Building Quality Assurance into International Post GraduateStudies: Geosciences as a case study

It is fundamentally an operationalisation plan to design, implement and assess quality assurance interventions in some key activities that commonly underpin institutions’ internationalisation strategies. It will be informed and co-developed by a leading UK HEI, the University of Portsmouth, which has a strong international focus, track record of developing and implementing quality assurance in research and teaching, and an excellent research record. It will focus on one discipline, Geoscience, in order to realistically be able to instigate a meaningful study and will disseminate its findings and recommendations to other disciplines and HEIs to help develop quality assurance into internationalisation and ensure that the process is meaningful, valuable and impactful.

Internationalisation is a key goal for higher education. It is widely believed to enrich teaching and learning and to provide extra experience and opportunities for students for their future careers. However, relatively little research has been done into how we measure the quality of international activities and how they impact students and researchers. This project was designed to specifically investigate international activities in the field of geoscience between UK and Brazilian partners. It involves a joint meeting in the UK with Brazilian colleagues, and a fieldtrip in Brazil for UK and Brazilian students.

Due to Covid 19, the fieldtrip in Brazil could not take place so instead a virtual fieldtrip was arranged with the field areas in the UK and Brazil. 30 international students were invited to attend from 12 different countries. In addition, external speakers from 3rd sector organisations shared their experience of internationalisation and the looming energy transition to the students. Virtual interventions such as these are an ideal way of reaching a disperse community from lower income global south countries and are a viable way of providing both geoscience education and networking opportunities.