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Facilitated and chaired by: Dr Miguel Antonio Lim who is the co-convenor of the International Research and Researchers Network. For more details about the network and its activities, please click here.

Overview

In light of the landmark policy to establish a ‘common higher education space’ in Southeast Asia (SEA), this seminar brings together scholars to examine the pressing critical issues shaping international higher education (IHE) in the eleven countries in the region. Against the backdrop of rapid regional integration, shifting global power dynamics, and intensifying competition for talent, higher education systems in the region face complex challenges and opportunities.

Speakers will introduce and discuss key debates on cross-border collaboration, quality assurance and accreditation, student and academic mobility, and the role of regional frameworks in addressing collective action problems. The discussion will cover intersecting issues: tensions between national policy priorities and regional aspirations, the uneven capacity of institutions across countries, and the implications of growing global pressures on local academic cultures.

The seminar aims to introduce IHE in SEA to a wider audience and to foster dialogue on how Southeast Asian higher education can navigate globalisation while strengthening its regional distinctiveness.

Schedule

Speaker bios

Miguel Antonio Lim, Senio Lecturer, University of Manchester. I am a specialist in research and policy issues in international and transnational higher education. My research focuses on the challenges facing universities and national higher education systems in relation to internationalisation. I am originally from the Philippines and have worked in a variety of countries and roles in the higher education sector. My academic formation includes degrees in economics (University of the Philippines), public affairs (Sciences Po-Paris), public and economic policy (the London School of Economics) and education (Aarhus University Denmark). I have also worked in higher education administration as well as teaching and research. Previously, I worked on international partnerships for Sciences Po-Paris at their Asia Pacific Center and was the Executive Director of the Global Public Policy Network Secretariat. 

Jack Lee, Senior Lecturer in Higher Education. I am the programme leader for MSc. International and Comparative Education. My career in education started at the University of British Columbia, Canada, where I designed and delivered international programs and intercultural communication training for students, academics, foreign affairs personnel, corporations and community organisations (2001-09). My doctoral work investigated the development of education hubs in East and Southeast Asia on issues of talent development, geopolitics, and soft power. I have since worked for Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan), University of Bath (directing a large doctoral program with 178 students from 46 countries) and University of Edinburgh. In a different lifetime, I also worked for the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Germany and the British Columbia Cancer Research Centre in Canada. Scotland is my 8th country of residence.

Que Anh Dang: I am an educational sociologist specialising in higher education policies and international development at the Centre for Global Learning (GLEA). My research interests include globalisation and social imaginaries of international doctoral education, SDGs-related research partnerships, transnational education (TNE), the cultural political economy of higher education, higher education regionalism, soft power and knowledge diplomacy in East Asia and Europe. I completed my PhD in Sociology of Higher Education at Bristol University (UK) with a Marie Skłodowska-Curie  Research Grant, which formed part of the consortium ‘Universities in the Knowledge Economy’ (UNIKE). Previously, I earned an MA in Sociology of Education from Aarhus University with an EU Erasmus Mundus scholarship and an MSc in Development Studies from Copenhagen Business School with a full scholarship from the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science. 

Anh Phan (Anh Ngoc Quynh Phan) is a Lecturer in Higher Education in the Curriculum and Educational Development Team (CEDT). Anh is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her research centres on student mobility, migration, international students’ lived experience, space and place, (international) higher education, teacher education, TESOL and other social sciences areas (including gender roles, diasporic experiences, media and culture, and Vietnamese studies). Prior to joining University of Kent, Anh worked for 5 years as a lecturer in a leading university in Vietnam and focused on English language teacher education. She taught research methods, critical thinking, and Academic English. Dr Phan was an Erasmus Mundus scholar, studying her MA in Lifelong Learning: Policy and Management in Aarhus University (Denmark), University of Deusto (Spain) and UCL (UK). Dr Phan completed her PhD at The University of Auckland in New Zealand. Her international educational mobility has inspired her to study international education landscape, student mobility, and migration.

Mark Andrew Elepaño is a PhD candidate jointly based at the Centre for Global Learning at Coventry University and the Danish School of Education at Aarhus University. Prior to his doctoral studies, he contributed extensively to the Philippine and Southeast Asian education sectors, serving as a faculty member at Ateneo de Manila University and Far Eastern University, and working as a researcher for international organisations such as the UNDP, ADB, and ASEAN, among other roles.

Zhe Wang is a Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese Studies at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies. She holds a DPhil in Human Geography from the University of Oxford. Before joining OSGA, she worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Education, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on international education and student mobility, transnational migration and urban transformation, and social inequality and development in China and Southeast Asia. She has published widely on Chinese student mobility, return migration, and the social impacts of international higher education. Her recent monograph is Transnational Student Return Migration and Megacities in China: Practices of Cityzenship (Springer, 2023).

Dorothy Ferary is Vice Rector for Research, Community Engagement, and Collaboration at Satya Terra Bhinneka University, Indonesia. Her background is in development studies and her research interests are gender and development, decolonising and inclusive higher education (including integrating local wisdom in research, teaching, and community engagement), and language. She is also a lecturer at University College London Institute of Education. She has conducted national-level research for the British Council Indonesia on higher education and the Indonesian Embassy in London for language learning. Before her academic career, she worked as Country Programme Manager for the International Award for Young People Indonesia, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award Indonesia.

Trang Thu Nguyen is a PhD Student in Human Geography and Academic Tutor at the University of Liverpool. She is co-convener of the RIS Writing Retreat and Global PhD Network in Education.