Return to the nation: Contribution to panel on the 'Interface between the national/international in higher education in the context of "Polycrisis"'

This panel will consider contemporary challenges of higher education (HE) from the perspective of the relationship between the process of expansion and the international dimension of HE systems. A historical, multiscalar and pluriversal perspective will be offered to consider this changing relation and the possible emergence of a post-neoliberal global HE landscape beyond the current concerns about de-internationalisation, forced internationalisation, welfare nationalism, and lacking sustainable and inclusive internationalisation.

The historical perspective seeks to situate and understand those higher education issues as part of wider dynamics of transformations and tensions reflecting a long and unresolved process of transition to address a multifaceted crisis of globalization. The multiscalar approach considers internationalisation and its regulation from the perspective of institutions, states, regional actors and global agencies. It explores the relationship between those agendas and their impact on the public mission of HE. The pluriversal perspective challenges dominant conceptualizations of the global HE fields and related discourses and initiatives. It considers national and regional and global rationales for internationalization from contrasting paradigms and ways of meaning making.