W11: Beyond the international office: Engaging academics in curriculum internationalisation

13:30 – 17:00 BST, 8 September 2026 ‐ 3 hours 30 mins

Room: Carron 1, SEC Centre, Ground floor

Workshop

🎟️ Registration required (paid)
🤝 Workshop (collaborative)
💡 Internationalisation of the curriculum | Internationalisation at home

Curriculum internationalisation is a complex task often perceived to conflict with academics’ other priorities. In this workshop, we will challenge you to foster a campus ecosystem to engage academics in internationalisation. Inspired by research-backed examples, you will learn to use a curriculum internationalisation inventory, transforming the plan to your context. We will guide you to identify key stakeholders, diagnose challenges and eliminate inefficiencies to build an optimised path forward.

Learning outcomes

• Envision a campus-wide ecosystem for engaging academics in internationalisation;
• Articulate a wider understanding of key stakeholders to involve, as well as research-based strategies to overcome challenges that academics experience in engagement;
• Apply questions to examine and reimagine your institutional practices.

Target audience
This workshop is targeted at those working with curriculum internationalisation at any institutional level, including internationalisation leadership, faculty interested in promoting curriculum internationalisation on their campus, and graduate students seeking to deepen their understanding of strategic planning for internationalisation.

Speakers

Melissa Hawkins

University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA

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Pouneh Eftekhari

Lund University, Sweden

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Melissa Hawkins

University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA

Dr. Melissa Hawkins is an educational developer with 30 years of experience in the fields of international education, intercultural training, and language teaching. Currently, she promotes internationalization initiatives and high impact teaching practice as the Associate Director for Internationalization and COIL Initiative Coordinator in the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). Melissa previously served as the NAFSA Network Leader for Curriculum Internationalization and Intercultural Training, and she is a Qualified Administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory. She received the Ph.D. and Ed.S. degrees from UAB, as well as an MA-TESOL from the University of Alabama. Her doctoral research explored the engagement of academics from international backgrounds in comprehensive university internationalization. She is particularly interested in engaging academics in curriculum internationalization, in promoting international student success in the classroom, and in growing sustainable COIL initiatives.

: melissawhawkins

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Pouneh Eftekhari

Lund University, Sweden

Pouneh Eftekhari’s main responsibilities at Lund University (Sweden) include the strategic planning for sustainable internationalization (including virtual exchange) and coordinating and evaluating bilateral internationalization projects. She also leads a research project exploring the role of educational developers in curriculum internationalization. Alongside this work, Pouneh is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Transformative Education (CTE) at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands) where she investigates the implications of disciplinary culture on academic engagement with internationalization. Her recent findings confirm that academic engagement varies across disciplines, suggesting that disciplinary culture may be key to increasing participation.   
  
Pouneh draws on 15 years of experience supporting international students, facilitating mobility, nurturing university relations, leading internationalization projects, and researching higher education internationalization at universities in Europe and the USA. She is certified as an expert in assessing the quality of internationalization by the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA) and contributes to international organizations and projects as a consultant, trainer/speaker, advisory board member, and researcher.