East v West and other conference sessions

Is internationalisation a Western construct?

Dzulkifli Abdul Razak, the vice-chancellor of University Sains Malaysia, argued that if internationalisation really was solely about the exchange of knowledge, then more Europeans would be studying and working in Asia.

Pawan Agarwal, the principal secretary to the government of West Bengal, said India was the "centre of the world" for internationalisation.

For more information, go to: http://bit.ly/b72P02

New global regionalism: competition and collaboration

Don Olcott, the chief executive of the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, said that key issues in this area included movements towards regionalisation along the lines of the Bologna Process, cross-border programmes at a regional level and the impact of such moves on home students.

For more information, go to: http://bit.ly/djaGJI

New horizons

Amena Begum, a member of the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh, discussed the new 20-year strategy that has been developed for higher education in her country.

She said that there would be a focus on raising capacity in strategic areas such as agriculture, biotechnology and disaster management.

In accomplishing this, she made clear, there was "no alternative to forging more international partnerships for higher education".

For more information, go to: http://bit.ly/9RpRih.