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Share your favourite drink at The IC Global Cafés

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Share your favourite drink at The IC Global Cafés

The traditional preparation process unique to Turkish coffee basically consists of roasting, cooling, grinding, brewing and serving phases.

At every IC Global Café, we love to share our favourite drinks together with our IC Global community.  This summer, as we discovered how traditional Turkish coffee is made, we also wanted to share this with you. Click on the image below to find out more.

Don’t forget to keep Tuesdays at 11:00 (UK time) free in your diaries for The IC Global Cafés. They will take place every fortnight and you will receive information in The IC Global’s newsletter about how to register.  Don’t forget to get your favourite drink ready to share with us!

Sirin Myles learnt more about Turkish coffee at the Antalya Ethnographic Museum.

The IC Global around the world in 30 days

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Around the world in 30 days | March 2022

This adventure will see The IC navigating three continents to share sector best practice and discuss key international education themes at EURIE 2022, IHEF 2022, The PIE Live, APAIE and The IC Café – all in the month of March 2022.  Through our practical and interactive Cafés, workshops and sessions, participants will benefit from The IC’s unique style of learning, knowledge sharing and collaboration, together with our expert speakers.

EURIE 2022 | 2 – 4 March

The IC Café, ‘The Future of Transnational Education (TNE) and its role in the sustainability of institutions’, will take place on 4 March 2022 at 09:00-09:45 (GMT), with an expert panel to include David Pilsbury, Chief Development Officer at OIEG and Dr Vangelis Tsiligiris, Associate Professor, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University.  You will learn about  market trends, challenges and future predictions, the role of TNE in supporting environmental and financial sustainability and much more.

THE IC CAFÉ | INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2022 | 8 MARCH

Following the theme of Break The Bias, for International Women’s Day 2022, we will be discussing bias within the education sector at next week’s IC Global Café on Tuesday 08 March at 11:00 (GMT).  We will explore whether there is bias within the recruitment process, in specific disciplines and roles, and whether it affects different styles of leadership.  How can individuals and institutions ensure a diverse and inclusive workplace where difference is valued and celebrated?  Invite your female and male colleagues to benefit from this Café.

IHEF 2022 | 16 – 17 March

The IC is the Official Networking Partner for the International Higher Education Forum (IHEF) 2022

Networking with The IC Café

Wednesday 17th March 2022
1:30pm – 2:15pm (GMT)

Hosted by Sirin Myles and Charlene Allen of the IC Café, this networking session will provide a curated space for a global dialogue with delegates across the conference. Collectively, Sirin and Charlene have over 40 years of UK higher education internationalisation sector-specific operational and leadership experience and will help to facilitate a thought-provoking discussion on topics to be announced. This networking session is designed for those who prefer to have structure to their online conversations.

  • Charlene Allen, Co-Founder and Director, The IC Global Partnership
  • Sirin Myles, Co-Founder and Director, The IC Global Partnership

THE PIE LIVE 2022 | 22 – 23 March

‘Women at the top table – how does int’l ed stack up in terms of levelling up?’

Wednesday 23rd March 2022
1:45pm – 3pm (GMT)

Charlene will be chairing a panel of expert speakers including Rachel Fletcher, CEO & Co-Founder of UniQuest, Rachel Sandison, Deputy Vice Chancellor, External Engagement at the University of Glasgow, Emm Froud, Head of Business Development (UK & Canada) for UniBuddy and Victoria McLean, CEO & Founder of CityCV.

We will be discussing “how successful is the International Education industry at ensuring its female workforce can flourish and progress their careers as equally as men?” We’ll be considering this question with three women who have carved out successful careers, both at universities and in the private sector. How can leaders better support women in their teams and understand their unique challenges? This panel will also share insights from the CEO of a UK career consultancy who will outline five challenges women face in career progression – and how to overcome them.

APAIE 2022 | 27 – 31 March

Network with The IC Global Partnership at APAIE
27 – 31 March 2022

Come visit us!
You can connect with us via the networking platform.

Sustainability Month 2021

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The IC Sustainability Month of May 2021

The IC has celebrated Sustainability in the month of May. We focused on what we can do in the education sector in the area of internationalisation and global engagement to support action against climate change. We shared best practice when implementing sustainability strategies and developing initiatives.  Our timing was designed to align with the UN’s World Environment Day and the British Council’s Going Global 2021 conference, which features The IC’s Sustainability, Environment, Our home poster, which was selected for the conference’s virtual gallery.  Key learning outcomes from our Sustainability Cafes are below.

Get involved in future IC Cafes

Sustainability and the student experience

In May’s first sustainability Cafe, Melissa Lee, Founder and CEO of The GREEN Program (“TGP”) and one of their alumni Leonie Paul, Research and Teaching Assistant at Uppsala University, highlighted the importance that current students place on sustainability; including paying more for sustainable products; its impact on their decision of which institution to study at, as well as which organisations to apply for jobs in.  Melissa noted that universities should be doing more to invest in, educate and inspire students to become good global citizens and look at all ways of reducing waste and not just the obvious solutions.  We ran a poll within the Cafe to ask where institutions are in terms of their sustainable development education and practices.  The results are below:

Institutions’ Overall Environmental Impact

This Cafe’s poll shows that 62% of institutions have or are developing a sustainability strategy which is promising, especially given a recent THE poll showed that students valued sustainability over the location of their institutions, although the figures were low.

