Higher education internationalisation at the crossroads: effects of the coronavirus pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced nearly every aspect of people’s lives, and has set new conditions for universities to operate their internationalisation practices. Together with the rapidly changing global environment, higher education internationalisation has reached a crossroads. Through a constructivist grounded theory design, this study explores experts’ thoughts about the coronavirus crisis’s influences on the internationalisation of higher education and its future direction, taking different national and regional contexts into account. Interviews with 20 world-leading scholars in the field suggested that COVID-19 has had complex effects on university internationalisation and it is necessary to consider such effects beyond the simple distinction between challenges and opportunities. New approaches to conceptualise and implement internationalisation are essential, while the logic of capitalism remains powerful. When looking at the future, many factors other than the coronavirus will exert their force. New conditions have raised new requirements for internationalisation, and therefore, new knowledge is needed to maintain its relevance and sustainability.