Who does the Future of TNE depend on?

In this latest episode of the Think Education podcast, Chris talks to Judith about her recent attendance at the UUKi Transnational Education Conference 2025, held in Senate House, London.

https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/latest/events/transnational-education-conference-2025

Judith reflected on the sessions she attended, and the information shared and discussed throughout the two-day event and the people she heard present and lead discussion - Janet Ilieva, David Pilsbury, Eduardo Ramos.  Some of the key takeaways were the need to be prepared and try to think of key issues in advance, such that you can communicate your findings and realities to different audiences.

• How do different types of university networks support engagement and activity?
• Competitive space appears to shifting to a collaborative one. People were sharing their reflections about a bold new world and there was an element of hope and forward thinking that Judith found very powerful.
• Never underestimate the value of a good discussion about taxes.

We discussed the key findings of two recent reports – presented at the conference – namely JISC’s 2024/25 UK Higher Education students digital experience insights survey: https://repository.jisc.ac.uk/10242/1/DEI-2025-student-he-report.pdf and the UUKi’s Scale of TNE Report 2023-24 https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/topics/international/scale-uk-higher-education-transnational-0

We went on to debate the Future of TNE and how we are currently thinking about realities and motivations.  It would appear that the dependency model of old has shifted.  What used to be a process based largely on the ‘need’ of the receiving nation has become a process driven by the ‘need’ of the sending nations as they seek to use TNE to address shortfalls in recruitment at home.

We talked about the development of the TNE hub model and I even got to roll out a phrase I used when presenting at a GED conference years ago: Here a hub, there a hub, everywhere a hub hub, as we discussed the need to update our understanding of what a hub is, what it means, and even, where it is.

What is the mission of a university and how do we view engagement and collaboration?  We talked about soft power rather than pure financials.

 

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#JISC #UUKi #TNE #internationalisation #collaboration #futureofTNE #highereducation #dependency #universitymission #communication