Global Perspectives in Higher Education: Professor Sally Wheeler - July 2025

Written by Professor Sally Wheeler, Birkbeck University

1. How has internationalisation shaped your institution's strategic vision over the past five years, and what specific initiatives have proven most successful?

I joined Birkbeck in Jan 2024 from working as DVC International and Corporate at ANU, a very international University by design.

One of the first things to strike me about Birkbeck was the absence of international engagement at an institutional level. There had been some very good discipline based initiatives in the past (eg Law) and there were some good current sub-discipline collaborations (eg Sports Management, parts of History and History of Art). The institution had a good PVC Int who as a Professor of Marketing had got for the Business School a reasonably successful articulation with a Spanish Business School and a Chinese MoE licence for a finance etc degree with Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. However there was little or no internal infrastructure for building and maintaining collaborations and partnerships so he had built connections with various embassies to attract sponsored students.

However leveraging a central London location and an institution that is well connected to national institutions such as the British Museum and with a QS ranking inside the top 500 to do more internationally is an attractive proposition. My plan has been to build on these green shoots by creating an infrastructure internally to both attract collaborations and partnerships at UG, PG and research and support students and academic visitors whilst they are at Birkbeck. We have tried to hedge against geo-political risk by selecting different locations eg US, China, Central Europe and India are of interest to us at the moment and different models:- joint and dual degrees at different levels, articulations, shared modules, top up degrees, validation and franchise arrangements.

2. What do you see as the greatest opportunity for international collaboration in higher education today, and how is your institution positioned to capitalise on it?

Birkbeck is new to the international education setting and so is not burdened by under performing existing arrangements or scarred by past failures. As a small and flexible institution it is open to trying new arrangements and, most importantly, I think collaborating with other UK HEIs. Where others see competitive tensions, Birkbeck sees an opportunity to scale etc. In country delivery of some kind – traditional TNE, franchise or validation – are the best opportunities at the moment. Globally there are far more students able to take advantage of TNE than there are globally mobile students without the added challenge of the anti-immigration rhetoric of populist national governments.

3. In your view, what is the most significant challenge facing international higher education partnerships, and what approaches have you found effective in addressing it?

Constantly changing geo-political risks and regulatory interference make partnerships challenging. Hedging these risks by creating a basket of interests and not expecting them all to do well at the same time is an effective counterbalance. Flexibility and an openness to try new things are also very important.

4. How do you balance the economic incentives of international student recruitment with broader academic and cultural exchange goals in your institution's internationalisation strategy?

Traditional student exchange and student mobility models are not things that are terribly attractive to the Birkbeck student demographic (although short term stays overseas courtesy of Turing money work well). However as an institution we are able to offer a small number of free incoming ‘study abroad’ places to institutions in low HDI countries from where we currently do not attract students eg we have just offered 5 free places to an institution in Senegal. I very much hope that they can take them up. We recognise that students and academics from some countries are not able to pay full fees or bench fees. We soften these accordingly as for our own students an education in an international classroom in London can be life changing. We recognise a responsibility to support the development of Universities in other countries and if this means online remote supervision of academics there to obtain Phds or supporting unfunded research visits we will do that.

5.Looking ahead to the next decade, what emerging trends or shifts in global higher education do you believe will most dramatically reshape the landscape of international partnerships and student mobility?

I think we are already seeing the start of what is going to happen in places like Malaysia and China. They have become affordable hubs for international education. India,  Kazakhstan and maybe Vietnam will do this next. Education quality in some of those places is rising very quickly and it is already excellent in China. Australia, the UK, Canada etc will become the place for an even smaller number of elite students to study based on family and business ties. Domestic universities in many countries are improving quickly as Governments see them as engines of development and prosperity and I think we will start to see them attract academics from all over the world very soon as opportunities contract in the hitherto conventional locations.

6. How important do you believe TNE will be to development of quality higher education globally.

TNE is so important as it keeps students in their home location using their skills and knowledge to build their own and nearby economies as they are invested in them. It also pushes local universities in those jurisdictions to improve if they are to attract high quality home students. It also provides an academic workforce that can drive that improvement.