The aim of this study is to find out how concepts and practices of internationalisation and interculturality in higher education are understood. The study will also investigate the relation between the two concepts, what they have in common and how they could be used to facilitate internationalisation and interculturality in higher education. 

 Uzhegova & Baik (2020) use in their work Knight´s definition of internationalisation as ‘the process of integrating an international, intercultural or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education’ (2003, 2) (Uzhegova & Baik, 2020, 2).

Internationalisation involves actors, context and different factors that facilitate or hinder its implementation. The actors include students from institutions, international students and staff from host institutions (Trahar & Hyland, 2011). On the other hand, internationalisation could be undertaken locally, by including students with varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds within the institution or within the country (Sanderson 2011). 

 Internationalisation of the curriculum is thought to benefit the internationalisation process. It is supposed to empower students to gain global citizenship skills to take employment in most countries and undertake the work expected for the position (Kirik et al, 2018).  

The level of internationalisation in a higher education institution is influenced by different factors. Development of higher education in a country, the languages used in the education system, the economic development of a country as well as the attractiveness of the location of the higher education institution are supposed to influence the internationalisation of the specific institution (Uzhegova & Baik, 2020). 

Intercultural communication skill is one of the prior conditions to develop intercultural competence. Intercultural competence makes it possible to lay the ground for intercultural understanding and creating common learning platforms for students of diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Henneby & Fordyce, 2018). One of the important aspects of intercultural communication is language. Language could enhance or hinder intercultural communication and in extension intercultural competence (Dunworth et al, 2021). To develop intercultural communication competence (ICC), Munezane (2021) considers some factors from Byram´s model (1997, 2008). The factors are, “knowledge of self and other, of interaction; relativising self, valuing other; skills of interpreting and relating; skills of discovering and/or interacting; and political education, critical cultural awareness” (Munezane, 2021, 1666).

 While understanding others in relation to self is important, authors also emphasis for developing intercultural competence there is need for openness to others experiences, curiosity and interdependence (Munezane, 2021). According to Yarosha et tal (2018), knowledge, awareness, skills and attitudes are the building blocks for intercultural competence, and contribute to creating cooperative learning environment for participants (Hennebry & Fordyce, 2018). Spencer-Oatey & Dauber (2019) strengthens these points on developing intercultural competence by emphasising the importance of “(a) positive attitudes (e.g. openness and curiosity) towards diversity and motivation to learn about/engage with it and (b) experiences of difference that take people out of their comfort zones and stimulate new thinking and behaviour”. (pp.1049-1050). 

Bilingualism is considered as one of the main challenges for intercultural communication (Tucker King et al, 2021). In many countries English is used as lingua franca in higher education institutions. However, how English is used by native speakers in higher education institutions, is perceived often by international students as creating hindrance to written and spoken communication (Holliday, 2017). In addition to language barrier, there are also challenges of ethnocentrism (Munezane, 2021; Harrison, 2011) and fear of threat from outside to one´s own language and cultural identity (Kirk et al, 2018). Less willingness to communicate with people other than one’s own group (Munezane, 2021) is also considered as an obstacle to intercultural communication and competence. 

Method/methodology. This study is based on a brief literature review. There are several databases with the possibility of searching articles with different themes, for this study I limited myself to one database, Web of Science. In Web of Science, I searched for articles using the terms “internationalisation + higher education”, then “interculturality + higher education” and finally “internationalisation and interculturality in higher education”. These searches gave quit a large number of articles. By limiting my search to peer reviewed journal articles and articles written after 2010, I could reduce the number of articles. By reading the titles and abstracts of 54 articles, I could identify the purpose, research questions, theoretical perspective, methods used, results, discussions and conclusions. These helped me to choose 14 of the 54 articles with the focus on internationalisation in higher education, intercultural competence in higher education and articles dealing with both themes. For the purpose of this conference abstract, I am limiting myself to the 14 articles. When I develop the abstract into a full-fledged paper, I am planning to search and include more relevant literature, articles, scientific reports and books. To be able to understand the result of the different studies, content analysis is used as methodology. With the help of content analysis, the aims of the studies, methods of studies, theoretical perspectives, findings and discussions are critically scrutinized. The study focused on relevant findings in relation to internationalisation and intercultural competences. But this does not mean all findings from the literature review are included in this short text.

Conclusion Internationalisation could be steered by top-down directive or bottom-up initiative and there are also possibilities that it is a combination of both (Kirik et al, 2018). There could be motives for internationalisation to increase quality of education, exchange knowledge and experiences. It is also possible that some higher education institutions are motivated mainly for attracting fee paying students, improve the position of their institution in the national, regional or international ranking systems (Kirik et al, 2018) or impose what they consider as their “best practice” on others. The possibility of developing intercultural communication and gaining intercultural competence could contribute to creating cooperative learning environment (Hennebry &Fordyce, 2018). In this process participating individuals´ agency helps to achieve the goals of intercultural communication and competence (Sanderson, 2011; Tucker King et al, 2021). When unwillingness and lack of curiosity dominate it can hinder developing intercultural competence. In conclusion successful internationalisation obviously need intercultural communication skills and competence (Spencer-Oatey & Dauber, 2019). Suitable intercultural environment can lead to development of three stages of interactivity, reciprocity and unity (Kudo et al, 2018). While it is difficult to separate the concepts of internationalisation and intercultural competence (Collins, 2018), it is possible to consider the interplay between them. Intercultural competence can pave the way for internationalisation. Openness, curiosity, and willingness to share life experience with others could be commonly used for achieving intercultural competence and internationalisation in higher education.

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