There has been a rapid growth in the number of foreign universities establishing ‘international branch campuses’ around the world, with much of the recent activity taking place in the Gulf. This presentation reports the findings of an interview-based study of the challenges of managing an international branch campus. It discusses the way that, during the start-up phase, managers have to juggle multiple roles until critical mass is achieved. In most cases, the organisational structure exposes them to the difficulties of running a joint-venture, balancing the demands of the home campus and the local partner. In every case, they have to negotiate the conflicting legislative environments of their home and host countries, often working across language and cultural divides. The presentation offers new insights into the brave new world of managing an international branch campus.

1. “Brave new world": the challenges of
managing quality in an international
branch campus
Professor Nigel Healey
Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International)
Nottingham Trent University
5 May 2015

2. Overview
• What is an international branch campus (IBC)?
• How important are IBCs?
• Where do IBCs come from? Where are they located?
• Research study into managing IBCs
• The results:
– The three dimensions of an IBC
– The stakeholders of an IBC
• Conclusions
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3. What is an international branch campus?
• Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE) 2012
definition: an IBC is:
• ‘a higher education institution that is located in another
country from the institution which either originated it or
operates it, with some physical presence in the host country;
• and which awards at least one degree in the host country
that is accredited in the country of the originating institution’
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4. How important are IBCs?
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5. Where do they come from? IBCs by home
region (at March 2014)
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Asia
Europe
La-n
America
Middle-­‐East
North
America
Oceania
Source: C-BERT

6. Where are they located? IBCs by host region
(March 2014)
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Africa
Asia
Europe
La-n
America
Middle-­‐East
North
America
Oceania
Source: C-BERT

7. The challenge of managing quality in an overseas
subsidiary: what and how much to localize?
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8. IBCs are different from foreign subsidiaries of
multinational corporations because…
• Universities are not multinational corporations
– Public or not-for-profit
– Small, nationally-focused organizations - centre of gravity is the home campus
– Run by academics, not global career executives
– Traditional, arcane governance structures
• Higher education is not a competitive, unregulated market
– Higher education is a public good – mostly subsidized, regulated
– Quasi-command economy, not free market
– Information asymmetries – government control over quality assurance
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If I knew the end of the world was tomorrow, I would move to a university
campus …I would live much longer

9. Research study
Research questions:
1. What are the key dimensions of the IBC that managers feel under
pressure to localize?
2. What are the main factors that influence their chosen degree of
localization for each dimension?
3. How do these factors, and so the optimal degree of localization,
change over time?
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10. Sample set
• Nine UK IBCs in United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, China
• 14 senior managers
• 5 experts (for background information)
• Interviews carried out in country, April-September 2014
• 90-120 minutes in length, transcribed and coded
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11. The results: preliminary observations
• IBCs are diverse in scale and organizational form
• IBCs are not ‘branch campuses’ as commonly understood –
they are private companies/universities in which the home
university often has a minority stake
• Some IBCs (not the ones in the study) are just offices
• IBCs are subject to quality assurance and regulation by home
and host government
• Universities often lack administrative expertise to effetively
manage an IBC
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12. Staff: how much to localize?
• Academic staff
– Local staff
– International staff
– Seconded staff
• The trade-off of localizing
staff:
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Academic culture Cost of provision

13. Curriculum: how much to localize?
• Curriculum
– Content
– Pedagogy
– Assessment
– Internal quality assurance
• The trade-off of localizing
curriculum:
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Global equivalence Local relevance

14. Research: how much to localize?
• Research
– Topics studied
• The trade-off of localizing
research:
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International excellence Local impact

15. The University of
Imperialism
The University of
Localization
The University of
Globalization
Possible models of localization

16. What to localize?
Imperialism Localization Globalization
Staff X √ √
Curriculum X √ X
Research X √ √
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17. The results: what stakeholders influence the
degree of localization?
• External stakeholders:
– Host country – government,
regulator, employers
– Competitors
– Students
• Internal stakeholders:
– Joint venture partner
– Home university – senior
management and staff
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18. Perceived attitudes of stakeholders to localization
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19. A framework for IBCs
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20. Conclusions
• IBCs are the highest profile form of transnational education
• IBCs vary hugely, but all expose home university to potential
financial and reputational risk
• Research suggests that to succeed, IBCs must localize their
staff base, curriculum and research
• The degree of localization depends on the objectives and
relative power of the main stakeholders
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21. For more information:
• E-mail: nigel.healey@ntu.ac.uk
• Website: http://nottinghamtrent.academia.edu/NigelHealey
• Website includes conferences presentations, papers and
resources on transnational education
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