Communicating an internationalisation project
Communication is key! By communicating a project internally and externally in a consistent and structured way, you will strengthen knowledge of the project development but also create awareness and engagement.
Through increased awareness our experience from this project is that you will get more academics internally and externally to understand the importance of internationalising the curriculum and to make use of existing support to internationalise their teaching. If teachers know WHY they can make this clear to students.
Involve students
If the students are included as a target group, they will feel involved and much more engaged and bring lots of good thoughts to the project in forms of contribution to surveys, workshops or focus groups depending on how they are involved as stakeholders. The IoC project has worked with student in various focus groups and as participants in workshops but also targeted them with events related to the project.
Set up a plan
Through a structured presence in different channels of communication the intention for the IoC project was apart from reaching internal stakeholders also to reach higher education institutions nationally and internationally to inspire and spread knowledge. This was defined in the project and a condition from the grant awarding organization.
There might not always be need for a formal communication plan when initiating a project to internationalise your curriculum (or any other project for that), but it is good to do the following:
- Set over-arching goals for the communication
- Link somebody to the project who works in communication (web, social media etc)
- Define stakeholders
- Make an inventory of existing communications channels
- Consider if you need to create any new or separate channels
- Monitor and follow up on your communication activities
1. Strategic communication internally and externally to facilitate the process of the actual project
2. Increased knowledge internally and externally about Internationalisation of the Curriculum/Internationalisation at Home
3. Streamline our communication
Select your channels
The university website is the most obvious channel and a natural place to push out information in an accessible way about the IoC project. Newsletters and a blog-like page with updates from the project team was an easy way to communicate the progress and activities. Having a person with web publishing skills connected to the project of course helps reaching out faster and easier.
Whenever we could make use of KIs central social media we did. Like an Instagram campaign directed towards students to get them to answer.
Examples of communication channels used by the IoC project
- Ki.se and
- Updates from the IoC project (the blog on ki.se)
- Screens on campus
- Studentnytt (Student newsletter)
- Utbildningsnytt (Internal newsletter)
- Direct email campaigns to students
- Campaigns in social media Facebook
Communicating to boards and internal stakeholders
As the project was co-financed by the Committee for Higher Education (previously known as the Board of Higher education) the progress and the results were reported on a regular basis to the committee.
(under the Committee for Higher education) was the main body for the project to report to but also to involve in communicating and anchoring the project internally.
Communicating externally
The project team member used many given opportunities to present the project at and in different networks. Here are some of the events when the project has been presented between 2017-2021.
- E H盲gg & K Gustafsson (2021) Seminar "Workshop i internationalisering f枚r administrativ personal". Digital meeting with network for H脰NSI 鈥 Network International relations for 鈥淗枚gskolor鈥 throughout Sweden, 11 February
- E H盲gg & K Gustafsson (2020) Presentation. Fokus internationalisering av administrativ personal. Digital meeting with network for UNSI 鈥 Network International relations for universities throughout Sweden, 14 October
- W Ali, N Andersson, K B氓ge, N Jellinek & J Valcke (2020). 鈥淭wo Birds with One Stone 鈥 Linking Internationalisation to Sustainable Development Goal 4鈥. Roundtable at NU Conference 2020 鈥淪ustainable Education鈥 (Stockholm, Sweden), 7-9 October.
- E H盲gg & K Gustafsson (2020) Poster presentation "Internationalising support services" and discussion at NU Conference 2020 鈥淪ustainable Education鈥 (Stockholm, Sweden), 7-9 October.
- E H盲gg (2019), "Internationalisation - from action plan to integration", study visit by University of Tokyo (Stockholm Trio) 4 December.
- K B氓ge, K Gustafsson, E H盲gg & J Valcke (2019). 鈥淚nternationalising the Curriculum鈥. Workshop at the Internationalisations Days of the Swedish Council for Higher Education (Gothenburg, Sweden), 5-6 November.
- E Dafouz, U Smit, P Studer, Robert Wilkinson & J Valcke (2019). 鈥淚ntegrating Internationalisation and Language-in-education Policy: A Conceptual Challenge鈥. Colloquium at the international conference 鈥淢ultilingualism and Multimodality in Higher Education鈥 organised by the ICLHE association (Castell貌n, Spain), 16-18 October.
- M Gustafsson, J Valcke & J Walaszczyk (2019). 鈥淪tepping out of the Silos: Training teachers, training trainers鈥. Workshop at the international conference 鈥淢ultilingualism and Multimodality in Higher Education鈥 organised by the ICLHE association (Castell貌n, Spain), 16-18 October.
- K Haines, J Kling, J Pag猫ze & J Valcke (2019). 鈥淒eveloping internationalised curricula 鈥 Language, Culture and Learning鈥. Opening of Language and Culture at the EAIE 2019 Encompassing All Voices by the European Association for International Education (Helsinki, Finland), 24-27 September.
- K B氓ge, L Stuart & J Valcke (2019). 鈥淗ow to meet SDG goals to promote global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity: Two case studies鈥. Session at the EAIE 2019 Encompassing All Voices by the European Association for International Education (Helsinki, Finland), 24-27 September.
- E Koponen & J Valcke (2019). 鈥淓nglish-Medium Instruction 鈥 Strategies for Success鈥. Workshop at the EAIE 2019 Encompassing All Voices by the EAIE (Helsinki, Finland), 24-27 September.
- J Valcke (2019). 鈥淒eveloping intercultural competences for your students and for your teachers鈥. Plenary session at the Internationalisation day of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden), 23 August.
- J Valcke (2019). 鈥淕etting down and dirty with intercultural competence鈥. Workshop at the Internationalisation day of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden), 23 August.
