International Academic Mobility in Australia and New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand have shared very similar patterns of academic mobility throughout their histories. Their earliest universities were established in the nineteenth century as new nodes in the British academic world with extensive scholarly mobility and dense intellectual linkages between the colonies and “the old country” (Pietsch 2013). Both countries remain constitutional monarchies, never having managed to completely sever ties with the British Crown, but during the course of the twentieth century antipodean universities gradually developed their own character and international linkages beyond the British Empire. The Second World War transformed both countries’ sense of their place in the world, with stronger links to the Asia Pacific and the United States ensuing.

In the post WWII Cold War period, both countries sponsored thousands of students from Western-aligned nations across Asia to undertake degrees through a scheme known as the Colombo Plan (Lowe 2010). Over time,...