Conference Agenda

Background of the Study

Internationalization has become a key strategy that is reflected in multi-level policy documents, namely by national, supra-national and intranational organizations (Brooks & Waters, 2011; Edelstein & Douglass, 2012). Global developments profoundly influence how internationalization is strategized. In recent years, a variety of interconnected problems or polycrisis, i.e. climate change or economic inequalities, have prompted internationalization to address these multifaceted challenges through research-informed responses. These complex problems necessitate collaborations of researchers and research systems (Voegtlin et al., 2022).

One prominent example is internationalization policies of European Higher Education & Research Area to strengthen collaborations among researchers across wider Europe, fostering knowledge transfer and coordination of research. International research collaborations within European Higher Education & Research Area are promoted to tackle fundamental problems of the societies despite the negative influences of recently expanding geopolitical conflicts on research collaborations (Bamberger & Huang, 2024). European Universities Alliances, Horizon Europe, COST Actions and Erasmus+ are some exemplary research frameworks.

Previous research indicates that responsibility is increasingly embedded into internationalization of higher education strategies at national and intranational scales, as shown in some prior studies, i.e. comprehensive internationalization (de Wit & Hunter, 2020) or global social responsibility and internationalization of higher education for society (Jones et al., 2021; Leask & de Gayardon, 2021). Despite expanding attention, there is a lack of shared definition of responsibility in internationalization of higher education, yielding confusions on what responsibility in internationalization really entails.

This ambiguity on responsibility is also evident in internationalization of higher education strategies in European Higher Education & Research Area. Amid the on-going debates, this study suggests a comprehensive understanding of responsibility in internationalization of higher education by challenging the widely accepted assumption that responsibility in internationalization is self-evident in its meaning as a taken for granted concept. Therefore, this paper addresses the following research questions with a comparative analysis of prominent research policies and programmes in ERA, Finland and Türkiye:

• In what ways is the theme of responsibility strategized in ERA, Finland and Türkiye'’s major international research programmes and policies?’
• How are responsibility narratives similar or different across three research contexts?

Conceptual Framework

Theoretically this study approaches international research collaborations as more than just co-authorships or publications. International research collaborations are a social process of putting experience and expertise together to produce new knowledge to tackle global problems, which are too complicated to be solved alone (Bozeman & Boardman, 2014; Romani-Dias & Carneiro, 2020). Responsibility in this aspect refers to the outcomes of research and knowledge production benefiting the wider societies and creating an impact outside the scientific communities (Molthan-Hill et al., 2024).

An emerging field of research focuses on responsible internationalization, which is an overarching theme highlighted in prominent studies (DeLaquil et al., 2024; de Wit & Glass, 2025; Romani-Dias & Carneiro, 2020; Stallivieri & Tabajara, 2020). Responsible internationalization refers to ‘the practices and policies targeted to benefit the wider communities, at home or abroad, via international or intercultural education, research, service and engagement (Brandenburg et al., 2019; Jones et al., 2021). Scholars argue that internationalization needs to be redefined to include planned contributions to the wider societies beyond universities (de Wit, 2019; Stein, 2019).

Besides conceptual framework of responsible internationalization and critical internationalization studies, in operationalizing responsibility concept, this study also benefits from University Social Responsibility, which means usage of research and knowledge production for the better quality of life (Herrera, 2009). In its broader meaning, University Social Responsibility refers to the responsibility of higher education institutions towards their communities and beyond by identifying and addressing issues of social and ethical relevance (Ayala-Rodríguez et al. 2019; Vallaeys et al. 2022).

The contemporary internationalisation of higher education (HE) has led to deep and lasting transformations in universities’ societal roles, organisational structures, and daily practices (Musiał, 2023). Internationalisation is now widely treated as an unquestioned imperative, what Musiał (2023, p.21) calls a ‘‘rationalized myth,’’ and it has reshaped the global academic landscape by expanding measurable mechanisms for evaluating and governing institutions. These mechanisms include global university rankings, international research databases and metrics (e.g., Scopus; Web of Science), and national accountability and quality assurance systems that tie funding, reputation, and status to quantified research performance (Pardo-Guerra, 2022). Although internationalisation is framed as inherently beneficial, it is frequently discussed without sufficient historical or political contextualisation. As a result, global power asymmetries, colonial legacies, and economic disparities can be obscured (Buckner & Stein, 2020). This uncritical framing risks reinforcing existing global hierarchies, reproducing Western dominance, and marginalising scholarship from the peripheries (Bamberger & Morris, 2024).

