Research Snapshot: Internationalised curriculum
Internationalisation of the Curriculum at Home (IoCaH): Why academic disciplines matter
Publication date: 23 January 2025
The study's purpose was to explore IoCaH rationales and practices across disciplines and contexts. It aimed to explore why top-down internationalisation strategies are implemented differently across disciplines and to highlight the under-investigated role of academic disciplines in this variation. The findings are intended to help higher education institutions leaders, educational developers, administrators, and educators better understand discipline-specific needs for internationalised curriculum design and implementation.
This research highlights the critical need for tailored curriculum internationalisation, moving beyond generic strategies to truly globalise discipline-specific learning.
Pouneh Eftekhari
Dr. Pouneh Eftekhari is an internationalisation expert and consultant with nearly two decades of experience leading policy design, strategic planning, and hands-on project implementation across the US and Europe. She specialises in translating policy into practice through process optimisation and cross-functional collaboration. Her practical background is underpinned by her research investigating how institutional conditions influence how academics and educational developers engage with internationalisation. Leveraging her research expertise, Pouneh utilises data-driven methodologies to design, implement and evaluation global engagement initiatives.
An active sector leader, Pouneh frequently consults globally and delivers keynotes, workshops and presentations at universities worldwide and at major international conferences, including EAIE, NAFSA and ICED. She also provides quality assurance and external evaluation for global projects and is certified by the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA) as an internationalisation quality expert.
Pouneh has been a member of the EAIE Thematic Committee Teaching, learning and curriculum since 2024.
- Website:
- pounehglobal.com
- LinkedIn:
- https://linkedin.com/in/pounehglobal/
Key findings from the research:
- Discipline-specific approaches are crucial: The study confirms that academic disciplines have unique rationales and preferred strategies for curriculum internationalisation. This indicates that generic, top-down internationalisation strategies are often ineffective, and understanding these discipline-specific nuances is vital for successful implementation.
- Clarifying disciplinary variation: Our findings underscore the necessity of disaggregating internationalisation research by discipline, cautioning that generalisations from previous studies can hinder effective curriculum internationalisation.
- Gap in learning outcomes and assessment: Despite the variety of (curriculum) internationalisation strategies identified, the study highlights that intended learning outcomes and assessment methods remain significantly under-explored across literature explored in this study. This is a critical gap, as clear learning outcomes and effective assessment are fundamental for evaluating student progress and the success of an internationalised curriculum.
