Chapter 23: Making Virtual Internationalization Work Across Disciplines: The Role of University Leaders

Universities have long used internationalization to prepare students for a highly interconnected world. Although internationalization has often been associated with mobility, current calls for equity, diversity, and inclusion, and climate consciousness, among other things, require institutions to change this strategy. As a response, curriculum internationalization emerges as a more inclusive and sustainable practice in many contexts.

At the same time, internationalization has become connected to digitalization, spanning activities from fully online to fully in-person and from highly independent to fully collaborative formats (Dietrich & Besana, 2024). Through technological advances, the modalities and formats of internationalization have multiplied, broadening engagement opportunities for institutions and students with peers otherwise inaccessible.

Effective implementation requires a systemic approach, balancing top-down and bottom-up processes within universities. To complicate things further, research suggests that academic disciplines engage differently with curriculum internationalization. Since disciplinary culture can serve as either a blocker or enabler to curriculum internationalization, adapting approaches is crucial for university leaders and stakeholders. This chapter provides insights from recent research and practice on discipline-specific engagement with curriculum internationalization and offers leadership recommendations on considering the disciplinary culture for achieving wider faculty buy-in and more purposeful implementation processes in an increasingly digitized higher education landscape.