Global fragmentation is reshaping higher education, with rising geopolitical tensions and weakened multilateralism. Yet universities remain uniquely positioned to operate across borders and connect diverse perspectives. In this context, internationalisation can no longer be peripheral. It must be a core strategic function, enabling institutions to remain relevant, resilient, and globally connected.

Internationalisation: Rethinking Definitions

Internationalisation is the process through which values such as commitment to dialogue, mutual understanding and collective action in addressing shared challenges are operationalised within higher education. It is the intentional integration of international, intercultural and global dimensions into higher education to enhance quality and contribute meaningfully to society.

Today, the challenge is not only to advance internationalisation as a system, but to ensure it delivers on its core purpose: developing globally minded citizens capable of bridging divides and contributing to a more interconnected and responsible world.

Is Global Citizenship Still Relevant?

This raises a critical question: is the concept of global citizenship still relevant in today’s geopolitical context? In an era marked by fragmentation, restricted mobility and widening inequalities, the conditions that once enabled the development of global citizenship are being challenged. The idea of a globally mobile, universally connected citizen is becoming less attainable for many. This does not diminish the need for global awareness, rather, it reinforces it.

What is emerging is a necessary shift: from the ideal of the “global citizen” to the more grounded and inclusive concept of the “citizen with a global perspective.”

Structure Determines Behaviour: Embedding Internationalisation

For internationalisation to shift towards citizenship with global perspective, there must be changes in structures. The principle that structure determines behaviour is central to this transformation. To fulfil this role, internationalisation can be repositioned around three core imperatives:

• Integration: embedding internationalisation across institutional functions and performance frameworks.

• Resilience: building models of collaboration that can withstand geopolitical and economic disruption

• Impact: aligning global engagement with societal challenges and development priorities

Ethical Internationalisation: From Performance to Responsibility

Not all internationalisation delivers equal value, while it can lead to growth and visibility, it can also expose structural imbalances; unequal partnerships, exclusionary mobility, and increasing commercialisation. This leads to a necessary shift towards ethical internationalisation, where global engagementis aligned not only with institutional performance, but with broader societal needs. In the current global context, internationalisation must focus on its Humanitarian dimension: contributing to societal development, improving lives, and addressing the needs of disadvantaged communities. It must move beyond value creation for institutions to value creation for society and, therefore, shift from opportunity to responsibility.

Internationalisation as a Platform for Convergence

Beyond access and exposure, internationalisation is becoming a platform for convergence through education. This convergence operates at multiple levels: intellectual convergence around shared global challenges, cultural convergence through dialogue and exchange and institutional convergence through partnerships and collaboration. In this sense, higher education is not only transmitting knowledge, but actively building bridges across systems, societies and perspectives. Internationalisation brings together perspectives, knowledge systems and solutions to shared global challenges such as SDGs, climate change, energy and resource sustainability, core causes to the current geopolitical disruptions. In a polarised context, they also act as instruments of soft power and diplomacy, sustaining dialogue, fostering mutual understanding, and maintaining cooperation where formal political channels are constrained.

Navigating Internationalisation under Constraint: An Institutional Perspective

The experience of the British University in Egypt, as a university in the MENA region directly exposed to ongoing geopolitical volatility, illustrates how institutions are adapting internationalisation under constraint. Despite challenges related to conflict proximity, economic pressures and shifting global perceptions, the University has repositioned internationalisation as a core strategic function. It is aligned with its broader purpose in a changing context: educating globally aware graduates, contributing to societal development, and advancing research on issues of global relevance.

This is reflected in a shift towards long-term, trust-based partnerships, stronger integration of international collaboration within research and innovation, and the expansion of hybrid and non-traditional mobility pathways to widen access. International engagement is also increasingly focused on addressing global challenges, while being directly linked to key institutional KPIs, including research impact, employability and reputation. Through this approach, internationalisation has become a core mechanism for delivering both institutional performance and societal purpose.

Conclusion: A Structural Repositioning

The current geopolitical moment represents a paradigm shift, not a temporary disruption, requiring a fundamental reposition of internationalisation in higher education. This calls for policy and institutional frameworks that embed internationalisation within core systems, enabling universities to strengthen resilience, enhance global relevance, and sustain meaningful collaboration in an increasingly constrained and fragmented world. In doing so, universities can move beyond transactional global engagement toward a model where higher education becomes a platform for citizenship with global perspective, convergence across cultures, soft diplomacy and shared solutions to global challenges. In an increasingly fragmented world, this is no longer an option. It is essential.

This article was written in contribution to IAU Horizons Volume 31, No.1. The ‘In Focus’ section of this edition was dedicated to Repositioning Internationalization in a New Geopolitical Era. This edition was published in June 2026. Read the full edition and more IAU Horizons here.