Globalisation or europeanisation? : international contact among university staff

Abstract

The article examines whether the increase in international contacts among university researchers is an impact of a general globalisation trend, or whether it is an effect of policy initiatives on national and supranational levels such as EU research programmes. The present study demonstrates that the sheer volume of international contacts among Norwegian university staff has increased substantially during the last 20 years with respect to conference participation, guest lecturing, study and research visits, peer review work, research collaboration and international publishing. While patterns of international visits have not changed with respect to geographical pattern, research collaboration and co-authoring has become increasingly directed towards other European and Nordic countries. Moreover, we demonstrate a homogenisation between fields of learning regarding the degree of international contact, but there are significant differences in geographical orientation. We conclude that general trends of globalisation and regional policy initiatives from the EU are supplementary rather than contradictory with respect to international contacts among Norwegian university staff. Data are drawn from studies based on questionnaires carried out in 1981, 1991 and 2000 among all tenured faculty members of Norway’s four universities.