For the past few decades, many of the most influential definitions and frameworks in international higher education have been shaped largely by scholarship and practice in the West, especially in the Anglophone world and Western Europe. Simon Marginson argues that the dominant definition of internationalisation has underpinned scholarship and practice “primarily in the Anglophone zone and Western Europe,” and that it has also enabled continued Euro-American centrism in cross-border higher education. At the same time, Hans de Wit and Elspeth Jones note that there is growing discussion about whether internationalisation should take more distinctive forms in different parts of the world, reflecting local needs and priorities.
In practice, international education is often organised into familiar categories: international student recruitment, transnational education, internationalisation at home, and international research collaboration. This structure is useful, but it also creates blind spots. One of the biggest is the way Internationalisation at Home and TNE are often treated as separate activities. That separation may make sense from the perspective of the sending or awarding institution. But it makes far less sense from the perspective of the receiving institution, the host country, or the students studying within TNE itself.
The widely used definition of Internationalisation at Home, developed by Beelen and Jones, describes it as “the purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal and informal curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments.” Nuffic explains that this means helping all students develop international competences without needing to go abroad. Universities UK International similarly links Internationalisation at Home closely to Internationalisation of the Curriculum, defining the latter as the incorporation of international and global dimensions into curriculum content, learning outcomes, assessment, teaching methods, and support services.
This definition has been extremely valuable. It shifted attention away from the idea that internationalisation is only about mobility. It helped institutions recognise that international and intercultural learning should be available to all students, not just the minority who can travel. It also gave us a strong language for curriculum reform, inclusive pedagogy, and co-curricular design.
However, the definition still carries an assumption that deserves closer attention: it assumes a relatively stable “domestic” learning environment. That assumption works best when we are talking about the home campus of the awarding institution. It works less well when teaching and learning take place through TNE, where the educational environment is already shaped by multiple systems, multiple academic cultures, multiple languages, and multiple understandings of quality, curriculum, and student experience.
This is where the current framing becomes limiting. In many UK universities, TNE is still discussed as something separate from Internationalisation at Home, as though one happens “over there” and the other happens “at home.” But for students studying on a branch campus, in a joint institute, or in a partner-delivered programme, TNE is their home learning environment. Their everyday curriculum is already internationalised, not because someone added a case study from another country, but because the programme itself sits at the intersection of different educational systems, regulatory traditions, pedagogic cultures, labour-market needs, and institutional expectations.
Official definitions of TNE make this point even more significant. QAA defines TNE as the delivery of higher education awards by recognised UK degree-awarding bodies in a country, or to students, other than where the awarding provider is based. The British Council’s classification framework defines TNE more broadly as the mobility of higher education programmes and institutions/providers across international borders, including branch campuses, franchise provision, partnership programmes, and joint universities. In other words, TNE is not a marginal activity. It is a major way in which international, intercultural, and global dimensions are organised structurally within higher education itself.
If Internationalisation at Home is about ensuring that all students benefit from international and intercultural learning within their normal learning environment, then TNE should not sit outside that conversation. In many contexts, TNE is one of the most powerful vehicles through which Internationalisation at Home actually happens. It creates the conditions for curriculum redesign. It requires institutions to negotiate which knowledge counts, which pedagogies travel, which examples and case studies remain relevant, which languages are used in teaching, and how academic standards and student support are interpreted across borders. That is not an optional extra. That is internationalisation embedded in the curriculum.
This matters for both sides of the partnership.
For the sending institution, recognising TNE as part of Internationalisation at Home would mean moving beyond a narrow view of TNE as market expansion, offshore delivery, or simply a quality assurance challenge. It would mean treating TNE as a site of curriculum learning and institutional learning. It would invite academic teams to ask not just whether the same programme can be delivered elsewhere, but how the curriculum itself should evolve when it enters another educational and social context.
For the receiving institution, the argument is even more important. Too often, Internationalisation at Home is discussed as though it belongs mainly to institutions in the West trying to internationalise their local students who do not travel. But receiving institutions are not passive hosts. Through TNE, they are already engaging in a form of Internationalisation at Home that is deeper and more systemic than many conventional campus activities. Their students are learning through an internationalised curriculum, but one that must also remain locally meaningful. Their staff are working across systems. Their support services, quality processes, and learning environment are already part of the internationalisation project.
This is why I believe we need to redesign and redefine Internationalisation at Home.
The typical definition has helped us move from mobility to curriculum. The next step is to move from curriculum alone to curriculum-in-context. We need a definition that recognises that “home” is not always national, singular, or fixed. In TNE, home can be a transnational academic space, where internationalisation is not added afterwards but built into the structure of teaching, learning, and partnership itself.
A revised definition could be:
Internationalisation at Home is the purposeful design of learning environments in which all students develop international and intercultural understanding within their own place of study, including settings shaped by transnational education, where multiple educational systems, academic cultures, and local realities meet through the curriculum.
This is not simply a semantic adjustment. It changes how we think about value. It means TNE is not only an export activity for one institution and an imported programme for another. It is also a curriculum space in which internationalisation happens for both partners. It is a site where Internationalisation at Home can be practised in a more reciprocal, more complex, and potentially more equitable way.
If UK universities are serious about recognising the importance of TNE in their global work, then they should not leave it outside the conceptual boundaries of Internationalisation at Home. Instead, they should use TNE to expand what Internationalisation at Home means.
Because in a world where many students experience internationalisation not by travelling abroad but by studying within globally connected programmes where they already are, “home” is no longer the opposite of “transnational.”
In many cases, home is transnational.
by Cheryl Yu, based on the reflection from the UNICITI TNE Conference- Reimagining Transnational Education: Partnerships, Quality Assurance & Regulation, Innovation and Global Impact,