Over the years, STINT has increasingly developed into a knowledge resource for internationalisation and our expertise and networks can contribute to more strategic internationalisation. This has become vital with the emergence of more leading countries in higher education and research, thus necessitating greater knowledge and more extensive networks for building strategic partnerships. Since 2014, several measures have accordingly been taken to establish STINT in the long term as a knowledge resource in the area of internationalisation. We therefore engaged Agneta Bladh, who earlier led the Internationalisation Inquiry, to assess STINT’s role as knowledge resource. Agneta found that all STINT’s activities in its role as knowledge resource are positive for the sector and should continue and be developed further, given the great need. She also highlights the importance of trend analysis and says that STINT has perhaps made the most valuable contribution in Sweden in this regard.
In STINT’s previous newsletter, I briefly mentioned a project on responsible internationalisation. This has now become a hot topic and the project has also attracted much international attention. The project was conducted against the backdrop of the increasingly intensive discussion of strategies, values and ethical considerations in international collaborations with higher education institutions abroad. Together with Karolinska Institutet, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, and Lund University, we have also drawn up a document with guidelines for responsible internationalisation. The document is aimed at aiding university leaderships, department heads, research coordinators and researchers in structuring discussions on how higher education institutions, departments and research groups should approach international partnerships responsibly.
We also organised a panel at the AIEA conference on the same topic a few weeks ago, and on 23 March we will host a seminar in Stockholm, in which for instance State Secretary Malin Cederfeldt Östberg will participate.
Our North American initiative is also underway and STINT’s representative in North America, Niklas Kviselius, recently presented the Canadian research system and available opportunities at a seminar. In North America we collaborate with the embassies in Ottawa and Washington as well as the consulates. Our North American address is at the Consulate General in San Francisco.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to several current calls for applications: Strategic Grants, Grants for Double Degree Programmes, Grants for Teaching Sabbaticals, and Initiation Grants.
Andreas Göthenberg