IIE Blog: International Partnerships: What Does it Mean to be Strategic?

Robin Matross Helms, associate director for research at the American Council on Education’s Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement, is a contributing author to IIE’s recent publication, Global Perspectives on Strategic International Partnerships. In her blog post she discusses the how we can better address strategic partnership goals and action plans to maximize the returns on these linkages for students and faculty, as well as organizational structure as a whole. Helms writes, "For a partnership to be strategic, it should contribute to and advance institutional strategy in some way. Has the institution identified particular academic or programmatic areas that it wants to further develop? If so, a carefully chosen partner abroad may be able to provide knowledge, resources, and expertise that can support this development."