orientation. The reciprocal conclusion could be true too: The more one

language in science is used, the more international higher education gets.

The German system of higher education is deeply rooted in the 19th century. It is based

on the Humboldt ideal of an independent research institution. With the ascent of the

German language in the 19th century one doesn′t have to search for long to find many

indicators for internationalisation of science ­ and of German science in particular ­ in that

period. At the end of the 19th century more than 50% of all quotations in US-periodicals

were in German (AMMON 1999:46), still in the 20ies of the 20th century more than 50% of

the quoted literature in publications of chemistry was referring to German, another 10% to

French and about 15% to English. (AMMON in: HOBERG 2002:140). The renewed "De-

internationalisation" of higher education and science was thus rather an effect of world war

II and the reciprocal boycott of British, French and German science during the war

followed by the disregard of "eastern" respectively "western" science in the cold war

period. Nevertheless the German academic exchange service DAAD was re-founded just

a few years after the war in 1950 and almost all German universities have had since the

late 50ies, beginning of the 60ies an International Office (

Akademisches Auslandsamt,

AAA

). Latest since the end 60ies internationalisation took a new upswing. Thus, what′s

new about internationalisation?

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The interpretation of the term "internationalisation" KNIGHT refers to is indeed a fairly

new one, altering the aim of internationalisation from a rather implicit objective of

universities and science to an explicit, strategy-bound goal. Internationalisation is no

longer a purpose of science in itself, that is referring to the universality of "university", but it

is following economical and political guidelines with institutions of HE as suppliers of a

certain good.

ENDERS characterises the present role of institutions of higher education as "multi-

purpose or multiproduct institutions" (2002:2) that have certain functions in society. They

"contribute to the generation and transmission of ideology, the selection and formation of

elites, the social development and educational upgrading of societies, the production and

application of knowledge and the training of the highly skilled labour force" (ENDERS

2002:2). Merely all these functions depend on the one base function already included

above: The production and distribution of knowledge.

Although knowledge is the underlying principle, traditionally this good ("knowledge") was

rather neglected by society and the prime focus was on the other, secondary functions. As

Peter DRUCKER (1994) points out, knowledge and people dealing with knowledge ­ in a

broader sense ­ have just getting important in society in the course of the 20th century,

and in a very fast move. "Knowledge workers, even though only a large minority of the

work force, already give the emerging knowledge society its character, its leadership, its

central challenges and its social profile. They may not be the ruling class of the knowledge

society, but they already are its leading class." (DRUCKER 1994) In our context, the

conclusion DRUCKER derives from the emergence of the knowledge worker is of even

greater importance. He states, that "In the first place, the knowledge worker gains access

to work, job and social position through formal education." (1994) Thus if it comes to

knowledge the world society obviously has undergone changes in the last century, that

directly affect universities as one of the most important providers of formal, postsecondary

education and knowledge.

ALTBACH (1999:15) summarizes the task of modern universities in the knowledge

society as being "the most important institution in the complex process of knowledge

creation and distribution, serving as home not only to most of the basic sciences but also

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to the complex system of journals, books, and databases that communicate knowledge

worldwide." Additionally the emerging importance of knowledge and herewith that of

universities is directly affected by several other changes, technical and political.

With the end of the cold war and the political changes of the end 80ies, beginning 90ies

the exchange of knowledge has increased rapidly. As pointed out earlier, before 1990 the

transfer of knowledge was limited mainly due to the political constellations. One important

effect of the political changes in eastern Europe first of all was, that education markets in

eastern Europe were starting to grow fast. The political upheaval was closely followed by

economical changes, usually subsumed under the term "globalisation". Besides, the speed

of exchanging knowledge has increased significantly, mainly due to new, faster means of

communication and knowledge exchange. This revolutionary process was mainly

generated with the growing importance of the internet and the quick spread of knowledge

through electronic data transfer. One example that illustrates the impact of the internet on

science are scientific journals, that have centupled every few years from just 7 in 1991 to

more than 6000 in 2002.3 Peter DRUCKER thus anticipates in his speech at Harvard

University about the knowledge society, what has been getting real just a few years later:

"education will become the centre of the knowledge society and schooling its key

institution." (DRUCKER 1994).

3 Press release of the "International Conference on Scientific Electronic Publishing in Developing Countries"

2002. http://eventos.bvsalud.org/icsep/icsep/release001.htm (12.09.2004). The given figures might be even

a very conservative estimate. Since the turn of the millennium one can observe a real boost in online

publishing and professionalisation, and although just a small portion of all scientific journals is published

exclusively online, availability and speed of dissemination of scientific articles is increasing rapidly.

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2. The Stakeholders

Different stakeholders in the "production" of knowledge in higher education can be

identified. Each stakeholder has its interest, costs and benefits in the internationalisation of

the production of knowledge. Following, these interests will be characterised.

Governments are still in most countries of the world bearing the major financial risk of

institutions of higher education. On the other hand economies as a whole might benefit

from the "brain gain" through international students and researchers. Long lasting

relationships between host and home country might have additional positive economic

effects. A study undertaken in Britain in 1995 estimated, "that international students tuition

fees and associated expenditure [...] generated an excess of 1 billion £ a year in invisible

exports" (ELLIOT 1998:41) Focusing on the impact internationalisation has on governmental

decisions and society as a whole, David THROSBY remarks: "The resources committed by

sending countries to supporting their students in travelling abroad, and by host countries in

providing tuition and other services for incoming students, all have opportunity costs to the

respective national economies." (1999:26). How Government policy influences the

internationalisation strategy of the UoB will be discussed in detail in chapter four.

The interests of the institution itself (represented e.g. by the rectorate) as the second

important stakeholder, might differ substantially from the government′s interests.

Financially foreign students are an asset intellectually and a profitable source of income by

charging tuition fees or gaining extra funds from the government or third-party institutions.

Macroeconomic advantages as anticipated by governments are fairly unimportant to the

individual institution. Much more important for them are funds, reputation, brain gain etc.

One additional positive side effect usually not taken into account is, that foreigners

stabilise variations in students intake and thus could lead to an efficient use of

infrastructure and personnel. A steady number of students offers much more planning

perspectives for the institution than variable numbers. (OECD 2004a: 294) German

Universities however faced a rapid growth in foreign students in the last years usually

without using them as a corrective for total students numbers. One of the reasons might

be, that "Such processes presuppose some clear statement of institutional mission or

objectives; decisions may then be evaluated in terms of their contribution to such

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