How South-South partnerships can aid internationalisation

The 2024 QS World University Rankings include data on 1,500 institutions across 104 locations around the globe.

It includes a mixed group of 45 institutions from India, ranging from institutions of national importance to public, private and deemed universities. There are 11 Indian institutions within the top 500 category, of which two are in the top 200.

The quality varies enormously against some of the performance indicators. For example, while the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore has a perfect score of 100 for citations per faculty, there are eight institutions that have a score of less than five for the same indicator.

What is clear, however, is that, compared to other indicators, all the Indian institutions in the QS Rankings have low scores when it comes to measuring internationalisation, such as the number of international faculty and students and international research network. Even though these three indexes together contribute only 15% of the total score, they influence other indicators, especially those measuring institutional reputation.

The data in the report suggests that Indian institutions across the spectrum need to work on improving their efforts to attract more international students and faculty and be more visible on international research platforms.

However, even here there is interesting variation. Some of the private institutions, such as Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, O P Jindal Global University and Amity University, score higher on international faculty and students compared to public universities.

Anna University, which is a state public university, has the highest score for international research networks even when compared to institutions of national importance, such as, the Indian Institutes of Technology.

International collaboration

Though internationalisation is a priority for and mandated by the government, it must be noted that it takes time to build high quality partnerships with international institutions that can have an impact on this.

The pathways/collaborative academic programmes, such as twinning programmes, dual-degree and joint degree programmes, are the most popular mode of internationalisation pursued by Indian institutions. However, they serve a limited purpose as most of the agreements with institutions from advanced countries are for outbound rather than inbound student mobility, ie, sending Indian students for either one semester to up to two years to an institution in the Global North.

There are few institutions from Global North who are ready to negotiate sending their students to study in India. Indian institutions should invest time, resources and effort in identifying partners that are willing to respect the spirit embedded in exchange programmes, be that through joint degree programmes, working with industry partners or transnational education.

Expanding the international research network

Another way of internationalising Indian campuses further is through research. Today, India is better poised to contribute its scientific acumen and prowess to the world than in the past. A recent report released by the US government’s National Science Foundation mentions that India’s position globally in scientific publications has improved from seventh position in 2010 to third position in 2020.

In a study released in July 2023, Elsevier revealed interesting research growth trends from Global South countries in the G20. The report mentions that India has surpassed the United Kingdom as the third largest producer of research globally behind China and the United States.

The author of the report goes on to state that there is a visible shift in the research landscape from the Global North to the Global South, with India taking the lead in producing new knowledge that is relevant to addressing sustainability, development and innovation. The latest data released by Nature Index also reveals the notable rise of India, making it one of the top 10 nations for the first time.

Partnerships with the Global South

India has an important position when it comes to this shift in knowledge production and can emerge as a key player in initiating partnerships with Global South countries through identifying common challenges which can be solved through education and research collaborations.

These challenges include public health, food security, energy and water crises, climate change and many others. These problems are too large for any single institution, or even any single country, to solve alone.

India can leverage these opportunities to build productive collaborations with educational institutions in countries from the Global South and help redefine the paradigms of development, innovation and international relations.

The partnerships should emphasise cooperation and not competition as the knowledge being created out of these partnerships is to benefit the society at large.

This will expand the international research network of Indian institutions, as well as increase the mobility of students and scholars from educational institutions in the Global South.

Towards a more equal mobility strategy

The narrative around international student mobility has been primarily centred on a student exodus from the Global South to the Global North. India has been the leading country along with China for sending students to the top five study abroad destinations, that is, the US, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany. India’s presidency of the G20 in 2023 has brought to the fore the country’s ability to deliver good quality education at a reasonable cost and it is therefore in a unique position to become a destination country for hosting international students.

The African continent, which constitutes a major portion of countries in the Global South, has a young population that will look to pursue higher education abroad. Indian institutions should therefore consider articulation agreements with institutions from countries in the Global South as this will provide a steady pipeline of international students studying on Indian campuses.

These agreements should also include provisions and support for Indian students to study at partner institutions from the Global South. This will improve India’s institutional profile in the international arena and help to build strategic partnerships with institutions from countries in the Global South.

Strengthening South-South cooperation

Research and Information Systems for Developing Countries (RIS), an autonomous policy research institute based in Delhi, is working to promote cooperation with countries from the Global South.

The organisation has been conducting a programme on Learning South-South Cooperation under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation programme of the Ministry of External Affairs.

In January 2023, RIS organised a capacity building programme, “Global South and perspectives on development partnerships”, for 28 participants from 22 countries from the Global South. The two-week deliberations recognised the importance of education and science as the main factors that can accelerate development and growth in countries from the Global South. Such initiatives should be encouraged.

The Indian government can strengthen South-South cooperation in the education sector by fostering institutional linkages between educational institutions in India and member countries from the Global South. This will lead to a two-way increase in the exchange of students and faculty to and from India and raise the visibility of India’s internationalisation efforts.

Dr Diya Dutt is an adviser at the Association of Indian Universities, New Delhi, India. Sudarshan Saha is founder of the Center for Study Abroad, Guwahati, India.