These dynamics are particularly salient in post-socialist countries. Historically, many post-socialist universities prioritised teaching and vocational training, while research was concentrated in academies or specialised (sectoral) institutes outside higher education institutes (HEIs) (Smolentseva et al., 2018). The post-Soviet transition has intensified such tensions as universities are increasingly expected to adopt research missions and global academic standards that diverge from their original design (Chankseliani et al., 2022). The expansion of rankings and competitive performance regimes has further pressured HEIs to prioritise research visibility and align with indicators modelled on elite, research-driven universities (Locke, 2021). Yet universities in many post-socialist settings face persistent structural constraints (such as inadequate funding, restricted academic freedom, limited access to scholarly databases, and heavy teaching loads) that complicate a shift toward research-oriented missions (Chankseliani et al., 2022).

More broadly, rankings and performance metrics have entrenched audit culture and accelerated a shift in governance towards calculative logics that prioritise efficiency, visibility, and accountability (Shore & Wright, 2015). This shift has reconfigured academic labour, compelling faculty, particularly in resource-constrained settings, to privilege research outputs aligned with citation-based evaluation systems that disproportionately favour Western academic institutions and journals (Collyer, 2018). Pressures to publish in English, secure grants, and produce measurable outputs have intensified in the pursuit of academic prestige and international recognition; however, these demands often expose academics to hierarchical subjectivities and unequal competition shaped by linguistic barriers, resource disparities, and exclusion from influential academic networks (Welsh, 2020). While the implications of neoliberal competition and North–South inequalities are well documented, less is known about how these dynamics unfold in Central Asia, where Soviet legacies and ongoing Russian influence continue to shape academic and institutional cultures.

Uzbekistan provides an informative case. National research policies remain decisive in structuring the academic landscape, as HEIs operate under strong central government oversight. Since independence in 1991, the sector has experienced infrastructural decline and a loss of human capital due to prolonged underinvestment (Ruziev & Mamasolieva, 2022). More recently, the government has sought to revitalise research capacity and institutional infrastructure, guided by the belief that economic development depends on global competitiveness. In this context, the study examines policy initiatives introduced since 2017, a pivotal moment in the liberalisation of HE, intended to increase research productivity, promote innovation, and strengthen academic engagement, albeit largely driven by centralised directives. However, despite growing expectations for research engagement, the majority of academic staff still lack doctoral qualifications. This divide between policy ambition and academic realities risks undermining both research quality and institutional credibility.

International students are increasingly governed through policy frameworks that extend beyond higher education. In recent decades, internationalisation and student mobility have grown in strategic importance as higher education has become more closely aligned with national economic goals, and perceptions of international students have gradually shifted from a source of income to potential human capital (de Wit & Altbach, 2021). In this scenario, host countries develop policies to attract and retain international students (Lomer, 2018; Findlay et al., 2017) and support graduates’ transitions into the labour market (Riaño et al., 2018). As international student mobility (ISM) has become increasingly prominent in policymaking, questions arise about how ISM policies are developed, how they intersect with other policy domains, and how they position international students within national contexts. These processes and their effects remain largely underexplored (Riaño et al., 2018).

This study investigates how international students are represented within the policy architecture of Finland’s talent-attraction agenda, Talent Boost. Employing Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach, it aims to uncover the rationales and discourses that underpin ISM-related policies to understand how international students fit within a national policy framework. It responds to a need for more consideration of policy texts in ISM research (Lomer, 2018) and contributes to broadening the spatial scope of ISM studies (Riaño et al., 2018). Moreover, a national focus provides a basis for discussing how broader European constructions of ‘the mobile student’ are integrated, adapted, or reworked within a national policy context (Brooks, 2018). As such, this study looks to answer the following main research question: How are international students represented in Finnish policy? In addition, the study addresses the following supporting questions: (a) What discourses underpin the construction of international students? and (b) How are education, migration and integration policy positioned within a vision of the future?