Dr Janet Ilieva, Founder and Director at Education Insight also noted that research-intensive universities tend to have significantly higher carbon footprints, whereas institutions with large TNE or part-time populations are much lower.  Online delivery such as virtual mobility and internships can help in this area but there are worries that financial pressures may take priority over sustainable development.  Ultimately however, students will demand to know more about how their institutions engage with sustainability and tackle climate change and so institutions owe it to their students to respond accordingly.

Dr Weiyan Xiong, Research Assistant Professor at Lingnan University introduced the work UK HEIs are doing to achieve sustainable development goals on campus. In 2010, 8 Public Hong Kong universities issued a declaration to respond to the UN’s SDGs and in the same year a consortium of volunteers was created to help coordinate efforts and implement changes to achieve a more sustainable approach to their work. The approach was bottom up, to achieve buy-in from staff and students.

The positive aspects of the consortium are:

- Collective power: through working together
- Self regulated sub committees: run by volunteers at each university
- Relationship with the Government: the consortium have been invited to join policy briefings of the HK Government on sustainable development

The challenges are:

- Voluntary scheme: a regular paid position is now needed due to the work levels
- A lack of academic involvement as it is not recognised as part of their performance reviews
- There is currently no external evaluation scheme with sustainability organisations

In the future, the consortium wants to move away from being an operational group to taking more of a leadership role, acting as a knowledge hub at an institutional and student level and  with the local community.

Sustainability in internationalisation

Professor Eunice Simmons, Vice Chancellor at University of Chester, introduced the HE Climate Action Toolkit, produced in partnership with the Climate Commission Council, and provided numerous and detailed steps on how universities can engage with and implement sustainability in their institutions.  The toolkit’s themes covered 5 areas and each one was accompanied by plenty of links to resources and best practice.

The Climate Commission has 5 Key Priorities:

The Toolkit covers 5 themes:

Some of the key points Eunice focused on were to:

  • consider moving sustainability teams and professionals centrally within a university to raise their profile and influence
  • ensure sustainability roles have a seat at the top table in an institution
  • recognise the climate anxiety students are facing about their futures
  • review partnerships to ensure they are sustainable and effective
  • empower students to develop a purpose for their travel as a climate emergency means we can’t take travel for granted any more.

Speakers

In alphabetical order:

The IC Global at the SUIG Conference 2021

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The IC Café at the SUIG Conference 2021

On 25th and 26th May The IC Global joined the Scottish Universities International Group’s (SUIG) Conference.

We delivered and facilitated sessions on:

  • The IC Global and EUAC: Sustainability in Scottish International Higher Education (joined by Matt Woodthorpe, Scotland Programme Manager for EAUC Scotland):

This session provided a curated space for a thought provoking discussion with delegates across the conference. Collectively, Sirin and Charlene (The IC Global Co- Founders)  have over 45 years of UK higher education internationalisation sector-specific operational and leadership experience and helped to facilitate a thought-provoking discussion on internationalisation and sustainability. This session was designed to get colleagues thinking about Scottish universities’ approach to sustainability, how sustainability fits with their role and what role they can play in contributing to a more sustainable approach for their university.

  • UUKi International Government Strategy Update – UK & Scotland Perspectives (joined by Vivienne Stern, Director UUKi and Brad MacKay, Vice Principal International, University of St Andrews)

The UK International Education Strategy (IES) was launched in March 2019 and updated in February 2021. We looked at what has changed, what progress has been made and what the next steps look like. We also looked at the Scottish perspective and how Scotland is engaging with the UK IES. 

Thank you to SUIG conference organisers and Claire Grant and Joe Mckinney for supporting our sessions.

Thank you also to SUIG member colleagues joining us for these sessions and thank you also for your questions and comments. It was great to be with you all to think together and share.

To continue to engage with like minded professionals in international education, become part of The IC Community and get involved in future IC Cafes.

Join our Community

The Digital Pivot of South African Higher Education

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The Digital Pivot of South African Higher Education

The rapid spread of the global COVID-19 pandemic through 2020 proved, once again, that a major societal crisis is always a catalyst for change. 

While universities were already exploring and adopting new technologies and digital ways of work and learning, the sudden lockdown in March 2020 forced higher education institutions (HEIs) to fast-track flexible delivery modes, ushering in a phase of accelerated digital transformation in higher learning and, importantly, carrying the universities into the arena of innovation in teaching and entrepreneurial thinking.

Universities around the world suspended in-person teaching and began to provide alternative online content and modes, as the pandemic became the impetus for rapid adoption of electronic platforms for sharing learnings.

Of course, the internet was created to enable academic collaboration. But, the pandemic accelerated the pace and momentum of international collaboration and communication, especially in terms of peer-to-peer engagement on current challenges and emerging best practices.

