Development of a Networking Model for Internationalization of Engineering Universities and its Implementation for the Russia-Vietnam Partnership

This paper provides an overview of approaches to developing a networking model in engineering education internationalization. The approaches were inspired by the activities of highly internationalized U.S. universities and the globalization experience of the U.S. companies. The model was applied to cooperation of a Russian university and its Vietnamese partners. The historical background of the relationship between the countries is given with statistical data including the number of students, PhDs and faculty academic exchanges for the past 5 years. This paper highlights the difficulties of international cooperation with far away universities arising from differences in mentality, culture, national values and priorities. A model to promote academic networking was drafted and tested with so called ‘easy partners’ – the ones who are eager to cooperate and ready for negotiations prior to its use with more challenging relationships. A coordination center in the foreign country surfaced as a promising approach. Based on the historical analysis we concluded that these ‘easy partners’ could be found in Asia-Pacific region, and one of the countries is Vietnam. The first representative office in Vietnam by a Russian engineering university was successfully established in 2014. It marked a shift from regular approach to international cooperation towards coordinated networking with the partners abroad. The role of the representative office in Vietnam and its contribution to the enhancement of academic mobility is analyzed and evaluated in this paper. The model also includes academic networking engaging partners among educational institutions, industrial companies, ministries and administrative bodies. These links and personal relationships become the nodes of the network. This network and collaboration between the scientists is further strengthened through joint conferences and research funded by Russian and Vietnamese governments. We believe that the networking of engineering universities could also enhance the regional development of the countries as it complements the best practices of targeted education for industrial sector represented by the leading companies of Russia and Vietnam. The proposed model illustrates the concept of networking between engineering universities and promotes internationalization of engineering education. Model Justification Engineering education is a necessary component of the global economy in the XXI century 1 . Training qualified engineers with skills competitive at the international market is the necessary prerequisite for success of international companies and joint multinational projects. Internationalization becomes an indispensable part of engineering education 2 . Training a modern engineer is a complex process involving universities only as a ‘top of iceberg’. Other contributions to shaping an engineer are made by industrial companies, research organizations and administrative bodies. They form a ‘training network’ for engineering students. Such networks are rapidly gaining an international dimension today, when a training process of an engineer is accompanied and facilitated not only by national companies and administrative bodies but as well by respective international counterparts if a certain component of an engineering program is implemented abroad or foreign citizens are invited as engineering students 3,4 . A structure of academic networks can be generally represented as a combination of partners (network nodes) and their joint activities (network links). An example of such a network is shown on Fig. 1. To develop a networking model for engineering university internationalization, we need to make the following important considerations: Internationalization of an engineering university is primarily an academic mobility, which involves such activities (network links) as enrollment of international students and hiring international faculty study abroad experience of its own students, joint conferences with foreign partners, international grants and publications and interaction with international companies; Network nodes can be universities, industrial companies and various administrative bodies such as local governments, granting agencies, and etc. Internationalization has different levels, so networks develop with time. From the structural point of view, it means addition of network nodes as well as addition and/or change of activities (network links). Fig. 1. An example of a simple academic network including universities, business and granting agencies. A networking model for engineering university internationalization should be a tool offering specific instructions for: Creation of internationalization networks; Upgrade of existing internationalization networks by modification of nodes and activities as universities may be at different internationalization levels; Correction of weak points in such networks. Thus, a networking model should provide internationalization progress for a university through justified networking solutions. Let’s discuss in more details some specific features which an internationalization networking model may have. 1. A remote office approach. Although internationalization is quite a new phenomenon in engineering education, going global is a long-history practice for business, especially for the U.S. companies. In this project, we decided to apply the experience of the U.S. business to internationalization of engineering universities. AT&T was selected as a model company for its long success in internationalization. AT&T opened service to Cuba in 1921, Great Britain in 1927, and Japan in 1934. In 1960-2000, AT&T expanded its business over Middle East and Asia-Pacific 5 . The history of AT&T reveals a simple approach to achieve international success: the company opened representative offices in foreign countries with the U.S. staff and local employees a few years before implementing large-scale market initiatives in these countries for facilitation, adaptation and preparation. The same approach was applied by many other U.S. companies for the internationalization of their business, especially in Asia-Pacific. We decided, thus, to add a new node type to the internationalization networking model: a remote office which will coordinate activities of an engineering university abroad. 2. Levels of Internationalization. A short glance at any random group of U.S. or European universities in theTop-100 QS, THE or ARWU rankings will reveal a self-evident fact that their levels of internationalization are different. A clear definition of internationalization levels, however, is much more complicated and can rely on various approaches. For the development of a networking model, we analyzed internationalization activities of the universities in the Top-100 QS ranking (which are by definition highly internationalized) and universities with weaker positions or not in the QS list. The analysis revealed that universities implement four different approaches to internationalization; each of them may be the indication of a certain progress in going global: “Declarative” approach. Universities declare the importance of internationalization and implement various top-down and bottom-up decisions to start going global; “Search” approach. Universities implement various internationalization initiatives in all possible areas and participate in many international projects, find new partners, intensify their academic mobility; “Organizational” approach. Universities optimize their internationalization activities both by changing their internal internationalization infrastructure and selecting the best projects among various initiatives they started at the previous level. “Productive” approach. Internationalization is optimized and sustainable. Universities formed a network of active overseas partners with preferred types of academic mobility. These approaches allowed introducing four consecutive levels into an internationalization networking model described below. Model Description The model itself is not a representation of an existing internationalization network. It is a tool for creating new university-focused internationalization networks, the analysis of existing networks to find weak points, and developing a strategy for internationalization progress in a specific country. Fig. 2 represents the model outline. The main model components are: Networking levels (4 totally); Facilitation unit (a coordination center); Networking groups (universities, industry and government); Networking activities (each activity is specific to the networking level and the networking group. For example, universities at the “Growth” level are expected to implement “Academic Mobility” activities, such as student and faculty exchange). A university or its branch or office in a foreign country can analyze their current level of international partnership with this model and then implement steps for the optimization of partnership through networking according to their networking level. Networking participants are grouped into the following categories: universities, industry and administrative bodies (a university-industry-government triangle). Each of them is offered to carry out group-specific activities on each level. The remote office is to analyze the progress of a university and make decisions on the initiation of respective internationalization activities according to the networking level. The more detailed description of levels is provided below. Level 1: intentions (application of the “declarative” approach). A university declares its intentions to internationalize with its potential partners abroad. Meetings and negotiations are carried out and networking counterparts send their delegations. Plans and roadmaps are agreed as the outcomes of the stage one. The remote office is opened with an “easy partner” motivated to cooperate. Fig. 2. Proposed networking model for o