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This paper aims to review and analyze the functions, strategies and related issues of developing a regional education hub in the trends of education development in China as well as the Asian Pacific region.

Taking Hong Kong as an emerging case, it examines through literature and international comparison the relationship between education hub development and higher education development as well as the strategic functions of an education hub to the future development of Hong Kong.

The development of an education hub was found closely linked to the demand for higher education in the Asian Pacific region as well as the internal dynamic of higher education and society in Hong Kong. The mode of education hub development in Hong Kong should be driven by soft‐power building instead of industrialization. The requirements for successful implementation include the huge demands for higher education in the region, the strengths of the higher education sector, the supporting policies and measures for international students and education service providers, and the leadership and support of central agencies.

This paper provides a new typology of higher education developments and a new mode of education hub development to analyze the strategic functions and requirements of developing education hub in the context of Asia‐Pacific Region. The discussion and analysis in this paper will contribute to the related literature, policy development and initiative implementation in the areas of education hub and higher education not only in Hong Kong but also other parts of the world.

This chapter presents a case study of building TU/e innovation Space, a unique learning hub for developing, sustaining, and disseminating research-informed challenge-based learning (CBL) practices at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). This learning hub for education innovation fosters the collaboration between students, industry, research, and societal organizations and drives the continued development of the CBL approach at TU/e. The chapter presents insights from the development of CBL at TU/e innovation Space, drawn from postcourse evaluation surveys of two flagship courses, the innovation Space Bachelor End Project (ISBEP; third year bachelor level) and the innovation Space Project (ISP; master's course level). Analysis of the data shows that students generally rated the courses highly. As the main motivation to choose these courses, students cited the desire to do something else than their own major, aiming for interdisciplinarity and breadth of knowledge, and wanting to do something real-life or business-like. Students also liked the ability to choose their own project, but in some cases, struggled with the structure of the assessment. We also briefly describe academics' perspective on running CBL courses at the hub and present additional activities related to the full learning ecosystem of the hub. Finally, we describe some of the future directions in terms of CBL research and educational developments at the hub.

Higher education can play a role in the implementation of sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, there are steps and structures which are necessary for this to be possible. This paper aims to establish how the University of Zimbabwe (UZ)’s innovation hub is implementing SDGs for water, energy and food, resources which are in critical shortage in Harare; as part of its mandate to implement the newly introduced Education 5.0.

This paper is based on qualitative research. Interview guides were used to gather information from Harare residents, university staff and students. Observations were undertaken and review of secondary data was done. The data was collated into a narrative and content analysis was used to analyse it.

The UZ innovation hub is aimed to deliver Education 5.0. It houses research projects on energy and food. Water-related projects are still in the pipeline. The research revealed challenges that call for mobilisation of funding to support the projects, to protect researchers’ intellectual property rights and to strengthen interdisciplinary research and information flows between the university and the community. The paper argues for higher and tertiary education institutions to work directly with policymakers and societies in implementing SDGs.

Education 5.0 is relatively new and not much research has been done to establish how it intends to deliver its objectives. The innovation hub model has the potential to yield positive results in SDGs implementation. This research can motivate other universities to work with policymakers and communities in implementing SDGs for urban transformative adaptation.

This study explores the best strategies for regional economic development to attract highly skilled populations, regardless of whether the region is a multisector or unisector economic hub. It also determines the development variables affecting the success of integrated regional economic hubs to achieve spatial equality, enhance economic productivity and attain environmental sustainability.

In addition to a qualitative analysis, this study employed quantitative techniques using SPSS software. This allowed amplification of the most significant explanatory variables affecting the weaknesses and strengths of economic hubs.

The results highlight approaches that can be used to achieve socio-economic sustainability in regional hubs. These include multisectors or main centralised hubs (smart economic regional capital), which provide new services to regions and act as a unidevelopment sector or as a regional, economic capital.

The study analyses the effect of economic strategies and integration of natural resources and the required core services in regional economic development.

Case studies of successful economic hubs are discussed. The most important services proposed in such hubs promote human development and increase the standard of living.

Integration between the hubs in a region is fundamental to attracting direct investments that can benefit the local population.

The results could help governments, economists and planners implement multisector developmental hubs to achieve sustainable development.

Despite the multitude of regional-based collaborations in higher education, regionalism theories have received relatively little attention in the literature on higher education. In view of this gap, this chapter seeks to make a case for the study of regionalism and explores how this field could enrich higher education research. This chapter discusses the context of the rise of the regional landscape vis-à-vis the acceleration of globalisation and internationalisation of higher education. It further probes into theoretical and empirical insights, elucidating in particular core regionalism concepts, theories and approaches within the more recent ‘turns’ in regionalism. Empirical cases from regions across the world are presented to help expound on the conceptual points raised.

This paper aims to examine the development and effectiveness of quality assurance as a competitive tool for Singapore's private tertiary education in an increasingly competitive global market.

A review of the growth of private education in Singapore is presented and issues related to quality and Singapore's quality assurance framework are discussed in this paper. The experience of “private schools”, that is, private tertiary education providers, in relation to quality assurance is documented through two case studies of two typical private schools in Singapore.

It was found that quality assurance of private tertiary education in Singapore is still narrowly focused on business and management processes. The government has not yet imposed any form of regulatory framework to ensure that academic standards are upheld. Rather, private schools are relying heavily on their own initiatives to safeguard teaching quality.

