The power of internationalization
Why is science international? Many of the big scientific questions and problems transcend local and national levels. Heino Falcke, professor of astrophysics at RU, led the international study in 2019 that presented the first picture of a black hole. “The sky belongs to everyone. We needed a telescope that extended over the Earth, we could only achieve that through international cooperation”.
Besides the nature of these problems, talent also does not adhere to national borders. “For good research, you need the right people in the right place at the right time,” Caroline Rowland said, director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. “And that’s not always the place where you were born. And that’s also not just the people whose father happens to have connections at Harvard.”
“Inclusive international teams are the most productive and successful, because they bring diversity of ideas, backgrounds, expertise and life experiences to the table. It simply leads to more new ideas,” says Eliana Vassena co-chair of the Radboud Young Academy, organiser of the event, together with moderater Jorge Dominguez Andres.
That this international understanding is losing political ground worries business leaders. “Many of our employees come from abroad,” says Guilherme Cardoso Medeiros, engineer at NXP Semiconductors. “But ideally we prefer to hire people from Dutch universities, both Dutch and internationals, who are integrated and well educated.” “At KraftHeinz the workforce is international as well,” said Claudia Jansen-Meeuwsen, HR lead at the U.S. group.
The role of language in the world
English is the lingua franca of science and business. “English is the main language in almost any international company, and in business in general,” says Jansen-Meeuwsen. “You’re at an advantage if your language proficiency is on par.” The government’s intention to limit the number of university courses taught in English is cause for concern, according to Cardoso Medeiros. “There are no good Dutch-language books for electrical engineering.”
This extensive use of English also has disadvantages. The Dutch language skills of college graduates are declining, as well as their usage. “I understand the government’s decision to want to promote Dutch,” Rowland said. “Literacy standards in the Netherlands are declining and we do need to do something about this.” In general, internationally, language diversity is declining. “There are currently about 7,000 languages documented worldwide, and about half of them, though not Dutch, are endangered.”
Integration into Dutch culture
Learning Dutch was often not so easy. “It really gave me a hard time. Dutch people often reply in English,” Falcke said. “That does make it difficult to really integrate. I speak it reasonably now, but I still feel partly an outsider in the Netherlands.” That also affects integration into Dutch society, which is a lot harder for people from outside the country, partly due to biases, as others on the panel also observe.
What we need is an ongoing conversation about the role of internationalization in society, both Rowland and Jansen-Meeuwsen conclude. Polderen, the practice of long talks until you reach a consensus, might be the key. “My first experience with polderen was painful, frustrating and slow,” Rowland explains. “And yet, looking back, it led to the best outcome that could have come out of that process. I think the same kind of in depth, and crucially, ongoing conversation is needed when it comes to internationalization.”
Internationalization with the local community
The question that lingers is what role the local community will have in internationalization. The headquarters of KraftHeinz and the HR office of NXP are both located in the US, and it is of interest how policies of the new government in DC are going to translate into the companies’ human resources policies.
Internationalization has its dark side. It can be devastating for indigenous peoples for example. The Sami, the original inhabitants of Lapland, were in previous decades viewed by westerners as exotic specimens. Some indigenous people were even displayed in zoos in Europe in the previous century, attracting tens of thousands of people out of curiosity.
But there’s a different way to do internationalization. Rowland outlines this with an example of scientific research with the Sami people. “In the latest European Union funded research on the Sami language, science is putting itself at the service of the local community. The research agenda is set by the grassroots movement, talking together with the scientists.” That may be the beginning of the solution to the problems surrounding internationalization. And perhaps not only in science.
