Internationalisation at present is primarily focused on the Higher Education (HE) staff and students as the target groups and on mobility as the main activity, however, internationalisation at home remains marginal. Higher Education Institutions are increasingly active, but in social engagement these activities are usually viewed as competing for priority and relevance with excellence in research and internationalisation. With many social challenges at hand, internationalisation will be in the need of string instruments to support change which at the same time would be considering social engagement and internationalisation at home. In addition, internationalisation and social engagement usually do not cooperate but compete for resources instead. Internationalisation in Higher Education for Society (IHES) aims to change this and activate the internationalisation potential for social engagement.

This project aims to build activities concerning the real needs of society. IHES wants to test different approaches in two different regions, Catalonia and the Olomouc region, using a quasi-experimental design. It aims to generate knowledge that can be easily transferred from the regions and partners involved in the project. IHES focuses on ensuring that the entire project is based on a multi-level inclusive approach while targeting HE institutions and their networks, social actors and their networks, and regional governments.

This project includes eight partner institutions with Palacký University Olomouc as the main coordinator. Partner institutions are Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Departament D´Empresa i Coneixement and Grupo Santander in Spain,   Academic Cooperation Association and Lifelong Learning Platform in Belgium, and Global Impact Institute s.r.o. and the Olomouc Region in the Czech Republic.

Outputs:

IHES Online Repository 

Mapping Report

More information about the project is available here.