Project Title: Responsible home Internationalization (IaH)
Submitted by: Prof. Olena Kovalchuk, Professor of Foreign and Ukrainian Philology department, Lutsk National Technical University (LNTU)
City: Lutsk
This project was implemented within the Training Course “Management of Internationalisation and German-Ukrainian Academic Cooperation 2020-2021”, led by the Leibniz University Hannover (LUH), funded by the DAAD (Germany), 2020-2021
Project goals:
At LNTU we have become aware of the fact that home internationalization should be implemented in an integrated manner, to create synergies for reaching the overall strategic goals. All activities should support and benefit each other. Therefor implementation can be provided on three levels: institutional, academic, individual. No doubt, vast inclusion to Internationalization project implementation will help to analyze factors affecting the institutional attractiveness and international environment and to reshape the university’s objectives for internationalization.
On institutional level, the project implementation will help to reconsider internationalization strategies and to reshape University strategic goals for further 2020-2025 by including the point of home internationalization that provides global recognition. It enables LNTU to create a multilingual and cross-cultural university campus.
On academic level, the project implementation will help:
- to develop training programs for university faculties to encourage virtual exchanges, improve intercultural communication skills to some degree;
- encourage more staff to benefit from mobility programs and increasing the impact of mobility. Moreover, experiences based on international mobility can contribute to Internationalization at Home;
- to suggest English for all staff (with internationally recognized certification);
- to achieve institutional Internationalization awareness that enables to (re)design curriculum of Intentional taught programs.
On individual level, the project implementation will help:
- to introduce ‘soft skills’ into the mandatory curriculum for all study programs (strongly required by the business environment);
- to launch new students volunteer service – “Buddies” who will support and simplify the incoming students adjustment at University campus.
- elective tracks in English and more credit courses
Deliverables:
University faculty has reconsidered IaH as the tool simplifying the intercultural communication, mutual research collaboration as well as virtual and onsite academic mobility. According to the University Year Report 2020 the number of offline stuff mobility has raise 10 times (we have 93 faculty members who participated in international certification trainings). The Department of Quality Insurance and Life Long Learning has issued 30 certificates of B2 level for faculty language learners.
English speaking club became the spot for Buddies for language improvement and for international students to meet and find answers for the questions while culturally adjusting. Though the number of international students has not risen due to COVID-19 lock down but the international project of multicultural learning “Two countries-two cultures” took place where students of two universities LNTU, Ukraine and Duoc University of Chile made common book of cultural identity of both countries. Next step of international collaboration is mutual curriculum development for two countries have common topics of the same subject
To be globally recognizes University was accepted and assessed in two rankings Multirank and QS. Moreover, reporting at the end of 2020 LNTU won 3 Erasmus+ and 7 other donors projects which ensured university attractiveness.
In respond to European strategy on Multilingualism University has implemented internal Concept Note of bilingual education, which is characterized by Multiculturalism in instructing the students. The document was formed on the students survey “language learning need”. Consequently, 12 elective subjects in English were suggested for students’ option and extracurricular courses were organized.
On institutional level, the project implementation will help to reconsider internationalization strategies and to reshape University strategic goals for further 2020-2025 by including the point of home internationalization that provides global recognition. It enables LNTU to create a multilingual and cross-cultural university campus.
Challenges and Support
What were the main challenges of your project and how did you manage to overcome them?What resources helped you?
The only challenge that we have to overcome was COVID 19 lock down.
Lessons Learnt: What are your lessons learnt and recommendations you would like to share?
- IaH is important to develop language and intercultural skills for an international collaboration.
- IaH is important/not important because research/science is international.
- IaH is important for students who cannot participate in international mobility during their studies.
- IaH is important because University is becoming more diverse and open for incoming mobility (international students and visiting professors).
- IaH is important to develop intercultural skills to reduce prejudices, misconceptions and ethnocentrism.
Impact:
Due to the implementation of the project, University benefits in several ways by:
- offering Language courses for all staff (with internationally recognized certification).
- creating opportunities to communicate and discuss the value and benefits of international/intercultural skills development with all staff and students (value of internationalization for international working life and social cohesion)
- including Internationalization criteria in teachers’ career models, job descriptions and performance evaluations
- redesigning and include international/intercultural perspectives and content as well as learning outcomes in compulsory curriculum
- supporting faculty and program level curriculum development process
- supporting the professional development of teachers as well as the training for administrative staff to understand and implement internationalization
- practicing international virtual mobility (virtual international guest lectures, virtual classroom collaborations, e-learning, etc.) opportunities
- providing an extra courses offered in English
- launching university-volunteering service which will help incoming students to integrate into university campus.
- improving the University ranking at national and international levels.
Outlook and Sustainability
Developed Internationalization strategy enables the University to enlarge the incoming academic mobility student’s rate and get national and global recognition.
Sustainability of the project simply implies the continuation of project activities and sustenance of project outcomes. The following aspects get their continuum:
- University will apply for more ranking identifiers as well as for global projects;
- The topic of Home Internationalization will get further research investigation and comparative analyses providing conference and publication activities;
- Certified on-line course of Cambridge English is to ensure long term impact of the project;
- More elective subjects in English will be suggested for Ukrainian students;
- The work of students volunteer service – “Buddies”.