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ACA’s 20th Anniversary Conference: Internationalisation and international mobility. Where do we stand, where are we heading?

The long-awaited ACA 20th Anniversary Conference was held in The Hague on 09-11 June. As usual one step ahead of current developments in international education, ACA invited the most outstanding pundits and practitioners of international mobility and internationalisation in Europe to deliberate on the future of student mobility, policies and higher education. The secret of ACA’s continuing success in shaping higher education policy debates in Europe lies in its ability to ask the right questions and in staying loyal to its constructive esprit critique. Will our graduates become the next intellectuals? Is there any internationalisation without values? What are the drivers of mobility? Who benefits from transnational education and how can we make intercultural education work? How stratified is the world of partnerships and networks?  How should academic cooperation be approached in times of crisis in Europe? These questions and many more dominate the discussions not only in Europe, but around the world. Over 200 people of countries as diverse as Japan and South Africa, New Zealand and Russia, the USA and Kazakhstan, China and Saudi Arabia, attended ACA’s conference and seemed to be equally preoccupied with these issues.   The 20th anniversary conference was certainly a joyful cause for celebration for ACA, its member organisations and friends. It was also a lot of hard work, especially with the new analytical frameworks being set for mobility windows and the new technology-driven educational trends being grasped.  Analyses of these topical issues will be continued in the coming months at ACA’s popular European Policy Seminars. Stay tuned.