LAUSR

UK HEIs have recently developed overseas campus-based teaching, some as branches but most as collaborations with local institutions, usually offering scientific, technical and commercial degree courses in English. Academic staffing has evolved rapidly towards international recruitment, supplemented by supervisory and specialist inputs from the UK. The paper focuses on staffing arrangements in various campus-based, collaborative and teaching-only cases, including recruitment, contractual and personnel development, during the early period of IBC development. We show that different development models and mobility portfolios were created, but they face similar challenges in attracting and guiding the work of an international cadre of staff able to deliver the UK HEI ‘quality model’ of teaching. We find that at this early stage, contracts were mostly short term and locally based, with a generally ad hoc approach to induction, training and monitoring. We suggest that greater attention will be needed to such issues if these developments are to sustain UK-style teaching in a changing international higher education environment.