Internationalization of higher education: Excellence or network building? What do BRICS countries need most?

Abstract

The article is devoted to discussing international collaboration regarding higher education in the BRICS countries. It starts with the analysis of the radical changes occurred in the global academic world, described as a joint influence of global trends towards massification, globalization and internationalization. We argue that BRICS countries can meet these challenges by means of two main approaches: through building excellence university projects and via developing horizontally structured university networks, such as the BRICS Network University. The goals of the first are creating elite universities and better integration to the global academia, while the second addresses most pressing development issues faced by BRICS' societies. The conclusion is that while excellence projects do help to develop world-class education, the networks better answer current needs of the BRICS countries. © 2020 Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas-UFRGS.