Where we succeeded and where we failed miserably in the internationalisation of higher education

Internationalisation has become a buzzword since the late 1980s, notably since the introduction of the European Erasmus programme in 1987 and the Bologna process which highly influenced higher education systems throughout the world. There have been positive and negative developments and some requests for the future that we would like to outline in this opinion piece. On the positive side, many things could be mentioned but in this piece we concentrate on the major trends that Hans de Wit , Betty Leask, Elspeth Jones and me outlined in the University News articles and the DAAD report for IHES in 2019-2020: from individual activities (late 80s) to systematic institutionalized comprehensive internationalisation; from individual “nice-to-have” mobility experience to educating global citizens; the convergence of the concepts of internationalisation at home (IaH) and internationalisation of the curriculum (IoC); from living on myths to fact-based accountability; and last but not least from Anglo-western and European-centred internationalisation to a truly global approach and regional self-confidence. In the article we compare the relevance of these positive developments for Europe and Latin America, where positive effects seem to be closely linked to the establishment and implementation of nation-wide higher education policies and accreditations processes which refer to Internationalisation. In the countries where such initiatives have been put in place, we are able to find positive examples of this process, which will be further outlined.