This paper reveals the insufficient nature of quality assurance in Singapore's tertiary private education industry. The paper suggests a need for more collaboration between the Singapore Government and the private education providers in order that appropriate quality assurance is provided. The findings strongly suggest that it is critical for Singapore to re‐evaluate its quality assurance framework in order to realize its vision of becoming a regional educational hub.

This paper draws from the experience of the interviewees and will be of interest to those in the field of private education.

The research aims to assess the achievements and challenges of international branch campuses (IBCs) to date and to consider how IBC development may progress in the future.

The article presents a review of the scholarly and grey literatures on IBCs. The commentary and discussion is structured around the objectives, perspectives and experiences of three key stakeholder groups, namely the institutions that own IBCs, students and host countries.

Some IBCs have failed to achieve their student recruitment and financial targets, while others have been successful, often expanding and moving into new, larger, purpose-built campuses. In the last few years, several countries have announced their intention to become a transnational education hub, or at least to allow the establishment of IBCs. It may be reasonable to assume that when there is demand for a product, supply will eventually follow. IBCs will survive and prosper as long as they provide benefits to each of their main stakeholder groups (i.e. students, institutions and governments), and as long as the local demand for higher education places exceeds the total supply.

The article provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review of IBC developments and research during the period 2000–2020. The findings and conclusions will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners.

The main purpose of the present paper is twofold: to examine and compare the current strategies and policies that are employed by the UK, Australia and Singapore and to recommend appropriate strategies and policies to higher education institutions and the Hong Kong government and elsewhere that are interested in expanding their efforts in recruiting the growing number of students from other countries who are planning to study overseas.

The data for this project were obtained primarily from documents and in‐depth interviews. Documents include government reports, policy addresses, official statistics, etc. The in‐depth interviews were conducted in Hong Kong as well as in the four studied cities – Mumbai, New Delhi, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur. Interviewees included government officials, academics, higher education institutions’ representatives, consultant generals, and officials from policy bodies.

It is clear from the findings of this present study that a set of favorable policies and strategies at the national level was behind the success of these competitors. Such policies are not confined to educational policies but are extended to population and employment policies.

Though the study examined policies and strategies employed by three countries, findings from the study may generate useful information to countries that may be interested in exporting their higher education to Asian markets.

The paper suggests that if Hong Kong is to attain success in becoming an international exporter of education services, it may need to adopt favorable policies at institute and system level, and in so doing it can definitely benefit by carefully studying the strategies and policies employed by these three competitors.

Few studies have examined and compared strategies and policies employed by these three key major players of higher education services. This study provides some useful strategies and policy recommendation to education decision makers in Hong Kong and elsewhere that may be interested in entering Asian markets.

The principal goal of the article is to examine how Singapore, one of the East Asian tiger economies, has attempted to diversify its higher education system by developing “transnational education” in the island state.

With particular reference to the most recent education reforms and changing higher education governance in Singapore, this article focuses on how the Singapore government has changed its higher education governance models in enhancing the global competitiveness of its higher education system by adopting more pro‐competition policy instruments and allowing the growth of transnational education in the city state.

The findings suggest the choice of policy tools (the choice of market forces in higher education and the rise of transnational education in the present case) is highly political and governments should pay particular attention to the particular socio‐economic and socio‐political contexts of their countries when making such choices.

The paper shows that the role of government in East Asia is still important, especially when there is a strong need for government to set up appropriate regulations, social protection and welfare, hence, governments in East Asia are very much conceived as a complement to the markets.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of internationalization of higher education (HE) in the United Arab Emirates by examining the development of its HE system, and analyzing the components and results of internationalization.

The study adopts a qualitative research methodology to analyze primary evidence from interviews with academics in the UAE, and uses documents and archival research as secondary evidence to provide a comprehensive view of the UAE’s internationalized HE sector. A review of the literature is undertaken to inform discussion and analysis which focuses on the internal and external environments of the UAE. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis identifies the benefits and challenges for the UAE of internationalized HE.

The study finds that internationalization of HE in the UAE has grown rapidly in the last decade, and that the UAE has sought to establish and promote itself as an “education hub” in the Middle East. However, this may subsume the government’s parallel goal of educating its citizenry to the level of skills necessitated by globalization. Three major forces promoting internationalization in the UAE are neoliberalism, quality assurance, and imported internationalization, an approach seeks the prestige conferred by international accreditation that is predominant in the UAE as well as other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. An area of concern is the governance of systems to ensure high quality for universities that may be state-owned, privately owned, or international branch campuses. The study concludes that regional integration could provide the way forward for these countries in their internationalization efforts, not by standardizing but by better formulating study programs across the range of state, private and international higher education institutions.

The study has important implications for HE policy and governance in the development of internationalized HE in the UAE. It provides theoretical perspectives with practical implications, focusing on some of the critical issues in this developing field for HE administrators and practitioners alike. It also has implications for the UAE’s national social values and cultural identity. This may be a reflection of the UAE’s relatively recent unification as a state whose HE system, developed to skill its population, has been overtaken by the imperative to compete in a globalized world. The research is limited by the absence of longitudinal data to review longer-term outcomes.

The UAE, like other GCC countries, is striving to take its higher educational system to a higher level of performance. This study can be considered as one of the very few studies in the area of the internationalization of HE in the UAE. It contributes to the HE literature by identifying factors and circumstances that facilitate, and hinder, the development of internationalization of HE in the UAE. Globalization can be considered as one of the history’s most significant social processes, and the HE sector plays a vital role in the delivery of knowledge and skills to societies, and thus its socio-economic development.