Higher Education in the High North: Regional Restructuring through Educational Exchanges and Student Mobility

A project meeting was held in Oslo in November 2014 with presentations and status review of the scientific production in the project. Keynote speakers from NIFU and UiO was invited and presented their own research projects with relevance to the NORRUSS project, followed by discussions and comments. At the seminar the more detailed plan for the anthology was set. A project meeting was held in Bodø in April 2015 with presentation and comments on the various chapters of the anthology. The researchers in the project met on June 1th 2015, ahead of the scientific conference, to review the contributions, presentations and activities related to the conference. The conference was held on June 2nd and 3th in Bodø. The conference "Barents region and beyond - Internationalizing higher education" addressed the development and issues of this NORRUSS project. The conference was announced broadly through the researchers networks, Facebook and the web site of University of Nordland and the project. Keynote speakers from United Kingdom, Russia and Norway participated with presentations, as commentators and attended the panel discussion. It is a challenge for Russian scientists to secure funding from their home institutions to participate at international conferences. For that reason most external participants from Russia attended with Norwegian funding outside the NORRUSS project. Two of the researchers participated at a international conference in South Africa in October 2015, with paper presentations. A last project meeting was held in the end of November and beginning of December 2015. The Production of the anthology was in progress and the plan was to finish the chapters by the end of the year. Unfortunately, our Russian partners was prevented from fulfilling our plans. The final delivery of their contributions occurred in April 2016. The editorial work was therefor highly delayed. Editorial meetings was held in april and june 2016. Language revision was completed during the summer and Springer publishing house has received the finished script.

This project will study internationalization of higher education (HE) in the Barents region related to two aspects: institutional cooperation and student exchange between Russia and Norway. The project is based on an established collaborative network betw een different academic cultures. Internationalisation of HE is taking place at different, though interrelated, levels; the government level (macro), the institutional level (meso), and the individual/student level (micro) (Trondal, Gornitzka and Gulbrands en 2003). The global competition for talent is increasing, and student mobility is a vital part of the flow of human capital (Florida 2007). Internationalisation and student exchange is high on the policy agenda in many countries and the flow of human cap ital in the High North have increased dramatically as a result of reforms in the Russian higher education systems. In terms of numbers and investments in HE the development in the Barents region cannot compare with what is currently taking place in the po pulous and prosperous regions of Asia and the Middle East. Although more limited in scope and volume and being just a narrow segment of the global knowledge food chain, the changes in higher education and cultural exchange being implemented in the High No rth is what counts in this region. There is an urgent need to produce empirical knowledge about how it is enacted and experienced at the various local levels that represent an important factor contributing to development of democracy and individual welfar e. This research involves the institutions; administration and teaching staff, and students in eight HE institutions in North-West Russia and three HE institutions in Northern Norway. The methods used in the study are both qualitative and quantitative. Th e results will be fed directly back to the empirical field through production of academic articles and a dissemination conference.