Within the common European education space, foreign language knowledge is seen as an essential functional tool for the foundation of multilingual knowledge society involved in the globalized world economy. Therefore, a number of aims for the community in the field of higher education is put forward. Mobility of students and academic staff, international cooperation, information exchange, etc., become crucial components of tertiary education processes. It is apparent that the knowledge of foreign languages is a necessary prerequisite for the achievement of these aims.

The currently emerging shift in the way language is used becomes crucial for close exploration, thus, the research aims to explore the impact of rapid developments in professional fields rooted in political, economic, social and technological processes transforming the modern society on language use in higher education institutions. 

The development towards the internationalization of higher education leads to challenges rooted in the heterogeneity of cultural backgrounds and the spectrum of languages spoken by both students and academic staff in higher education institutions worldwide.

The paper presents the research data collected in the framework of the IntlUni Erasmus Academic Network project titled “The Challenges of the Multilingual and Multicultural Space”. The overarching aim of IntlUni is to identify the quality criteria that should characterise teaching and learning in the Multilingual and Multicultural Learning Space (M&MLS), as well as to develop recommendations for Higher Education Institutions aimed at implementing and ensuring the sustainability of quality teaching and learning in the M&MLS. The paper presents the case of Latvia as one of the types of settings for the International HEI (e.g., teaching through the national language or another language to national or international students with lecturers teaching through their L1, L2 or L3) as compared to other types of settings identified in the framework of the project.

The research questions put forward to achieve the research aim are as follows:

1. What the linguistic, cultural and pedagogical/didactic challenges in the various types of HEIs in the typology are;
2. What possible ways to meet these challenges within different HE teaching and learning cultures are;
3. What examples of successful practice in different scenarios are found;
4. What quality criteria for teaching and learning in the M&MLS are.

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