Resumo

It is indeed surprising that, despite the strong expansion of internationalization initiatives in higher education, stimulated by globalization and technological development and mostly noted after the 1980s, there is still relatively scant academic research about the meaning of the term “internationalization in higher education”. What is even more surprising is the fact that, although full-time researchers are key actors in the vast majority of internationalization activities in higher education, their role has been somehow understated in research.

Our research question is: What constitutes the internationalization of full-time academic researchers? Our contribution relates to the proposition of multiple (intertwined) dimensions by which the phenomenon of the internationalization of researchers can be conceived of. We call these dimensions P.R.I.D. (Place, Relationship, Impact and Dissemination), and argue that they provide a broad coverage of the several aspects by which the individual researcher can internationalize his/her activities.

The meaning of IHE varies across authors, regardless of the level of analysis used, in part because IHE is quite a broad and multifaceted phenomenon, but some definitions narrowly encompass just some aspects of it. This complex social phenomenon involves a key actor at a level of analysis yet little explored in this literature: the individual level. Current analysis models address other levels of analysis, despite the fact that the researcher is the main agent of the internationalization of higher education.

We interviewed 34 full-time academic researchers from 13 graduate programs in the United States and Brazil. In the USA, the interviews were conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, Boston College, Northeastern University, Bentley University, Merrimack College and Georgia University ; in Brazil, the interviews were carried out at FGV Sao Paulo School of Business Administration (EAESP-FGV), the Brazilian School of Public Administration and Business (EBAPE-FGV), the University of Sao Paulo (USP), and the Institute of Education and Research (INSPER)

As a result, we propose the following definition of the researcher internationalization construct: “A researcher internationalizes his/her academic activity when he/she (i) engages in academic activities in countries outside his home country or his country of residency, and/or (ii) establishes relationships with academic actors outside his country of residency, and/or (iii) his publications attain impact (in terms of being used by actors outside his/her country of residency), and/or his/her works are published in outlets with authorship and readership outside his/her country of residency.”

To conclude, we suggest the following avenues for future studies: (i) a survey with a researchers of varied levels of internationalization in order to empirically assess the psychometric properties of the model, (ii) identification and test of determinants of the “researchers internationalization” construct; (iii) testing effects of researcher’s internationalization (individual level) on the internationalization of their academic institution (organizational level); and (iv) identification and test of possible moderators of those relationships.

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