Internationalization of universities and quality education: a focus on teaching, research and outreach activities

Abstract

This study aims to describe the relationship between the process of internationalization of a Brazilian university and its triple mission of teaching, research and outreach activities. To this end, the study discusses the interface between internationalization of higher education and global citizenship education (GCE) focusing on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 – Quality Education – which aims to guarantee inclusive, equitable and quality education for all. GCE is related to SDG4 as it acknowledges interrelationships of the global, national and local aspects of higher education. So as to reflect about these interrelations, the study reports on an on-going project proposed in a university in Brazil whose aim was to link research results through an outreach project to develop the internationalization of small companies in the State of Espirito Santo, in connection with another project and university in Spain. The study draws on a theoretical-empirical, qualitative research based on secondary data with a corpus composed of 20 studies produced in the Brazilian university and the needs analysis carried out in the Spanish university to illustrate and discuss the interconnections between innovation, internationalization and GCE in relation to SDGs 4. The internationalization of the Brazilian university was analysed in relation to the university's triple mission of research, outreach and teaching activities/opportunities. The results of the analysis suggest that the internationalization of that institution is related to its triple mission of teaching (analysed in the Business Administration courses of the two universities involved), research (analysed through corpus analysis results) and outreach activities (analysed in the outreach/internationalization projects of the two institutions involved). Preliminary findings of the project suggest that the process of internationalization of the universities involved is related to the SDG4 insomuch as GCE is concerned.