Internationalization of higher education in Asia: a bibliometric analysis based on Scopus database from 2003 to 2022

Abstract

Internationalization of higher education (IoHE) is a globally recognized issue, encompassing Asian countries, aimed at enhancing the quality of higher education. This article presents research insights into IoHE in Asia over the past 20 years. The findings reveal that a total of 416 works related to this topic have been published in the Scopus database, involving 850 authors from various countries across the globe. A total of 414 organizations, including universities and research institutes, have contributed to this research, and 228 journals have published articles on this research topic. The research results of the author team have contributed to the development of higher education in Asia in the direction of internationalization.

Keywords:

• Internationalization of higher education
• Asia
• bibliometrics
• Scopus
• Biblioshiny
• VOSviewer

REVIEWING EDITOR:

• Anatoly Oleksiyenko, The Education University of Hong Kong Faculty of Education and Human Development, Hong Kong

SUBJECTS:

• Education Policy & Politics
• Higher Education
• International & Comparative Education
• Education-Social Sciences

Introduction

Internationalization of higher education (IoHE) is an inevitable trend in the development process of higher education in the world. It can be said that IoHE is an integral part of the sustainable development of contemporary higher education, which stems from the requirements of the labour market for the workforce with internationally standardised knowledge and skills; as well as adaptability to a multicultural working environment (Hung & Yen, 2022). It is the IoHE that has officially set a number of universal international objectives of higher institutions such as organizing exchange programs between different cultures, developing cross-cultural competencies, international and global perspectives and strengthening the capacities of constructing and innovating knowledge to support work and personal life (Jokila, 2015). IoHE aims for the sustainable development of higher education so as to provide high quality human resources for the country (Li & Xue, 2022).

IoHE has broken down the conventional process of higher education management which has ruled over the past four decades, causing direct impact on teaching, research and services at higher institutions in many countries (Gao et al., 2016). It is a continuous process occurring and evolving at higher education institutions, which can possibly be considered as a characteristic feature of their organization, associated with all of their activities and services. IoHE is vital not only to improving higher education quality of HE institutions but also to promoting motivations for education development of the whole society all over the world (H. D. Wit, 2017).

Internationalization refers to the process of integrating an international perspective into various aspects of higher education, including curriculum, research, student exchange programs and collaborations with foreign institutions. There are several key reasons why internationalization is crucial in the Asian context (Alsharari, 2018), including:

1. It promotes cultural diversity and understanding among students and faculty members. By exposing students to different cultures, languages and perspectives, internationalization nurtures global citizens who can effectively engage and collaborate in an increasingly interconnected world.

2. Internationalization enhances the quality of education. It allows students to access a broader range of academic resources, such as international faculty expertise, research collaborations and access to global knowledge networks. This exposure to diverse educational experiences fosters innovation, critical thinking and cross-cultural competencies.

3. Internationalization helps develop a globally competitive workforce. In today’s globalized economy, employers seek graduates who possess not only strong academic knowledge but also intercultural communication skills, adaptability, and a global mindset. International experiences gained through study abroad programs or international collaborations can significantly enhance graduates’ employability and career prospects.

4. Internationalization contributes to research excellence and innovation. Collaborative research projects involving scholars from different countries can lead to groundbreaking discoveries, cross-disciplinary insights and mutually beneficial partnerships. These collaborations also address global challenges by bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise.

5. Internationalization strengthens the reputation and ranking of Asian higher education institutions.

By actively participating in international academic networks, hosting international conferences and attracting top international students and faculty, institutions can enhance their global visibility and reputation, thereby attracting more resources and opportunities (Ardakani et al., 2011). In this regard, it can be observed that IoHE plays a significant role in the current Asian context, It facilitates cultural understanding, enhances the quality of education, develops the workforce’s capabilities to meet globalization demands, promotes scientific research and strengthens the reputation of higher education institutions. Implementing IoHE in Asia is not only essential for universities and students but also contributes to the development of the Asian region (Ng, 2012).

