Background of the Study

Internationalization has become a key strategy that is reflected in multi-level policy documents, namely by national, supra-national and intranational organizations  (Brooks & Waters, 2011; Edelstein & Douglass, 2012). Global developments profoundly influence how internationalization is strategized. In recent years, a variety of interconnected problems or polycrisis, i.e. climate change or economic inequalities, have prompted internationalization to address these multifaceted challenges through research-informed responses. These complex problems necessitate collaborations of researchers and research systems (Voegtlin et al., 2022). 

One prominent example is  internationalization policies of European Higher Education & Research Area to strengthen collaborations among researchers across wider Europe, fostering knowledge transfer and coordination of research. International research collaborations within European Higher Education & Research Area are promoted to tackle fundamental problems of the societies despite the negative influences of recently expanding geopolitical conflicts on research collaborations (Bamberger & Huang, 2024). European Universities Alliances, Horizon Europe, COST Actions and Erasmus+ are some exemplary research frameworks. 

Previous research indicates that responsibility is increasingly embedded into internationalization of higher education strategies at national and intranational scales, as shown in some prior studies, i.e. comprehensive internationalization (de Wit & Hunter, 2020) or global social responsibility and internationalization of higher education for society (Jones et al., 2021; Leask & de Gayardon, 2021). Despite expanding attention, there is a lack of shared definition of responsibility in internationalization of higher education, yielding confusions  on what responsibility in internationalization really entails. 

This ambiguity on responsibility is also evident in internationalization of higher education strategies in European Higher Education & Research Area. Amid the on-going debates, this study suggests a comprehensive understanding of responsibility in internationalization of higher education by challenging the widely accepted assumption that responsibility in internationalization is self-evident in its meaning as a taken for granted concept. Therefore, this paper addresses the following research questions with a comparative analysis of prominent research policies and programmes in ERA, Finland and Türkiye: 

• In what ways is the theme of responsibility strategized in ERA, Finland and Türkiye'’s major international research programmes and policies?’
• How are responsibility narratives similar or different across three research contexts?

 Conceptual Framework

Theoretically this study approaches international research collaborations as more than just co-authorships or publications. International research collaborations are a social process of putting experience and expertise together to produce new knowledge to tackle global problems, which are too complicated to be solved alone (Bozeman & Boardman, 2014; Romani-Dias & Carneiro, 2020). Responsibility in this aspect refers to the outcomes of research and knowledge production benefiting the wider societies and creating an impact outside the scientific communities (Molthan-Hill et al., 2024). 

An emerging field of research focuses on responsible internationalization, which is an overarching theme highlighted in prominent studies (DeLaquil et al., 2024; de Wit & Glass, 2025; Romani-Dias & Carneiro, 2020; Stallivieri & Tabajara, 2020). Responsible internationalization refers to ‘the practices and policies targeted to benefit the wider communities, at home or abroad, via international or intercultural education, research, service and engagement (Brandenburg et al., 2019; Jones et al., 2021). Scholars argue that internationalization needs to be redefined to include planned contributions to the wider societies beyond universities (de Wit, 2019; Stein, 2019). 

Besides  conceptual framework of responsible internationalization and critical internationalization studies, in operationalizing responsibility concept, this study also benefits from University Social Responsibility, which means usage of research and knowledge production for the better quality of life (Herrera, 2009). In its broader meaning, University Social Responsibility refers to the responsibility of higher education institutions towards their communities and beyond by identifying and addressing issues of social and ethical relevance (Ayala-Rodríguez et al. 2019; Vallaeys et al. 2022).

Document analysis (Bowen, 2009) was employed to systematically review and interpret policy texts to develop an in-depth understanding and extract relevant information about how responsibility narratives are constructed in research policies across the ERA, Finland and Türkiye (Bowen, 2009). In this study, policy is understood both as a process and as a product (Ball, 2006; Rizvi & Lingard, 2009) meaning that while policy texts, i.e. strategies or guides, are the most typical forms of policies, we also understand policy as a process of agenda-setting, change-making and negotiating that shapes realities, justifications and actions. Documentary data was selected as official documents containing statements, strategies and objectives of collective production. For each context, the most influential agents on research and innovation policies were selected, namely the European Research Area & Horizon Europe; Research Council of Finland & Ministry of Education and Culture; and Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (Ministry of Industry and Technology) and Council of Higher Education. These institutions oversee research and cooperation programs through their strategies, guides and vision statements. Policy-mapping was conducted on the webpages of these institutions, and a total of 10 strategies, guides and vision statements were gathered. Qualitative content analysis and policy framing analysis techniques were used to investigate in what ways theme of responsibility is constructed in these policies. Firstly, qualitative content analysis was used to systemically analyze policy documents in terms of recurring themes related to responsibility in internatinalization following Kuckartz’s (2019) qualitative content analysis, combining deductive and inductive coding. Using a mixture of concept-driven and data-driven code development processes, the first phase of data analysis focused on generating overarching themes. Qualitative content analysis enables data reduction and sense-making of the textual materials to identify core messages and meanings with systematic coding (Mayring, 2000; Patton, 2002). Then, we used four-step policy framing analysis suggested by Entman (1993;2009) to identify the rhetorics behind policy formulation, , which are 1. problem definition (what are the issues that need to be addressed?); 2. causal interpretation (who and/or what causes the problems?); 3.moral evaluation (how does the policy judge the actors and causes of the problems from value/normative dimensions?) and 4.proposed solutions (what solutions are offered). Policy frames function as underlying narratives that exert power and highlight specific aspects of information through selective description of the overall situation (Entman, 2009). Framing analysis was employed to examine how perceived realities are delivered in ways that shape interpretations.

Responsibility in internationalization of higher education is framed at multiple levels, carrying varied contextual implications. Based on the textual analysis of major research policies and strategies on internationalization of research practices in the ERA, Finland and Türkiye, this study revealed three main narratives of responsibility descriptions in internationalization of research policies, which are 1. responsibility as economic development and innovation (economic responsibility); 2. responsibility as addressing societal challenges and UN SDGs (social responsibility) and 3. responsibility as principles of responsible research, open science and knowledge security (ethical responsibility). The findings showed different levels of responsibility descriptions across three contexts, promoting global, regional and national priorities in internationalization of research policies. The policies on internationalization of research across three contexts have converging and diverging features in describing responsibility in internationalized research. The main justification behind internationalized research, as commonly argued across all research policies, is the economical contributions of internationalized research to their contexts, e.g. jobs, industries, high-tech exports, start-ups, investments etc. The second type of responsibility narratiives in internationalized research pertain to social/societal contributions, namely how internationalization of research addresses challenges like UN SDGs. Across three contexts, social responsibility refers to tackling these challenges through internationalization of research. In three contexts, internationalized research is positioned as a strong means of tackling these challenges. Our analysis suggests that far from being an inherently obvious concept, responsibility in internationalization has multiple meanings in international research policies across three contexts, the ERA, Finland and Türkiye. Overall, this paper supports the claim in previous studies that responsibility in internationalization is a vaguely defined phenomenon; however, it also presents nuanced understandings of responsibility narratives in internationalization of research policies across three contexts in European Higher Education Area with global, regional and national variations attached to the meanings of responsibility in internationalization of higher education.

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