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Regionalisation in education has gained increased interest and importance because of the increasing collaborations among neighbouring nations. Definitions of the term vary, and more so the regionalisation practices and initiatives of higher educational institutions. In the Philippines, the emphasis on regionalisation has become even more pronounced with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Integration Vision. This vision of the ASEAN is geared towards enhancing regional collaboration and the creation of an ASEAN identity and puts education at the forefront, considering it as a strategic objective to achieve the region’s development agenda of economic, social and cultural growth. It becomes of paramount importance then to examine how regionalisation in education is understood by university constituents, its manifestations in terms of institutional activities and especially, how the ASEAN Integration shapes these initiatives and constructions of regionalisation. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using a multiple case study design that looked at three higher education institutions (HEIs) in the Philippines, this study found that regionalisation is associated and interchanged with internationalisation in terms of purpose, goal and activities, but is differentiated in dimensions of geographical location and orientation.

Institutional initiatives pertaining to regionalisation were largely functional and mostly open and soft collaborations. The ASEAN Integration creates an ASEAN-centric consciousness, and functions as an opportunity for expanding partnerships, institutional niches and programmatic initiatives; and for legitimising regionalisation and internationalisation goals.

These definitions and approaches to regionalisation have significant policy implications as HEIs strive to respond to the challenges of the Integration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the student mobility programs of the three initiatives – in Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Institution of Higher Education and Development, University Mobility in Asia and Pacific (UMAP), and Campus Asia – and provide a comparative analysis of the respective programs in terms of the role of government, institutional involvement, quality assurance, and challenges. In addition, the paper will assess their impacts on higher education regionalization by regulatory models toward the end of the paper.

The study adopts qualitative document analysis as a major research method to explore the developmental models of three student mobility programs. Document analysis is an approach used to gather and review the content of existing written documentation related to the study in order to extract pieces of information in a rigorous and systematic manner.

ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS), Collective Action for Mobility Program of University Student in Asia (CAMPUS Asia), and UMAP student mobility schemes have a shared purpose in higher education regionalization, but with different regulatory frameworks and Functional, Organizational, and Political approach models. AIMS and CAMPUS Asia as a strong network and government-led initiatives adopt a combination of functional, organizational, and political approaches; UMAP provides university-driven regional mobility programs with a hybridized force. However, all three of them face the same challenges at regional and national levels, such as different national regulation, coordination among participants, and implementation of credit transfer schemes.

The scale of three student mobility programs is still low, which results in limited impact on higher education regionalization in Asia. However, a stronger decision-making model and increased financial support to universities and students are desirable for the creation of a sustainable and effective network.

This is an original research and makes a great contribution to Asian nations.

The purpose of this paper is to outline some of the historic ways of reviewing patterns of regional engagement, with special attention to how the emergent concepts of higher education (HE) regionalization stand in relationship to regionalism. Additional implications are spelled out for governance, citizenship and university transformation.

This conceptual essay is meant to appear in conjunction with more discrete, case‐oriented examinations of Asia Pacific HE regionalization.

Discussions of regionalism in Asian HE are being replaced by those focused on regionalization; the former is a nation‐state and geographic policy framework whereas the latter tends to refer to emergent empirical relationships. Regionalization itself can be further distinguished in terms of its “older” forms, focused on geographic proximities and exchanges defined and carried out within those proximities. New regionalization is increasingly linked to global circuits of exchange in which the currencies of such exchanges are closely linked to the emergent dynamics of the knowledge society and economy. These dynamics in turn are closely linked to patterns of migration and mobility in HE and the efforts of higher education institutions (HEIs) and regional governments to develop new governance structure structures appropriate for this style of regionalization. These regional dynamics reflect tensions that draw institutions and nations together (centripetal forces) and those that keep them apart (centrifugal forces). These processes are marked by governance dynamics, those of affinity and affiliation, transnational innovation, and redefinitions of the responsibilities and promises of citizenship.