The Scopus database stores research publications on various scientific topics (Scopus, n.d.-b), including a database specifically focused on the internationalization of education in Asia. By analysing the bibliographic records within the Scopus database, valuable information can be extracted regarding collaboration networks and research interests of scholars in the field of higher education internationalization in Asia. This analysis also enables the formulation of concepts, definitions and an understanding of the current state of higher education internationalization in Asia (Chellappandi & Vijayakumar, 2018). This research aims to provide a bibliometric review of the scientific publications on IoHE in Asia from 2003 to October 2022 in the Scopus database. The research study focuses on IoHE in Asia regarding: (1) publication information including authors, citations, journals with the most publications; (2) current research trends in IoHE in Asia: characteristics, keywords, emerging keywords in the trends; (3) scientists’ collaboration network: the development of the research direction over time. Based on the research results, the researchers propose conclusions and recommendations related to IoHE research trends in the world as well as in Asia.

The Scopus database comprises publications on the context, current situation and internationalization solutions in higher education in Asia. Through the analysis of these databases, information about the IoHE in Asia can be collected, allowing for a comprehensive view of the internationalization landscape of higher education in Asia. This, in turn, enables the formulation of comments and recommendations regarding the IoHE in Asia in comparison to the global context, facilitating the development of internationalization efforts in higher education in Asia to meet global educational development demands.

Literature review

IoHE

In the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the rapid advancement of science and technology has dramatically changed humans’ knowledge as well as the world’s labour market (Daim & Faili, 2019), which entails the ever-increasing (Aigbavboa & Thwala, 2020). Under the great impact of globalization, education in general and particularly higher education institutions are required to reach beyond their countries’ borderlines to seek new knowledge, ideas, technologies and even training fields to fulfil the demands of the labour market in the very context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Bruhn, 2021). Globalization has strengthened the competition in international education, student exchanges and international education rankings in order to meet the demands of stakeholders in offering appealing education quality to attract learners all over the world, creating sufficient human resources for the world’ labour market (Edwards, 2022).

The concept of internationalization has been widely mentioned in higher education since the early 1980s (Jokila, 2015). IoHE generally stemmed from the organizational and structural challenges facing a nation’s tertiary education in the context of globalization and internationalization, in which the country is inevitably exposed to international relations within the free market (Liu et al., 2015). At the macro-level, the international programs at higher education institutions fulfil economic and political purposes as the student mobility facilitates the national economic development by preparing students for overseas careers in foreign countries regionally and globally, strengthening global competitiveness in the world’s economy (Nastase, 2020). Thus, in the time of globalization, IoHE has been pinpointed as a key strategy of HE institutions regarding international integration or cross-cultural issues in their teaching, management and services (Muñoz, 2022).

In the increasingly rapid globalization of the world, IoHE has become one of the top concerns among policy makers as economic efficiency, under the pressure of globalization, is significantly influenced by ever-growing knowledge flow, intellectual workers and cross-border students (Jones, 2013). IoHE has given top priority in the discussion agenda of national leaders as well as HE institutions worldwide to seek ‘internationalization’ for their educational organizations and to create the connection between them involving students and teachers collaboration and exchanges, eventually promoting HE quality all over the world (Hawawini, 2011).

From another perspective, the non-stop development of the world entails an inevitable and severe crisis of forced displacement due to uncontrollable factors. A report from the UN Refugee Agency (UN-HCR) shows that every two seconds, a person is forcibly displaced worldwide. A forcibly displaced scientist or university/higher education student generally has to endure the disruption to their education; and as a result, attends other institutions in their receiving countries, making considerable contributions to the host countries’ HE. Eventually, the internationalization of these institutions would simultaneously happen thanks to these forced migrants (Ergin et al., 2019). Migration and brain drain are not problems of any individual region (such as America or Europe) but globally, even without the cause of forced displacement, as scholars and students worldwide have been in the search for renowned universities and training programs to fulfil their personal demands for working and studying (Gaybnazarova, 2021). A number of Asian universities have addressed the ‘brain drain’ problem by pursuing the strategy of ‘reversed brain drain’, i.e. increasingly recruiting migrants working overseas for education programs in their home countries. For example, China, Hong Kong and Singapore attract the overseas Chinese intellectual elite by offering more rewarding benefits. Singapore aims for comprehensive internationalization of their local universities by attracting high quality international students and researchers from China, Australia, India and the UK (Luke et al., 2010).

