A model of re-evaluating international partnerships in universities: a UK example

Abstract

International cooperation and partnerships became as an important asset for UK universities, where in order to facilitate such international cooperation, selecting partners and arranging partnerships are considered as major organizational steps towards the success of the partnership itself. This study aims at investigating the organizational process of international strategy in UK universities through institutional partnerships. Focusing on the ‘mechanisms’ of international partnerships, the study results are based on data collected in earlier work by the author with senior and very senior university managers from four UK civil universities. The results indicate that the mechanisms of international institutional partnerships for each university of the four universities in this study are grouped into the process of partner selecting and the process of arranging partnerships. The study ends up with a model of organization of international partnerships in universities. When evaluating international partnerships with other universities worldwide, managers can rely on this model as a monitoring model. Researchers in the field are encouraged to test the viability of the study results.