- J Valcke (2019). 鈥淚nternationalisation of the Curriculum鈥. Plenary session at the Internationalisation day of the University of Malm枚 , 17 June.
- J Valcke (2019). 鈥淚nternationalisation of the Curriculum鈥. Workshop at the Internationalisation day of the University of Malm枚 , 17 June.
- J Valcke (2019). 鈥淓nglish-Medium Education and internationalisation鈥. Podcast interview by Julie Walaczszyk, Universit茅 de Mons (Mons, Belgium), 24 May.
- J Valcke (2019). 鈥淟e r么le des langues dans l鈥檌nternationalisation des universit茅s.鈥 Plenary organised by ARILUF (Association of Language Centres of French-speaking Belgium) at the Universit茅 de Mons (Mons, Belgium), 23 May.
- K B氓ge & J Valcke (2019). 鈥淭eaching in the international university鈥. Two-day workshop organised by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ume氓 (Ume氓, Sweden), 28-29 March.
- J Valcke. (2019). 鈥淒eveloping intercultural competence for our students and for our teachers鈥. Workshop organised by the University of Malm枚 (Malm枚, Sweden), 11 March.
- J Valcke. (2019). 鈥淭eaching in the International University鈥. Two-day workshop organised by Universidad Complutense Madrid (Madrid, Spain) 23-24 January.
- J Valcke. (2019). 鈥淟eadership for internationalisation鈥. Lunch seminar organised by Universidad Complutense Madrid (Madrid, Spain) 23 January.
- K B氓ge, K Gustafsson, E H盲gg, J Valcke (2019). 鈥淚nternationalising the Curriculum鈥. Three-day workshop organised by CLILMED at 探花精选 (Stockholm, Sweden), 12-14 January.
- K Gustafsson & K B氓ge (2018). 鈥滻nternationalisering p氓 hemmaplan鈥 varf枚r 盲r det viktigt f枚r Studentavdelningen p氓 UU?鈥 A two-hour workshop for the student support services at Uppsala University (Uppsala, Sweden) 11 December.
- J Valcke. (2018)."Internationalising teaching and learning". Lunch seminar organised by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden) 26 November.
- J Valcke. (2018). "Internationalisation of the Curriculum 鈥 The case of 探花精选" Interactive session organised by the University of Uppsala in collaboration with Universitets- och h枚gskoler氓det (Uppsala, Sweden) 6-7 November.
- E Dafouz-Milne, K Haines, P Studer, J Valcke & R Wilkinson (2018) "The future of multilingual education". Roundtable discussion at the Symposium "Plurality and singularity: Multilingual policies and specific situated academic actions" organised by Universitat Pompeu Fabbra in collaboration with the ICLHE association (Barcelona, Spain), 18-19 October.
- J Valcke (2018). 鈥淔rom English-medium instruction to internationalisation of the curriculum鈥. Workshop for the Jornadas de Pol铆tica ling眉铆stica organised by the Spanish Association of Higher Education Institutions (CRUE) at the University of C贸rdoba (C贸rdoba, Spain), 4-5 October.
- J Valcke (2018). 鈥淚nternationalising the curriculum: Overcoming challenges, leveraging opportunities鈥 Workshop organised by the Faculty of Medicine of the university of Ume氓 (Ume氓, Sweden) 11 October.
- K Haines, J Kling, J Pag猫ze & J Valcke, (2018) 鈥淎 partnership approach to international classrooms鈥. Plenary for Language and Culture at the EAIE 2018 Facing outward organised by the EAIE in Geneva (Switzerland), 11-14 September.
- J Valcke (2018). 鈥淢aking sense of culture in doctoral supervision鈥 Workshop organised by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden), 5 September.
- L Frick, Z Mkhabela, J. Nieminen, J Valcke (2018). 鈥淚ntercultural doctoral supervision鈥 Two-day workshops organised by the University of Stellenbosch (Cape Town, South Africa), 20-21 August and 23-24 August.
- E Koponen & J Valcke (2017). 鈥淭eaching in English - From Institutional Strategy to Language Support鈥. Two-day workshop at the EAIE Academy organised by the EAIE (Warsaw, Poland), 15-17 November.
- J Valcke (2017). 鈥淓nseigner en anglais 鈥 enjeux et consid茅rations鈥 Interactive session for the Acad茅mie de recherche et d鈥檈nseignement sup茅rieur (ARES) (Brussels, Belgium), 14 November.
- J Valcke, E Romero Alfaro, J Walaszczyk, C Peters & F Zayas Martinez. (2017). 鈥淭raining teachers to teach in English - Five universities come together". Colloquium at the international conference "Content and Language in Multilingual Universities" organised by the ICLHE association (Copenhagen, Denmark), 4-7 October.
- R Klassen, GO Hellekjaer & J Valcke (2017). 鈥淒ifficulties may be deceptive: Investigating student complaints about EMI lecturers鈥 English proficiency". Oral presentation at the international conference "Content and Language in Multilingual Universities" organised by the ICLHE association in Copenhagen (Denmark), 4-7 October.
- J. Valcke (2017). 鈥淭eaching in the international classroom鈥 Workshop for S枚dert枚rn University (Stockholm, Sweden), 21 September.
- R O鈥橠owd, E Romero Alfaro & J Valcke. (2017). 鈥淚nternationalising education through virtual collaboration and exchange鈥 Opening plenary for Language and Culture at the EAIE 2016 A Mosaic of Cultures (Sevilla, Spain), 12- 15 September.
- K. B氓ge & J Valcke (2017) 鈥淚nternationalisation of the Curriculum 鈥 A framework for action鈥. Oral presentation for the Mayo KI Annual Research Meeting organised by 探花精选 (Stockholm, Sweden), 7 September.