Reimagining Global Higher Education Partnerships

Global Higher Education Partnerships (GHEPs) have become a key component of higher education institutions’ international strategy, aimed at developing international learning communities and engaged global citizens. Varying in type, scale and practice, these educational connections offer teaching and learning opportunities involving collaboration at a transnational and multinational level. Yet, the complex global structures and power dynamics in which institutions are embedded present challenges for building equitable and reciprocal partnerships. This paper draws on research capturing the experiences of staff at a UK university forming and maintaining such partnerships, to understand the range of approaches, opportunities generated, and obstacles faced in fostering ethical partnerships. Findings reveal tensions between the individual and the institution and calls for higher education communities in the ‘global north’, in particular those within the European and North American context, to reflect on four aspects for more ethical partnerships: confronting complicity in enacting global inequalities; centring motivations on ethics of care; investing in human and environmental relationships; and creating space for open and honest dialogue across every level of GHEPs. The article argues that GHEPs must be reimagined by engaging with epistemologies that go beyond those that shape global higher education and support transformative pedagogies. We assert that institutions have a duty to look at equity and reciprocity within their institution too, to ensure they are open to envisioning and co-creating a more ethically ambitious landscape for GHEPs.