Date and time: February 5^th, at 15.00-16.00 CET

Place: Webinar, online on Zoom

Chaired by Søren S.E. Bengtsen, Co-Director of CHEF

Speakers:

• Professor Giorgi Tavadze, Sulkan-Saba Orbeliani University (Tbilisi, Georgia)
• Associate Professor Tamta Lekishvili, East European University (Tbilisi, Georgia).

Abstract:

This talk explores how academic staff at Georgian universities perceive and engage with the internationalization of research, drawing on 32 in-depth interviews with faculty across 16 institutions. It discusses how respondents understand internationalization, what factors they see as enabling or hindering it, and the contexts in which they work.

Key enabling factors include personal motivation, early international experience (“prior internationalization”), supportive supervisors, institutional funding mechanisms, and access to external grants. Respondents also emphasized the importance of long-standing collaborations and departmental traditions of internationalization, particularly in the natural sciences.
The talk also highlights significant barriers at the individual (e.g., lack of English proficiency, caregiving responsibilities disproportionately affecting women, lack of experience), institutional (e.g., low salaries, inadequate funding, administrative overload), national (e.g., formalistic policies, economic challenges), and international (e.g., stereotypes about the region) levels. Contrasting notions of “selective” and “formal” internationalization also emerged. While the former refers to collaboration with well-established academics or institutions, the latter describes practices that do not genuinely enhance research quality. The idea of “internationalization as burden” captures the negative perceptions of internationalization among faculty who, due to individual and structural constraints, are unable to engage meaningfully in international collaboration.

Overall, it will be argued that while there is a strong normative commitment to internationalization in Georgian higher education, meaningful implementation requires greater funding and targeted capacity-building. Without such measures, internationalization risks remaining a formal exercise rather than a transformative academic practice.

Giorgi Tavadze is a Professor of Practical Philosophy at Sulkan-Saba Orbeliani University (Tbilisi, Georgia). His research interests include philosophy of education (with special focus on Georgian educational tradition), interdisciplinary studies in education, postcolonial studies, political philosophy, history of ideas, and philosophical geography. He is a member of Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society. His current research projects include: “Georgian educational tradition in the context of intercultural philosophy” and “Transformation of Historical Thinking: From Soviet Georgia to Independent Georgia (1987-1991)”. Email: g.tavadze@sabauni.edu.ge ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3492-6357

Tamta Lekishvili is an Associate Professor and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Business and Engineering at East European University (Tbilisi, Georgia). Her academic work focuses on strengthening international collaboration and advancing curriculum innovation in business and engineering education in line with European quality standards. Her research interests include digital transformation in higher education, strategic decision-making, responsible business conduct, and AI-driven innovation in university management systems. She also serves as an expert and peer reviewer for The National Center for Educational Quality Enhancement of Georgia and the Malta Further and Higher Education Authority (MFHEA). Email: tamta.lekishvili@eeu.edu.ge