Among various definitions of IoHE, it can be referred to ‘a process of integrating international/cross-cultural dimensions into an educational institution’s teaching, research and services functions’. This viewpoint inclines towards the introduction of international dimensions to the structure and operation of a training program within a university, in terms of students, curriculum, teachers’ teaching and research activities. The ultimate objective is, instead of the internationalization itself, to integrate the university into the worldwide education and knowledge network; thereby highlighting its potentials as an integral component of the world’s knowledge and education ‘ecology’ and as a contributor to the cause of providing eligible labour forces to fulfil the demands of the countries worldwide (Alsharari, 2018).

Another definition of IoHE states that ‘IoHE at the level of nation, discipline and institution is the process of integrating an international, cross-cultural or global dimension into the objective, functions or provision of higher education’ (Hudzik, 2011), which covers the concept of IoHE almost comprehensively with focus on the integration of international elements into HE objectives and functions. In 2014, Hudzik proposed a more well-rounded and appropriate definition of IoHE as ‘comprehensive internationalization’ which aims for commitment and intentional actions with institutionalization, to widely introduce and integrate the content of internationalization and globalization into the training process at universities. Also, the updated definition put forward the continuous comparison between HE institutions worldwide regarding their teaching, research and service missions. It is possible to describe Hudzik’s updated definition as outcome-oriented with the internationalization integration into value characteristics and core missions of the HE institutions. It can be interpreted that ‘comprehensive internationlization’ is necessary, yet necessarily accepted by the leader, administrator, lecturer, student and scholar of the university (Hudzik, 2014).

It can be seen that internationalization has recently been one of the breakthrough and critical strategies for HE with definite future potentials. IoHE has direct impacts on teaching, research and education service provision in every country worldwide. However, it is essential to acquire profound insights into the definition and principles of IoHE to achieve success in the undertaking process (Mittelmeier & Yang, 2022).

Bibliometric review of the publications in the database

Bibliometrics or scientometrics, as a branch of statistics, aims to analyse past publications in the database to examine and evaluate the quality of scientific publications in different scientific domains to identify the new research channels (Chellappandi & Vijayakumar, 2018). In the fields of Bibliometrics and scientometrics, the idea of science mapping based on bibliographic information has attracted great attention from researchers over the past decades with a variety of visual representation to demonstrate the relationships between authors, documents, journal or keywords, etc., which are generally created based on citations, co-citations or bibliographic data or keyword co-occurrence in documents (Van Eck et al., 2010).

Reviewing the research findings from past publications is essential to pinpoint the gap in the literature; thereby promoting a specific research trend that are of research interests (Waltnam & Noyons, 2018). There are three bibliometric methods with past papers, namely (1) qualitative structured literature review; (2) quantitative analysis method and (3) science mapping—based on quantitative bibliometric analysis with increasing usage for mapping of structure and development in various scientific disciplines and areas (Zupic & Čater, 2015).

The introduction and development of bibliometrics support researchers in systematically analysing related publications and collecting useful information about research trends and collaboration between scientists’ worldwide (Bales et al., 2020). Bibliometric analysis is a research technique that uses quantitative analysis and statistics to represent the model of distribution of scientific works on a certain topic within a specific time span. It can help researchers to keep track of publications and also provide valuable insights for the academic community such as identifying relevant researchers, organizations or references on a research topic in order to analyse the relationships and collaborations in the research area (Martí-Parreño et al., 2016).

