Internationalization of Higher Education: Global Trends and Japan's Challenges

Abstract

This paper discusses the meaning of the internationalization of higher education in Japan, based on a review of global trends in this area. Globalization has brought major changes to higher education, and in order to deal with them, the Japanese government has promoted internationalization as an important policy for higher education reform with a series of competitive funding programs. Universities in Japan, too, have made efforts to internationalize themselves. Despite the government's policy initiatives, the internationalization of Japanese higher education has not been understood as a high-priority issue at the institutional level, with many examples of superfi cial or partial add-ons of the international aspect, and has even been criticized as unable to contribute to transformative change at universities. Internationalization tends to be used as a means to prevail in the domestic competition between universities (inward-facing internationalization) and does not necessarily result in initiatives which lead to the improvement of learning in a globalized environment. All in all, the government's competitive funding projects for internationalization have indeed intensifi ed domestic competition among universities. However, it is not certain that the funds have increased the international competitiveness and compatibility of Japanese higher education as a whole.

Evolutions in knowledge production policy and practice in Japan: a case study of an interdisciplinary research institute for disaster science

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Modern State in Higher Education Internationalization at Global and Local Levels (by the Example of SSU, SNAU, SSPU. Ukraine)

“…Trying to connect the notions of two mentioned above scientists Japanese researcher O. Hiroshi (2018) explains internationalization as a multifaceted and multidimensional process integrating international, intercultural, and global content and dimensions into the functions and aims of higher education institutions and systems. We agree with such combined interpretation of the notion but would like to add modern vision of another scholar, who sees internationalization as active engagement with the design of policies, plans, programs, strategies and approaches at various levels of decision-making so as to promote the idea of internationality in higher education (Crăciun, 2018).…”

Progress towards a World-Class Research University status: The case of Nanjing Agricultural University

“…Internationalization is a way of developing world-class universities, whereby multifaceted and multidimensional processes of integrating international, intercultural, and global content and dimensions into higher education research are encouraged (Ota, 2018;Schulte, 2019). International collaboration allows scientists and researchers from different countries to work together with leading experts elsewhere for the production of higher quality research (Veugelers, 2017).…”