The analysis is supported by a contextual framing of internationalisation of Finnish higher education and Talent Boost, and theoretical engagement with anticipatory governance and policy discourses on international students. Over the past decade, Finland has aligned more closely with marketised models of higher education from English-speaking countries and begun positioning students as consumers (Jokila et al., 2019). Furthermore, policy and discourse have produced the commercialisation of international degree programmes (Jokila, 2020). Such developments are in line with a paradigmatic shift occurring in Finnish society from a welfare system based on solidarity and emancipation to one directed by competition and responsibilisation (Kananen, 2014). Further change in policymaking in Finland has come through the adoption of anticipatory practices of governance that seek to foresee and manage the future (Kallo & Välimaa, 2025b). Often manifesting as visions and roadmaps, anticipatory governance remains speculative and often blind to alternatives, yet works to produce the future it envisions (Kallo & Välimaa, 2025a). As policy increasingly governs through imaginaries, representations of students become performative, shaping the futures they invoke. Riaño et al. (2018, p.285) have identified five coexisting and often competing policy discourses on international students: (a) as economic agents or drivers of knowledge and economic growth, (b) as sources of income for the higher education sector, (c) as temporary subjects, (d) as immigrants of doubtful value and (e) as part of soft power. Drawing on Cerna and Chou’s (2023) four scenarios of outcomes of internationalisation, I also theorise the tension between the drive for internationalisation and the simultaneous desire for migration control to discuss contradictions that emerge from the policy analysis.

Higher education institutions are increasingly expected to demonstrate institutional effectiveness through measurable performance indicators while simultaneously responding to societal demands for equity, inclusion, and fairness (Altbach et al., 2019). In such contexts, academic leadership extends beyond formal roles and is enacted through organisational frameworks, indicators, and evaluative systems that shape how success, progress, and legitimacy are defined and communicated (Bryman, 2007; Macfarlane, 2012). In this paper, the terms Organisational effectiveness and institutional effectiveness are used interchangeably to reflect their overlapping use in organisational theory and higher education governance literature, referring to the frameworks, indicators, and evaluative systems through which higher education institutions assess performance, equity, and accountability. Organisational effectiveness (OE) frameworks therefore function not only as technical tools but also as leadership instruments that influence institutional trust, particularly in datafied and politically polarised higher education environments (Cameron, 1986; Kallio et al., 2017; EDUCAUSE, 2024).

This research expands on the previous published integrative review which Alam and Dubey (2025) conducted to evaluate Organisational effectiveness frameworks in higher education organizations. The researchers in the original study analysed how equity and access and inclusion appeared in OE models throughout four decades of academic research. The present contribution advances that work in two ways. First, it extends the review corpus to include relevant literature published up to 2025. Second, it reframes the existing thematic synthesis through the lens of academic leadership, institutional trust, and legitimacy, aligning the analysis with the ECER 2026 conference theme and the joint NW 22 / NW 26 call.

The research questions which guide this paper include.

RQ1: How do organisational effectiveness frameworks in higher education represent inclusiveness in ways that shape institutional legitimacy and trust?
RQ2: What leadership-relevant design principles emerge from the literature for building fair and transparent effectiveness systems that account for diverse student pathways?

The goal focuses on studying leadership practices which emerge from effectiveness framework design and implementation rather than developing an innovative effectiveness model. The research investigates how leaders use effectiveness frameworks to achieve their goals through their implementation of equity-oriented indicators and their data management systems and their accountability systems. The research focuses on leadership principles which direct evaluation systems to connect policy requirements with institutional values and student realities (Macfarlane, 2012).

This study draws on three complementary theoretical frameworks that are mobilised through an institutional leadership lens. Cameron’s organisational effectiveness framework provides a basis for understanding how higher education institutions manage multiple and often competing performance criteria, including operational efficiency, organisational flexibility, and goal attainment (Bryman, 2007; Cameron, 1978; Cameron, 1986). Fraser’s theory of social justice strengthens the analysis of inclusiveness by emphasising redistribution, recognition, and representation as core dimensions of fairness and legitimacy (Fraser, 2005). The student retention model developed by Tinto shows that institutional frameworks and cultural environments determine student access and participation and completion rates instead of individual student deficiencies (Tinto, 1993). Researcher interpretation of OE frameworks becomes possible through the combination of these different perspectives which shows how organizations use these frameworks to build stakeholder trust.