Israeli Higher Education in the Global Network: Prospects and Threats

This chapter examines major challenges confronting the Israeli higher education system in moving towards operating more intensively in a global network. Internationalization of higher education is relatively a new phenomenon, but it constitutes one of the most transformative contemporary influences on higher education worldwide. Operating in a global network has become a mainstream policy at the national and institutional levels in most countries of the world. Higher education systems, as well as individual higher education institutions, are required today to find the delicate equilibrium between serving national priorities and local needs and, at the same time, being attentive to global trends. It is obvious that there are no uniform strategies that fit all countries. The Israeli higher education system is a relatively young system operating less than 100 years. It has a strong international orientation towards research from its very outset. But it has still a long way to go in increasing its international involvement in transnational education and in international collaborative ventures related to joint or double diplomas, and in students and faculty exchange. Internationalization holds great prospects for Israeli higher education, both in research and teaching, but at the same time poses also challenges and threats, such as the brain drain phenomenon and the increasing boycott calls against Israeli higher education institutions and Israeli academics. Israeli academic leaders, at both the system level and institutional level, are challenged nowadays to define their strategic plans as how to engage more effectively and efficiently in the global higher education network. The challenges discussed in this chapter relate to: Transnational education; accreditation and flexibility; the status of Israeli higher education institutions in leading league tables; brain drain; and boycott threats. A brief description of the structure of the Israeli higher education system and its development precedes the analysis of the challenges.