The Journal “Globalisation, Societies and Education” launched a call for papers for the special issue on the ‘New Geopolitics of International Higher Education’ that aims to underscores how both global forces and national/local forces with global impact act as catalysts for transformation in this sphere. An understanding of the impact of contemporary geopolitical trends on international higher education supports the notion that higher education institutions ‘operate in circumstances only partly of their own making’ (Marginson, 2018:2 ). Through this lens, the special issue also advances a reflection on the tensions arising between global and national interests. Anchoring its developments in the global political arena, the issue further lends weight to the importance of moving beyond ‘methodological nationalism’ in the study of higher education (Shahjahan and Kezar, 2013).

The special issue editors are Hannah Moscovitz, University of Cambridge, and Emma Sabzalieva, York University, and Senior Analyst at the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC).

Themes of interest include:

• Shifting territorial politics and their impact on the international higher education space;
• Beyond the national: emerging global and regional actors in international higher education;
• Political/diplomatic conflicts and their effect on higher education internationalisation agendas and practices;
• The resurgence of nationalism and challenges to internationalisation;
• The changing role of regions in international higher education;
• The impact of global challenges (pandemic, climate crisis, challenge of digitalization and its regulation, structural racism) on international higher education;
• Global and/or grassroots social movements and their impact on higher education internationalisation.

Deadline for submitting 500 word abstract is January 15, 2021. Abstracts can be sent to Hannah Moscovitz hm641@cam.ac.uk and Emma Sabzalieva esabz@yorku.ca.

Submission instructions here.