Understanding Faculty Perspectives on Research Internationalization in Georgian Universities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63410/jds2025/05Abstract
This paper explores how academic staff at Georgian universities perceive and engage with the internationalization of research, drawing on 32 in depth interviews with faculty across 16 institutions. The study revealed respondents’ views on internationalization, along with their attitudes toward the factors that enable or hinder research internationalization, and the contexts in which they operate. Key enabling factors identified include personal motivation, early international experience (“prior internationalization”), supportive supervisors, institutional funding mechanisms, and access to external grants. Respondents also highlighted the importance of long-standing collaborations and departmental traditions of internationalization, particularly in the natural sciences.
The study also reveals significant barriers at the individual (e.g., lack of English proficiency, caregiving responsibilities disproportionately affecting women, lack of experience), institutional (e.g., low salaries, inadequate
funding, administrative overload), national (e.g., formalistic policies, economic challenges), and international (e.g., stereotypes about the region) levels. Contrasting notions of “selective” and “formal” internationalization also emerged. While the former refers to efforts to collaborate with well-established academics or institutions, the latter describes practices of internationalization that do not genuinely enhance research quality.
The concept of “internationalization as burden” is also linked to the latter, capturing the negative perception of internationalization among faculty who, due to a combination of individual and structural constraints, are unable to engage meaningfully in international research collaboration. Overall, the findings underscore that while there is a normative commitment to internationalization exists in Georgian higher education, meaningful implementation requires increased funding and targeted capacity-building. Without such measures, internationalization risks remaining a formal exercise rather than a transformative academic practice.
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