25.01.2017 - 19:18

Research Forum Lecture by Maggi Leung

Internationalization of Higher Education and Research as a Development Strategy in China: Opportunities and Risks.  |  January 25, 16–18 h  |  Venue: SG 183, Geibelstraße 41, Campus Duisburg

The higher education and research field in China, like in many other places, have undergone tremendous internationalization in the two decades. For a long time, China has been the source of the highest number of students who study abroad. It has also recently become one of the most popular destinations for international students. Academic staff and researchers have also become more mobile traversing in and out of China in the past decades. Student and staff mobility is only one facet of the internationalizing higher education field. Academic programmes, in the form of transnational education, are also increasingly mobile, through which academic credential can be acquired by students ‘at home’ (in China in this case) through an international (and ostensibly mobile) institutional provider. In the Chinese national discourse, education/academic mobility and transnational education are framed as a development strategy in the globalized knowledge economy.

Drawing on a series of qualitative research projects conducted the past ten years, this seminar maps out the key trends in the increasingly internationalizing education and research field in China. Framed with the ‘politics of mobility’ concept, it illustrates how mobility is a privilege for some but also burden to the others, and that the impact of mobility is unevenly distributed. As such, the presentation highlights the opportunities and risks of this development strategy.

Maggi Leung is Associate Professor for Human Geography and Planning – Social Urban Transitions at Utrecht University.