Making internationalisation part of Inholland’s DNA

The main outcome of the third co-creation session of ‘Why internationalisation?’ was the awareness of the need to take steps to make internationalisation part of Inholland’s DNA throughout the institution. In this inspirational final session, participants brainstormed on what was needed to achieve Inholland’s internationalisation ambitions and what action they themselves could take in the short term. The basic principle for the long term is to embed an Integral Vision on internationalisation in the Strategic Plan.

In session 2, we recorded the ambitions for our vision on internationalisation. These are based on three concepts: the global Inholland professional, a rich and diverse learning and research environment and an international ecosystem. In this third session, we looked not only at what we need to do in order to achieve these ambitions, but also at what is stopping us and how we could remove the obstacles in our way. This gave us an insight into the main challenges and possible solutions.

Towards the global Inholland professional
To create global Inholland professionals, we need to:

• facilitate internationalisation;
• provide timely and accurate information on opportunities;
• gain further support among colleagues;
• formulate an Integral Vision (and embed this in our teaching, research and organisation);
• build an international network (for students and lecturers, for international research questions and for the sharing of knowledge with other universities of applied sciences).

Towards the global Inholland professional: what action can we already take ourselves?
Jannerieke Hommenga (Faculty of Creative Business), who initiated these sessions, explains what you can already do yourselves: ‘As a first step, promote internationalisation and discuss it with your colleagues, students and external partners. Use these conversations to build a network! Next, you can get together to look at ways to make internationalisation a part of our curriculum, our team or our organisation. By discussing the “why”, you’ll discover the desirable scope and level of facilitation and to what extent further professionalisation (of yourself and others) is required.’

Towards a rich and diverse learning and research environment
To create a rich and diverse learning and research environment, we need to:

• embed a clear vision on internationalisation in the Strategic Plan;
• improve knowledge sharing and the provision of information;
• work with the international community inside and outside Inholland;
• actively encourage interaction between international and Dutch students and lecturers.

Towards an international ecosystem
To achieve our ambitions within an international ecosystem, we need to:

• optimise our internal ecosystem (teaching, research, professional field, community) and ensure closer cooperation between the faculties and service departments (i.e. no ‘insular thinking’);
• nominate an ambassador on the Executive Board who will propagate a clear vision on internationalisation (proud leadership);
• smooth internal and external cooperation in terms of our key themes and our philosophy of inviting the world inside while looking outward.