Evolution of university internationalisation strategies and language policies: challenges and opportunities for language centres

Abstract

In this paper, we explore how language centres can and need to seize the initiative in matters of internationalisation, language policy and supporting a multilingual and multicultural institutional environment. We identify and explore a number of challenges and opportunities, using the situation in the United Kingdom as our example, demonstrating how language centres can evidence their existing contribution to a wider interpretation of internationalisation than is often found within university international strategies. In that context, we explore the skillset of the ‘global graduate’ to which language centres can contribute extensively. We demonstrate how language centres can contribute to the achievement of research excellence in an international higher education environment and the dimensions of institutional language policies within the context of a global university. Finally, we share the AULC manifesto for the role of language centres within global universities and propose that CercleS might elaborate a similar manifesto to raise the profile of language centres at the heart of higher education internationalisation.