International branch campus
[1] Instruction most often occurs in properties owned or leased by the foreign institution, sometimes with a local partner, and may also include additional services and facilities to mirror Western universities.
This practice included institutions established by the British and French in Africa and Asia, by the Dutch in Indonesia, by the Roman Catholic organizations (particularly the Jesuits) in Latin America and the Philippines, and, in the nineteenth century, by American Protestant missionaries.
These established colleges grounded in the US model in countries such as Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon, practices from which the American University of Beirut was founded.
[7] In a broader sense, higher education institutions have long held global orientations, in that they served international students, employed professors from different countries, and functioned chiefly in the common language of Latin.
[9][14] Some have seen the development of the IBCs an extraordinary form of privatization in the public sector (largely due to the geographic separation from the state); however, Jason E. Lane and Kevin Kinser have argued that the extent of an IBCs privatization should also be assessed in relation to fulfilling public purposes in the host country.
[9] IBCs have developed in dense pockets in regions such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Malaysia.
[20][21] Many of the countries with the most IBCs (United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, Malaysia and Singapore) have struggled with the problem of brain drain.
[8][23] Hosting a foreign branch campus can also enhance links with industry, as in some cases programs offered at the campus are aligned by the government to reflect the nation's industry needs; in other cases, such as typically in the Arab Middle East, IBCs help expedite the process of transitioning from an oil economy to a knowledge economy.
[24] Just over a quarter of the IBCs in operation as of March 2023[update] are from American institutions, with the United Kingdom, Russia and France also accounting for over 10 per cent each.
All officially recognized international branch campuses are registered at the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia as private universities.
Established by real estate master developer TECOM Investments in 2003 to complement other business parks, Dubai Knowledge Village (DKV) contains 15 IBCs and 150 training institutions and learning centers.
DKV was expanded in 2007 to Dubai International Academic City (DIAC), which consists of 40 branch campuses of foreign universities.
[33] Hans Pohl and Jason E. Lane developed a methodology using SciVal data to determine the research productivity of faculty/researchers at IBCs.
[35] The Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT) was founded in 2010 by Professors Jason Lane and Kevin Kinser, then at the State University of New York at Albany, to track and study the development of international branch campuses.
[36] C-BERT maintains a publicly accessible list of IBCs operating around the world, using the definition:[2] An entity that is owned, at least in part, by a foreign higher education provider; operated in the name of the foreign education provider; and provides an entire academic program, substantially on site, leading to a degree awarded by the foreign education provider.The largest 'exporter' countries on the C-BERT listing, as of March 2023,[update] are the United States (84 campuses), the United Kingdom (46), Russia (39), France (38) and Australia (20), while the largest 'importer' countries are China (47 campuses), United Arab Emirates (30), Singapore (16), Malaysia (15) and Qatar (11).
Most prominent among these concerns are those that relate to attracting and retaining host campus faculty, misalignment between home and branch campus,[40] replicating diversity and quality of the student body,[41] mirroring forms of cultural imperialism,[42] lack of data to drive decision-making,[21] organizational culture,[43] and the ability of IBCs to adapt to the "new" local context.
