The internationalisation of higher education (HE) has been one of the most notable and pervasive developments in the HE sector in the last three decades, characterized by steadily rising numbers of internationally mobile students, increasing international research collaboration and new forms of education delivery (Proctor & Rumbley, 2018). The late 2010s, however, brought about a range of challenges for HE internationalisation: intensified geopolitical tensions, a rise of nationalist and populist forces as well as the global Coronavirus pandemic (de Wit & Altbach, 2020). The European HE landscape has had to tackle two major disruptors: the United Kingdom’s 2016 decision to leave the EU, and the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which began affecting European HE in spring 2020. Brexit set off a strenuous, multiple-year long negotiation process on future relations between the two parties involved. Potential limitations on freedom of movement between continental Europe and the United Kingdom (UK) as well as the loss of the UK as a major powerhouse in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) are two aspects of this geopolitical shift which deeply affect HE internationalisation (Corbett & Gordon, 2018). The Corona crisis put a sudden halt to on-site university learning and international mobility, and continues to pose profound challenges to teaching, research and, in some cases, financing of HE organizations (Ahlburg, 2020; OECD, 2020; Toquero, 2020). Both Brexit and COVID-19 can be characterized as exogenous shocks to the European HE landscape, which have required education policymakers and administrators to revisit longstanding internationalisation practices, and develop policy responses amid circumstances of uncertainty. Drawing on concepts from historical and sociological institutionalism (Mahoney & Thelen, 2010; Scott, 2008), this paper examines how actors on organizational and national levels of HE governance in France, Germany, and England responded to the two crises. More specifically, the paper investigates how the two disruptions have impacted the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutional pillars of the respective organizational fields (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) consisting of national and subnational HE actors with a particular focus on mobility-related policies. Based on document analysis and expert interviews, the study suggests that whilst having been disruptive to the status quo of internationalisation, both Brexit and the Corona crisis are also creating productive tensions, fostering the development of entirely new or previously neglected types of internationalisation activities, and partially intensifying international collaboration despite unfavourable external conditions.

Ahlburg, D. A. (2020). Covid-19 and UK Universities. The Political Quarterly, 91(3), 649–654. Corbett, A., & Gordon, C. (2018). Brexit and Higher Education and Research. In P. Diamond, P. Nedergaard, & B. Rosamond (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Politics of Brexit (pp. 103–117). de Wit, H., & Altbach, P. G. (2020). Internationalization in higher education: Global trends and recommendations for its future. Policy Reviews in Higher Education, 1–19. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 147–160. Mahoney, J., & Thelen, K. (2010). A theory of gradual institutional change. Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, 1, 1–37. OECD. (2020). Education at a Glance 2020: OECD indicators. OECD Publishing. Proctor, D., & Rumbley, L. E. (2018). The Future Agenda for Internationalization in Higher Education: Next Generation Insights into Research, Policy, and Practice. Routledge. Scott, W. R. (2008). Institutions and Organizations: Ideas and Interests. SAGE Publications. Toquero, C. M. (2020). Challenges and Opportunities for Higher Education Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Philippine Context. Pedagogical Research, 5(4).