Use of these modal concepts can be used to promote and extend a region‐wide discussion and related research relevant to HE transformation within the region.

This paper explores the issue of developing and enhancing intra-ASEAN international student mobility given the context of ASEAN integration, regionalization of ASEAN higher education and the various intra‐ASEAN student mobility schemes currently implemented.

It explores higher education policies, available higher education and international student mobility data, as well as the various intra‐ASEAN (and relevant) student mobility schemes to present the current status of intra‐ASEAN student mobility, challenges and opportunities to further enhance student mobility within the ASEAN region.

Aside from showing that intra‐ASEAN student mobility is significantly low compared to outbound student mobility from ASEAN countries, the paper also highlights the relationship between a country’s income status with choice of intra‐ASEAN or extraASEAN student mobility. Finally, it recommends developing a comprehensive intra‐ASEAN mobility scheme taking the merits of the various intra‐ASEAN mobility schemes currently implemented and guided by developments in the European ERASMUS mobility programs.

This is probably the first (in fact, it is an exploratory) paper that address the issue of intra‐ASEAN international student mobility, which aims to explore relevant issues to address the development of a comprehensive ASEAN mobility scheme.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a background on the Thai higher education system which consists of over 160 public and private universities and colleges, under the purview of the Commission on Higher Education of the Ministry of Education. Particular emphasis is placed on the Rajmangala University of Technology (RMUT) system, consisting of nine regional technology universities, consolidated less than ten years ago from over 30 region‐based technology institutes, spreading over 20 provinces.

The paper looks at challenges faced by the Commission and the University: aligning uneven and highly differentiated capacity with emergent and shifting educational needs; distributing or gaining access to resources to assure that quality is both established and maintained; and dealing with the existential fact that the very technological needs that one is seeking to educate for are changing literally moment by moment. Mechanisms on collaboration among the nine universities, and management practices to ensure effective regionalization are presented.

Thailand is witnessing a rapid expansion of the Thai higher education system. Two new university systems, the Rajbhat University system and the Rajmangala University of Technology‐RMUT system are newcomers. Both have evolved out of colleges under the original Ministry of Education for many decades. They have been under‐funded and inherited characteristics uncommon to universities. The RMUTs have to establish themselves among existing, mature and well developed technological universities. Issues and challenges are to be addressed by the new governance and management mechanisms.

This paper provides insight into the challenges and developments faced by the higher education system in Thailand.

The purpose of this paper is to see if economic regionalization in Asia is a trend for the future, and if it heralds educational regionalization, thus uniting economic internationalization and education.

This has been shown to be the case in the European Union where it is still a work in progress and may well be sliding backward, and it is certainly the case in Asia where despite or perhaps because of the plethora of regional organizations (well over 100), policies and programs, to say nothing of the continuing historical tensions between nations and sub‐regions, the process of harmonization has lurched along and questions remain as to its long‐term substance.

It is suggested that the proposition of these goals is much easier than the implementation for a variety of political, economic, and cultural reasons.

In this study a conceptual framework utilizing the concepts of centripetal and centrifugal forces is introduced to facilitate a focus on the forces and factors affecting regionalization and harmonization of higher education in the Asian region.

This paper sought to understand at one time point what was known and not known about the status and use of indicators of internationalization of higher education in Asia–Pacific. More specifically, we identified and mapped publicly available indicators of international of higher education in the region. We examined the ways by which internationalization has been measured and the indicators used, setting up discussion of what may be missing from internationalization efforts.

The primary questions were: (1) What are the current available sources of data in the Asia–Pacific region? (2) How is internationalization measured in publicly available databases and academic materials in Asia–Pacific? To answer these questions, we carried out a structured search of academic and agency literatures. Review of these literatures led us to develop definitions and a classification system by which indicators were classified and examined.

Indicators clustered almost exclusively around measures of student mobility, neglecting a wide range of other possible measures. The authors discuss the implications for internationalization of higher education in the region and draw on existing critical literature to speculate why this might be the case, and what dimensions of internationalization are likely overlooked with such a limited focus.

