Internationalisation of higher education has been a subject of study and research for a long time. However, there has not yet been any substantial research conducted on internationalisation of fine art and design higher education in Europe. This research intends to study the why, what, how and the possible outcome of internationalisation in higher education institutions of fine art and design. This research also studies how the different stakeholders are involved in the internationalisation process of the higher education institutions of fine art and design. This research is limited to the fields of fine art and design within the whole art higher education. This research also focuses only at the bachelor level of education.

The proposed research will use qualitative methods to study the different rationales of internationalisation as derived from the definition of international (de Wit et.al, 2015) in higher education institutions specifically that of fine art and design. Case studies will be conducted with six European art higher education institutions. The six art academic institutions have been chosen as samples of different regions of Europe and for the unique positions of the institutions.

Interviews will be conducted with the different stakeholders in the five case study art institutions – students, teachers, policymakers, management and alumni. After analysis of the data collected via interview this research hopes to answer the why, what, how and the possible outcomes of internationalisation in higher education institutions of fine art and design. It also hopes to find similarities and possible differences in the way internationalisation is carried out in the chosen art academies in Europe. Both the formal strategies and the informal feelings and thoughts about internationalisation will be studied in this research. The goal is to find similarities and possible differences in the formal and informal worlds of internationalisation.

• arts
• design
• higher education
• internationalisation