Higher Education Institutions are supposed to be the engines of socio-economic change and development and also nurseries for new ideas, innovations and practices for the welfare of the society. Global collaborations in this context can provide further fillip to the efforts, capabilities and achievements of universities in all countries, so that achieving sustainable development goals becomes a reality in all countries. Global collaborations, therefore, may focus on helping the universities work for meeting their local challenges and achieving their national goals of inclusiveness and sustainability.

1. Global collaborations in higher education for achieving
Sustainable Development Goals
Professor Nigel Healey
Vice President Global and Community Engagement
GLOBAL EDUCATION SUMMIT 2023
9 October 2023

2. Overview
• The Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs)
• Why (most) western universities
are failing to address the SDGs
• The special role of global
collaborations (partnerships) in
achieving SDGs

3. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals

4. Addiction to
international student
recruitment (1)
‘This strategy is about meeting
these challenges. At its heart is
an ambition to increase the
value of our education exports
to £35 billion per year, and to
students hosted in the UK to
600,000 per year, both by
2030.’

5. Addiction to international student recruitment (2)
% international enrolments
% market share of
global market
2010 2014 2019 2019
Australia 21% 18% 28% 8%
Canada n/a 10% 16% 5%
Ireland n/a 7% 11% 0%
New Zealand 14% 19% 21% 1%
United Kingdom 16% 18% 19% 8%
United States 3% 4% 5% 16%
Source: Education at a glance 2023 (OECD); enrolments in
2020 and 2021 affected by Covid pandemic

6. Addiction to international student recruitment (3)
WUR Institution
% international
enrolments
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 32.8%
2 University of Cambridge 37.7%
3 Stanford University 22.8%
4 University of Oxford 41.1%
5 Harvard University 24.6%
6= California Institute of Technology 30.5%
6= Imperial College London 61.1%
8 University College London 60.9%
9 ETH Zurich 40.3%
10 University of Chicago 27.2%
Source: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2023

7. Carbon footprint of international student recruitment
Source:
Accelerating
the
UK
Tertiary
Education
Sector
towards
Net
Zero

8. International
student
recruitment
and brain
drain
• Drain on foreign exchange
• Inflated cost of educating wealthy elites:
“In which moral universe can
you…charge [African students] three
times the fees that you would charge
middle-class students in the UK?”
• Brain drain – exacerbated by the use of
post-study immigration regimes as a tool
of national competitive advantage
• Brain drain is worse the more highly
skilled the graduates: eg, 68%
international students on US doctoral
programmes still working in US five
years after graduation

9. International
student
recruitment and
neo-colonialism
“UK universities treat Africa’s youth
explosion as just another resource to be
exploited”
Recruiting students from the Global
South perpetuates structural inequality,
reinforcing the dominance of Northern
higher education
Accreditation bodies and World University
Rankings force institutional isomorphism
in the South on Northern models and
values

10. Global collaborations at the University
of Limerick for achieving Sustainable
Development Goals

11. Global citizenship
• Global citizenship: ‘someone who is aware of and
understands the wider world – and their place in it. They are
a citizen of the world. They take an active role in their
community and work with others to make our planet more
peaceful, sustainable and fairer’ (Oxfam)
• Building global citizenship requires:
• Proactively nurturing “integration” between domestic
and international students through curricular and extra-
curricular activities
• UL Global Lounge – a home for intercultural exchange
• Strong investment in the promotion of equity, diversity
and inclusion (EDI)
• Ensuring all domestic students study second/third
languages
• Promoting outbound mobility
• Ensuring the carbon footprint of physical mobility has
the highest return in terms of intercultural learning and
“ontological shock”

12. Transnational education
“All types of higher education study
programmes, sets of study courses, or
educational services (including those of
distance education) in which the learners
are located in a country different from the
one where the awarding institution is
based” (Council of Europe, 2002)
Offer blended learning UL degrees in
partnership with educational partners in
the Global South, to build capacity in new
disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields

13. Dual degrees and co-tutelle PhDs
Design and co-deliver
dual degrees to develop
deep international
teaching partnerships,
which build trust and
future research
partnerships
01
Use Erasmus+ to build
joint teaching
programmes with Global
South
02
Seek opportunities for
co-tutelle, sharing
supervisory experience
and hosting in-country
field work to promote
deep and lasting
research collaboration
03

15. Go raibh maith agat
(Gur ruh mah a-gut)
For more details:
• nigel.healey@ul.ie
For more information and research on
international higher education:
• https://limerick.academia.edu/NigelHealey