Post by Dr Vicky Lewis

🌍 Placing students at the heart of internationalisation strategy – Part 2 🌍 Some of you may have seen my post from a couple of weeks ago, drawing on a presentation I gave at the Irish Association for International Education conference at Mary Immaculate College, Ireland earlier this month (June 2026). It highlighted my blog on ‘Placing students at the heart of internationalisation strategy’, noting some distinctive characteristics of a student-centred approach. Here's a second blog on the same topic, this time focusing on recommendations for anyone who seeks to place students at the heart of their strategy. At a high level, the recommendations are: 1.   Clarify institutional purpose 2.   Develop shared institutional (or project team) understanding 3.   Involve students meaningfully in strategy development 4.   Align student-centred internationalisation with staff interests 5.   Integrate with core strategies 6.   Prioritise equity and access 7.   Focus on outcomes when evaluating success There’s more detail in the blog itself (link in Comments). Across national and institutional contexts, certain themes were seen by survey respondents as pretty much universally relevant, such as: inclusion, employability, integration, student voice. And the way a strategy is created is as important as its content. My first blog generated some constructive responses here on LinkedIn (for which many thanks), and it would be great to read your comments on this one too. (I may even develop key themes from the commentary into a third blog post.)   And there is much more analysis to come in Professor Elspeth Jones' and Dr Ravi Ammigan's forthcoming book: Jones E. & Ammigan R. (2026). Student-Centred Internationalisation: Policy, Strategy and Practice. Routledge. Janet B. Ilieva, PhD Cecilia Pereira-Yates Vincenzo Raimo Dr Cheryl Y. Dr Lindsay Jones Martyn Edwards Professor Abigail Gregory MBE Douglas Proctor, PhD Professor Helen Bailey Nic Mitchell Dr Caroline Baylon Cath McLeod Helen Challis Kamila Malavia Dave Amor Pat Moores 🌍 Jamie Bettles Prof. Christopher Hill John Joe O'Farrell Patrick Lynch Mark Hertlein Ruth Arnold FRSA Lily Wednesday Rumsey Rachel MacSween Sandra Aline Wagner Donal McAlister Don O'Neill Holly Cowman, EdD Jonny Johnston, PhD Denise McAllister Wylie Caroline Mangan Dr Anthony Manning Jenny Jenkin Lucie Weissova Wei/David Liu, PhD Professor Elena Rodríguez Falcón FREng PFHEA FIET FCMI