I was fortunate to participate in one such engagement through the IC Café series of weekly 45-minute webinars hosted by Charlene Allen and Sirin Myles, the founders of IC Global Partnership based in the United Kingdom. The IC Café for university heads and directors is a virtual coffee date where up to 200 HEI heads and directors from 30 countries are invited to meet on the Zoom platform and share ideas as sector experts. The format is relatively informal and the presenters and virtual attendees participate in a format that is more guided conversation than seminar. Sessions are available later as downloadable video clips.

My fellow panellists in the IC Café session on ‘The Digital Pivot of South African Higher Education’ (23 February 2021) were Meekness Lunga-Ayidu, programme manager for science and higher education at the British Council, and Susana Galvan, the country director of the British Council for South Africa and Namibia. Unsurprisingly, the conversation was dominated by the effects of and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic with the reality of inequality an ever-present background.

In her opening remarks, Susana noted that there was a new sense of communality that was pushing people to innovate, to work differently and particularly to develop new ways of delivery.

“Partnerships and new ways of working are going to be really crucial moving forward in this new post-COVID world,” she said.

She also felt that the pandemic had made people revisit how they treated one another and the importance of values and kindness.

Expanding on the notion of communality, Meekness explained that the British Council worked to build strategic partnerships between UK and South African universities to deliver multiple higher education and science programmes. These programmes are mostly focused on strategic priorities such as expanding access, enhancing quality and increasing diversity within the higher education system. The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions had severely impacted the programmes, restricting travel and forcing the cancellation of physical events.

However, the British Council was able to pivot digitally in one partner programme on student entrepreneurship with Universities South Africa. Part of the original plan included a physical study visit to the UK to secure collaboration with HEIs there. This had to be replaced with a virtual tour but with the opportunity was taken to expand the scope to include meetings with nine academic thought leaders in entrepreneurship from the UK, USA and Africa. A real-world version of similar scope would have been impossibly costly.

At UWC, an institution whose students mostly have economically disadvantaged backgrounds, our immediate problem once the campus shut down was that many students lacked the devices to access online learning or the funds to purchase data, and they didn’t necessarily have the skills to navigate an online learning environment either. We had to engage corporates and the telecommunication industry around ways to reduce the cost of and reliance on data, look to more accessible mobile-friendly platforms and offline media to deliver content, and raise and invest considerable funds quickly to enable our students to participate fully in our adapted programming.

Undoubtedly, the virtual space offers many new possibilities to truly reimagine universities, and to re-examine where, how, through and with whom higher learning can and should take place. Wherever digital innovation promises to take us forward, such opportunities should be embraced. However, the virtual space has a context that must be grounded in the lived physical and material reality of our students.

Yes, that reality has been gravely impacted by the coronavirus, but COVID-19 is also acting as a great leveller in a positive sense. Since both well and less-resourced institutions and students have been physically limited in the same way [putting aside for the moment the caveat of the problem of access being resolved], our students can approach the virtual world on a more equitable footing.

This advantage is relevant to entrepreneurship education and developing student entrepreneurs generally and, in particular, to taking the opportunities offered by the digital space as a virtual incubator.

Our student entrepreneurs can ‘travel’ virtually for free, pitch ideas and projects to potential partners and funders, engage with mentors and expertise from anywhere in the world and build a presence online that gives them (and us) a footprint as impactful as much better-resourced enterprises.

Furthermore, the broader collaboration accommodated by the virtual space encourages diversity and promotes inclusiveness. The potential for students to participate in cross-border, cross-cultural, multi-disciplinary project teams is then limited only by their imagination and whether they have the confidence to grasp the nettle.

The choices universities make next are not akin to a traveller at a crossroad. Rather, we’re poised at a digital pivot in higher education, where embracing digital technology and the virtual world will turn us towards a new direction, to a future space where the technology itself becomes the place of learning.

Join our Heads and Directors Community

Environment, Our Home

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Environment, Our Home

The IC’s ‘Environment, Our home’ poster has been featured at  APAIE 2022, the British Council’s Going Global 2021 conference and EAIE 2021’s conference. We focused on what we can do in the education sector in the area of internationalisation and global engagement to support action against climate change. We continue to use our poster to initiate discussions and share best practice around sustainability strategies and developing initiatives. 

Painting by Bahar Murphy ( The IC Global Partnership Resident Artist), 90cmx90cm; collage, mixed technique on deep canvas.
Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Hub © The IC Global Partnership Ltd.

What are the innovative environmental sustainability projects/practices universities’ international teams have introduced?

We are creating The International Education Knowledge Hub for Environmental Sustainability for The IC Community, open to the wider international education community.  We welcome you to share your examples of best practice in supporting the UN’s SDGs and reducing carbon emission.  Your projects or initiatives could apply to international student recruitment, student mobility, international partnership development or internationalisation at home.

Using The IC’s Environmental Sustainability Model: Innovation, Implementation, Impact, we invite you to submit your innovative projects/practices.

We are pleased to be collaborating with Climate Action Network for International Educators (CANIE). Your best practice will be showcased on The IC Global Partnership website and your work will also be highlighted via the CANIE digital resource library.

Submit