Internationalization of higher education: the case of a community university in the north region of Santa Catarina

Abstract

The present study takes a University of  the north region of Santa Catarina, as a research context. Being a community University, in this model, all results are reinvested in its final activities: Teaching, Research and Extension. These activities are intended to promote the social, economic and cultural growth of the context and region in which it is inserted. It is a University created and maintained by the civil society, which, besides offering quality education, develops researches recognized nationally and internationally. The  process of internationalization of Higher Education (ES) presents increasingly centrality in the development dynamics of this sector and it is expressed in several requirements through which systems and institutions try to meet, face to the challenges of globalization and regionalization. This research aims to analyze how internationalization is being understood and developed at the University in question. The methodology for this Case Study counts on the analysis of public institutional documents and semi-structured interviews with the sector representative responsible for institutional internationalization, aiming to clarify the doubts in these same documents. Although internationalization is not reduced to the phenomenon of student mobility, it has been one of the most visible and impactful category, also in the Higher Education Institution (HEI) researched. As a result, it provides an overview of the institutional internationalization process, aiming to contribute to future institutional steps.