Realising internationalisation at home in engineering education: Teacher and student perspectives on intercultural group work

Doctoral thesis, 2026

Universities are increasingly adopting strategies to realise internationalisation at home. These strategies include ensuring that all students develop international awareness and intercultural competence, regardless of their ability to participate in physical mobility. This shift reflects a recognition that intercultural competence is essential for working life and that underutilised international opportunities exist within domestic campuses, for instance through collaborative projects that bring together local and international students. Engineering education has some of the highest proportions of international students, yet research suggests that engineering educators are comparatively reluctant to engage with internationalisation at home.

This thesis, containing four articles, investigates the ways in which intercultural pair and group work can contribute to fulfilling the internationalisation goals in engineering education. Intercultural pair and group work involve students from different cultural backgrounds working together on set tasks where they can find collaboration challenging on a personal and professional level. The thesis takes a qualitative, multilevel approach, and explores both student and teacher perspectives. Using an integration model which highlights both human and structural factors, the research spans individual experiences, classroom practices, and wider institutional structures.

This research offers three key contributions to internationalisation at home and engineering education in a European context. Firstly, I suggest a multilevel approach to operationalising intercultural group work, taking into account all levels from classroom to national goals. Secondly, I highlight the teacher’s important dual role as both structuring the context (and being influenced by it) and facilitating human relationships. Thirdly, I propose a move beyond a binary approach of “home” and “international” students towards a more integrated, reflective, and context‑sensitive understanding of identity, experience and belonging.

Overall, I argue that intercultural group work can meaningfully support internationalisation at home when embedded within relevant pedagogical and institutional frameworks.