Not all aspects of shift in HE world order are positive

A globe and book stack in a library, symbolizing education and global knowledge. by Polina Zimmerman via pexels

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Not all aspects of shift in HE world order are positive

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They were the recipients of international students and scholars from the low- and middle-income countries in the Global South; they controlled research production and its dissemination; they dominated the rankings and science indices.

And they influenced the development of higher education systems, including quality assurance and accreditation, as well as the content of teaching and research, in the Global South. Inequality, in all its dimensions, was and still is the case. But things are changing.

Over the past few decades, we have observed a gradual but very slow shift towards more presence of the Global South in research and science production, in South-South cooperation and exchange, and in the rankings. Currently, we see an acceleration in this shift. China especially has increased its presence in the rankings and has overtaken the United States in science production. Other Asian countries have also improved.

US research still dominates in citation impact, foundational breakthroughs, and the ability to attract and retain top-tier talent from around the world – an advantage now threatened by restrictive policies.

Wave of nationalism

As a reason for this accelerated shift, there is understandably a lot of attention on the current wave of nationalism in the United States and some European countries, including restrictive visa regulations, travel bans, budget cuts, attacks on academic values and knowledge security measures, as elements of Western nationalism and xenophobia.

But nationalism is not unique to the Global North; on the contrary, it is quite a dominant feature in low- and middle-income countries in the Global South. But these countries seem to have opposite policies relating to internationalisation – governments, universities and science are moving towards more international cooperation and competition.

Is the shift in dominance from the Global North to the Global South indeed accelerating? Is it mainly China that is competing, even taking over the dominance from the Global North? Is there mainly a decline in the United States, or more broadly in the Global North?

Is it only happening because of nationalist anti-international policies and perceptions in the high-income countries? What are some of the key manifestations of this shift? Is this shift positive, or does it also raise serious concerns? These questions are important to address, even though final answers remain unclear.

An accelerating shift

The developments are accelerating, especially if we look at the international indicators for high-income countries. The number of international students is declining in the so-called Big Four Anglophone countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, as well as in some other top 10 receiving countries, such as the Netherlands.

Higher education and research face severe budget cuts in several of these high-income countries. Academic freedom is eroding in some. Knowledge security puts a brake on international collaboration in teaching and research. The United States, traditionally the leading scientific power, is cutting itself off from the rest of the world. This will inevitably have significant implications for the global ‘balance of scientific power’.

This dynamic is self-reinforcing: when talent pipelines are cut, research productivity declines, institutional quality erodes and the country becomes less attractive to the next generation of global talent, while the countries absorbing that displaced talent build capacity that compounds over time.

Undoing internationalisation, which has been a key driver of higher education for the past five decades, has become a new rationale in several high-income countries. But there are some alternative signals.

The latest US national security strategy which states that “we cannot allow meritocracy to be used as a justification to open America’s labour market to the world in the name of finding global talent” seems to explicitly reject high-skilled talent. This language is remarkable not only for its protectionist tone, but for its explicit decoupling of immigration policy from innovation strategy – a link that every previous US administration, Republican and Democrat alike, had maintained.

Several European governments (Hungary and Slovakia) follow a similar, if less explicit, direction.

Brighter picture

The picture looks brighter in some other European countries: Germany, France and Spain, in particular, and also in Japan and South Korea. In these countries, the number of international students is increasing, and attracting international students and immigrants for much needed skilled labour as a result of demographic decline is becoming a point of attention.

Although immigration remains a controversial issue in much of Europe as well as Japan, there is significant rethinking of priorities and understanding that especially highly qualified immigrants are important for local economies.

And some countries are shifting positions on budget cuts and limits to international students and collaboration; for instance, Denmark and the Netherlands are restoring funding and changing policies concerning internationalisation. Both countries had previously cut back on English-language degree programmes and have reversed track, recognising the importance of international students.

The European Commission, although stressing knowledge security, is promoting international collaboration in education and research, as well as academic freedom and related values. And on 29 January 2026, the European Commission adopted its first-ever EU Visa Strategy, alongside a recommendation on attracting talent for innovation, marking an important step towards a more strategic and coordinated approach to mobility at EU level.

In middle-income countries in the Global South as well we observe positive moves concerning international collaboration and competition. Internationalisation is perceived as an important tool for national development and identity. We see sending countries becoming receiving countries for international students.

India has just published a major government report on all aspects of internationalisation, promising to welcome branch campuses and joint degrees and implementing policies and infrastructures for expanding the number of international students in India.

Vietnam and Indonesia are also expanding internationalisation initiatives. Other countries have already aggressively implemented policies, including China and Malaysia.

Soft power is an important rationale for these countries, rather than revenue generation. And while they expand the presence of transnational education (TNE) in their countries, they are also becoming more active themselves as TNE providers, in low- and middle-income countries, but also in the Global North. This applies to China, India and Egypt, for instance.

New forms of advanced scientific research

As artificial intelligence opens up new forms of advanced scientific research in materials science, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, nuclear fission and fusion and quantum information science, the question of who controls both talent and computational infrastructure becomes strategically decisive.

China’s simultaneous investments in AI research capacity and international talent attraction represent a dual advantage that compounds the shift described above. But it is not alone. South Korea has rapidly scaled its semiconductor and AI infrastructure while expanding research visa pathways, and the United States retains formidable advantages in both computing capacity and university-based talent pipelines, though restrictive immigration policies risk eroding the latter.

Countries that combine human capital pipelines with computing infrastructure will have an advantage in the next era of scientific leadership; those that sever talent flows while competitors invest in both will find themselves doubly disadvantaged.

Opportunities and challenges

Professor Simon Marginson provides a positive perspective on this shift from Western dominance towards a more equal world and higher education. He writes in University World News: “Understanding the world as a whole means understanding its diversity and the benefits it brings to us all. No single way of life is supreme; no one culture has all the answers. We gain much when we learn to listen to the other and begin to see new possibilities.”

It is difficult to disagree with this optimistic perspective or his criticism of the traditions of Western colonialism. But a clear-eyed analysis of Global South internationalisation is also necessary. Limitations on the norms of academic freedom, curtailing research independence and an overreliance on soft power goals may interfere with the best values of internationalisation.

Annette Bamberger, Benjamin Mulvey and Fei Yan caution correctly that such reinterpretation is not normatively neutral, but can imply “co-optation by illiberal or authoritarian actors who may appropriate decolonial rhetoric for their own ends”.

Simon Marginson in the same University World News article states: “The global context is evolving quickly in general and in higher education and science. Non-Western systems are gaining a decisive increase in traction that promises an end to the 500-year sequence of Western colonialism.”

Yet, the practices, values and organisation of Western academe generally still dominate the Global South and show little prospect of change, also because of a tendency towards copying of Western policies by them. Thus, the balance of internationalisation power may be shifting, but its nature is unlikely to fundamentally change – and the alternatives are not necessarily positive.

Hans de Wit is professor emeritus at Boston College, USA, and distinguished fellow at its Center for International Higher Education (CIHE). E-mail: dewitj@bc.edu. Philip G Altbach is Monan Professor Emeritus at Boston College and distinguished fellow at CIHE. E-mail: altbach@bc.edu. Chris Glass is professor of the practice and director of the Executive EdD in Higher Education at the Boston College Lynch School of Education and Human Development. E-mail: glassch@bc.edu 

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