In autumn 2018, Danish universities were notified that they had to make specific reductions in the number of their international students. Universities complied and quickly made top-down decisions about how many numbers to cut in which departments, often without academic considerations about what kinds of ‘internationalisation’ and disciplinary developments they were cutting. This session will review the background to this political decision. It will analyse how reforms to university governance have made it possible for a political decision to be quickly carried out by ‘autonomous’ universities. It will consider the need for carefully developed and ‘flagship’ approaches to internationalisation, such as that of one of the programmes affected, Anthropology, Education and Globalisation (AEG). The session will open a discussion about how universities can ‘internationalise’ in current conditions and what changes need to be achieved for the future.