Internationalization of higher education will be impacted by the new cold war, climate, China, communications, and cooperation: Philip Altbach, Boston College

Higher Education Leaders Conclave was held on-site on Wednesday to wrap off the three-day World Universities Summit, which was organized by the International Institute for Higher Education Research and Capacity Building at O.P. Jindal Global University.

Participating in the Conclave were more than a hundred university leaders, including vice chancellors, deans, and department heads from different universities in Delhi NCR, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.

The keynote speaker was Professor Philip Altbach, who founded the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the United States.

Speaking about the crisis of internationalization and the six Cs, he discussed how the Russian invasion of Ukraine has created a new Cold War, how Covid is impeding mobility, how climate change is affecting higher education internationally, how China is becoming a hub for higher education in the region, and how new forms of collaboration and communication—particularly in the areas of IT and AI—will impact internationalization in higher education going forward.

He emphasized the necessity for India to consider how its higher education institutions would operate in the country’s evolving geopolitical and socioeconomic environment.

In order to improve access to internationalization for all students and lessen the effect of actual overseas travel on climate change, he emphasized the significance of “internationalization at home” via the internationalization of the curriculum.

According to Altbach, scientific cooperation is crucial, and India has a lot of promise in this area. There are around 20 western institutions in the nation with research offices and joint ventures. That is, in my opinion, very beneficial for Indian universities and should be promoted.

“Don’t think about branch campuses, but research collaborations with countries like Africa, the Middle East, and so on where India has soft-power interest,” he said in his advice.

During the conclave, Prof. C. Raj Kumar, the founding vice-chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University, welcomed the attendees and gave a virtual summary of the first two days of the 4th World Universities Summit, which included 25 themed sessions and more than 225 education leaders from 20 countries and six continents.

He spoke about the summit’s organization and the modest beginnings of O.P. Jindal Global University fifteen years ago, all the while considering his own career trajectory during the same period.

In his inaugural address, Prof. Shailendra R. Mehta, President and Distinguished Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at MICA Institute, Ahmedabad, discussed his ten years of research on the beginnings and growth of universities in India between 600 BC and 1200 AD, as well as how they were transmitted to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe (via Jerusalem) and how they impacted the founding of universities in Europe, such as Oxford and Paris.

Later this year, Mehta will become a Distinguished University Professor at O.P. Jindal Global University, where he will work on turning his research results into a book.

At the Conclave, Prof. N.V. Varghese, a former vice-chancellor of the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), in New Delhi, also gave a special speech.

Varghese emphasized in his address the difficulties associated with “diversified objectives of higher education with massification of higher education” and the growing significance of “labelling and credentialing” in light of the expansion of the commercial sector in higher education.

“Market-friendly reforms are very important, but markets are often not people-friendly,” he said. Therefore, the issue for the future lies in how to create markets in the sphere of higher education people-friendly.

A roundtable conversation brought the gathering to a close.

In this conversation with Prof. Philip Altbach, a number of vice chancellors, academics, and students in attendance considered the overarching topic of the 4th World Universities Summit, “Universities of the Future: A Global Partnership for Social Justice and Sustainable Development.”