Internationalization of higher education has gained considerable momentum worldwide in recent years, and higher education in the Asia–Pacific region is arguably the world's most dynamic. Despite such dynamism, no research to our knowledge has mapped the way in which internationalization is measured by actors in the region.

Policies regarding international student enrollment represents diversified responses and attitudes on internationalization of higher education, which is associated not only to the internal reforms of the higher education system but also to the adjustment of government-institution relationships in larger contexts of economic development, and cultural and diplomatic strategies. The purpose of this paper is therefore to analyze the trend of the mainland China’s inbound international student mobility during the past decades in the broader context of the country’s diplomatic and domestic political circumstances.

By using a historical and holistic approach, this paper identifies four stages of the development of international education for inbound international students, and examines the underpinning ideologies or motives of the trend.

Findings of this research suggestthat different from the triumph of other Asian countries in international education, neo-liberalism has inserted a very limited impact to the development of international education of the mainland China, mainly at the micro level; the main motive of international education in China is to serve its domestic politics and diplomacy. A type of new nationalism is emerging in China’s recent global strategy.

This paper responds to the broader discussion of natioanlism vs internationalism by looking at the complex relationship between the state, international relations, and higher education institutions.

Modernization of Russian higher education is carried out with the purpose of its successful integration into the global educational environment. However, the contemporary management model of most Russian universities demonstrates a low efficiency level. The purpose of this paper is to identify the problems of organizing the universities’ strategic development and to seek the opportunities to achieve strategic competitiveness of Russian universities.

The basic research methods included the following: content analysis, expert evaluations, analysis of the modern concepts of universities strategic management, comparative analysis of high school practice of strategy development, and government regulations in historical perspective.

The major result of the study is the conclusion that the most important problem of the competitiveness of Russian universities is the lack of strategic flexibility. We can say that there is a structural nature of the management crisis affecting the whole system of university education. Over the past 25 years, there has been a radical change in the basic institutional conditions for the development of higher education institutions in Russia: the volumes and changed model of financing; the market landscape and the regional environment; the conditions and the nature of the interaction with international partners, etc. At the same time, in most cases, the platform of this system and standards of internal policy have remained unchanged. Russian education practically lost its individuality. This paper shows the experience of strategic management at leading federal and regional universities of Russia, analyzes the implementation of their development programs, and gives examples of best practices in the use of strategic planning tools.

The relevance and value of the paper is the following: for the first time, thorough attention has been paid to the accumulated potential of Russian universities, which has been formed over a long evolutionary path and now can be positioned as an important management resource in the organization of strategic management for enhancing the global competitiveness of the national system of higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) flagship universities in moving the agenda of regional integration forward through academic/research collaboration and cooperation.

Flagship universities are leading universities in the national higher education systems of countries that make up the ASEAN. This study on the ASEAN’s flagship universities is based on a three-pronged strategy, namely, a literature review, analysis of websites contents, and citation of supporting pieces of evidence from other relevant studies to support arguments. Using the QS top universities in Asia 2016 listing, top 70 public universities in ASEAN were selected for investigation. In instances where public universities in a particular ASEAN country were not listed in the QS listing, a premier public university of that country was then selected for investigation.

There is a tendency for ASEAN’s flagship universities to look beyond ASEAN, primarily to establish vertical collaboration, which is important to their efforts in creating their image and enhancing their reputation. As a result, academic/research collaboration among flagship universities and collaboration between these universities and other universities in ASEAN is glaringly on the low side. Interestingly, to move the regional integration agenda in ASEAN, other intermediary agencies outside of ASEAN, such as in the European Union, are very active in providing a platform for both flagship and non-flagship universities to collaborate.

While regional collaboration and cooperation within ASEAN and East Asia have been discussed elsewhere, this paper has utilised and expanded Douglass’ (2016) idea of flagship universities to include regional relevance for the purpose of regional integration of ASEAN.