The Internationalization of the Academic Profession in Europe. A Quantitative Study of 11 National Systems

Abstract

This paper explores various aspects of the internationalization of the academic profession in Europe, using a micro-level (individual) approach which relies on the primary data collected in a comparable format from 17,211 European academics from 11 countries. It focuses, in particular, on 1) the patterns of internationalization of teaching, research, and publishing in hard vs. soft clusters of academic fields and on 2) the role of international research cooperation in individual research productivity. Research productivity and international publication co-authorship of “internationalists” and “locals” (or academics collaborating and not collaborating internationally) across Europe are compared. Finally, policy implications of the study for national research policies are briefly discussed.

Keywords

• internationalization
• academic profession
• international research cooperation
• individual research productivity
• international publication co-authorship