Education Cities and the Construction of Transnational Spaces of Higher Education

The research project investigates the material and symbolic constructions of international branch campuses from an economic and urban geographic perspective.

Globalising universities can be understood as economic actors engaging in the symbolic, social, and material construction of transnational spaces of higher education. The construction of international branch campus, spatially concentrated in “education cities” in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, or Malaysia, are particularly visible expressions of internationalisation and marketization strategies in the contemporary knowledge economy. These spaces function as crystallisation points of globalisation, embedded in translocal networks and flows of people, knowledge and capital. Simultaneously, they are embedded in place-based local, urban and national development strategies. We conduct a multi-scalar and multi-sited research project, drawing on different perspectives in human geography, to map, understand, and contribute to debates on the geographies of globalisation of higher education. The project is as a Junior Research Group by the Leibniz Association.