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We can give context in the education systems abroad.

If there is no strategy we can put pressure to make one.

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Many of us recognized a certain naivety on choosing or upholding partnerships, trusting too easily, not doing due diligence. This was specially prevalent with Chinese partnerships.

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Intention of the partnership.

Mutual interest

Political and safety situation in the country.

Do we or someone we trust have prior experience of the partner

Meeting the partner on site before signing.

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Potential red flags in ongoing collaborations?

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Potential red flags in ongoing collaborations?

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A shift in the political landscape in a third country can influence decision making in the partner’s institution.

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A - Factors triggering deeper assessment

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A - Factors triggering deeper assessment

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Imbalances

Political instability

Dysfunctional organizations

Unclear benefit

Conflicting laws/legal systems.

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- More developed systems in place for assessment of research collaborations, but not for education collaborations.

- Estonia lacks national guidelines, but there are examples at university level.

- Decrease in total number of collaborations ("to much to handle"), to diminish the risks

- No mosques in Estonia, and a resistance towards to muslim students. Islamic countries are often considered a threat.

- "Universities don't do foreign politics - we are universities"

- The faculties and the central office may have different points of view - difficult to get on the same page

- The nature of the academic world is to allow different points of view, which makes a common approach within the same HEI very difficult

- Important to realize the threats. It is easier to be "all-open" and "all-progressive" as long as the risks are theoretical.

- Can be a resistance from partners to share information to enable risk assessment

- The students needs to be prepared and taught about eg. academic freedom before going out, but do we do that? Could there be a national (or Nordic?) online preparatory course?

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Potential red flags in ongoing collaborations?

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Potential red flags in ongoing collaborations?

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The balance of work between a HEI and immigration authorities. Is that shifting? The HEI primarily evaluate applicants based on their academic merits, should the focus more on security aspects or is that the role of other authorities?

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When the partner does not have a process for incoming students regarding their studies and housing at the partner.

If there are sanctions on the country you are looking in to.

Equality and human rights issues in the collaborating countries.

If coordinating a larger collaboration, all partners need to be checked.

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Question 1:

Currently no role, wondering what is the right thing to do, to make everyone aware. Will bring up topic when discussing other policies in the next months.

Role of looking through partnership agreements. Wanting to learn about tools (e.g. AI). Investigate: How are we working/thinking about threatened incoming students? To have preparedness for the situation.

Involved with writing international strategy writing, good opportunity to include better risk assessment general strategy.

Working more with education than research, partnership agreements.

Work with alliances and networks. Also including incoming visits. Difficulties with changes in ongoing partnerships (e.g. China, UK), balancing ask.

Close work with senior management, setting the support structures including due diligence. Formalizing a new diligence process. Difficult to have an overview with processes in research. Problem with information getting into the faculties, managers, research advisors (needing more awareness for risks).

Question 2 (A or B):

A:

The country

The subject/area of cooperation

Academic freedom

Background/quality checks

Deeper assessment if something comes unsolicited, or when there is suspicious urgency. Also when the political situation changes during the partnership formation.

Mutal benefit

B:

Trips being fully funded -> what is the intention?

For US partners: involvement with ICE on campus, potential privacy breaches

Courses, housing, etc.

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- Corruption is an issue - Chinese partners paying academics, while we can’t do anything about them but we can stop the academics accepting payment.

- Not just China, also Ukraine.

- Development of the political situations, we want to be open but at one point we have to stop.

- tension within HEIs - faculty heads might have different ideas from rectors and then the IROs

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only/mainly concerns specific countries

Governmental involvement

Security sensitive areas (academic)

Risk assessment (research/student)

Ethics/academic freedom

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- Military universities of China is a no-go

- Israel is high-lighted as a problematic partner ethical-wise eg. in Norway

- Russia is cancelled to a large extent, even individual student exchange is stopped.

- Russian students enrolled in study programmes in other European countries, are often denied student exchange

- Collaboration with European partners, can result in a surprise when it gets obvious that they have a large portion of students from the Middle East or China

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Universities in Sweden and Norway seem to be ahead of the game in terms of responsible internationalisation, i.e. special teams/taskforces in charge of guiding universities in these themes, guiding with making agreements on University of Faculty levels (due to more exposure perhaps)