Bibliometrics has become an essential instrument to analyses and evaluate scientists’ performance, partnerships between HE institutions, influence of state-owned scientific funds on national research and development activities as well as education outcomes, together with plentiful other applications (Moral-Muñoz et al., 2020). Bibliometric visual representation can be obtained with a number of techniques (Van Eck et al., 2010). The bibliometric procedure in a scientific area includes five main steps (Pham-Duc et al., 2022):

1. Identifying research design

2. Collecting data

3. Analysing data

4. Visualizing data

5. Justifying results

To successfully undertake bibliometric analyses, it is critical for prepare the most appropriate data to the scope of the research area. Publishing data is generally extracted from the world’s publishing houses’ databases such as PubMed, EMbase, SpringerLink, Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic and Dimensions. Bibliometric review can be supported with science mapping visualizing the relationships between different factors (authors, organization, countries, etc.; Moral-Muñoz et al., 2020). In bibliometric research, the researcher generally focuses on the issues of documents, keywords, authors or journals, etc., including (1) What are the main research topics or areas in a scientific domain? (2) How to connect these topics or areas? (3) How to demonstrate the development of a scientific domain over time? (Waltman et al., 2010).

The most suitable softwares for bibliometric analysis research to create science mapping are Bibexcel, Biblioshiny, BiblioMaps, CiteSpace, CitNetExplorer, SciMAT, Sci² Too, VOSviewer, etc. (Moral-Muñoz et al., 2020).

Bibliometric review offers scientists an overall panorama of scientific research in a specific domain with a variety of scientific data in any time frame of 5, 10 or 20 years, depending on the researcher’s preferences (Bales et al., 2020).

Materials and methods

The study conducted a bibliometric analysis on two major databases, Scopus and WoS, revealing that publications on the IoHE in Asia were indexed in both databases. However, all publications related to this topic indexed in WoS were also present in the Scopus database. Hence, the research chose to analyse the Scopus database to ensure comprehensive coverage of all publications on the IoHE in Asia (Scopus, n.d.-a). The data on IoHE in Asia was search and retrieved from the database in October 2022 with the following command:

The bibliometric analysis included five steps as follows:

1. Raw data collection: The data retrieved from Scopus database using the command above included 625 publications (books, chapters, journal articles, conference presentations) published on the journals from 2003 until October 2022.

2. Data pre-processing and refinement: To refine the collection of 625 identified documents, it is necessary to exclude the irrelevant documents included in the search results due to their relevant keywords (one or more), for example, internationalization, education, Asia or repeated findings, misspellings, keywords with too general meanings. This stage was undertaken meticulously and thoroughly by reading manually each and every document to exclude the irrelevant ones from the retrieved results with the highest quality and refinement, yielding the greatest reliability for the research.

3. Data extraction: Following the data refinement stage, the collection of 416 research works on IoHE in Asia was finalised with relevant information including authors’ names, title of the research works, publishing houses (or publishing journals), publishing countries, citation indexes, etc.

4. Data visualization: This study uses VOSViewer software (free access on the website: www.vosviewer.com) and Biblioshiny (free installation with the package ‘bibliometrix’ in RStudio software) to visualise the collected data through bibliometric analyses and visual representations of the publications based on a range of bibliometric indexes such as reference linkages, co-occurrences and co-citations.

5. Result justification: Interpreting and analysing the findings through tables and diagrams created with VOSviewer and Biblioshiny softwares.

Results and discussion

Overview of publications on IoHE in Asia

The overview of the publication database on IoHE in Asia is shown in Table 1 and Figure 1.

Figure 1. Key figures of the data collection on IoHE in Asia. Source: Analysis results obtained with Biblioshiny software.

Table 1. Data overview.

Timespan	2003:2022
Sources (Journals, Books, etc.)	228
Documents	416
Annual Growth Rate %	18.21
Document Average Age	5.49
Average citations per doc	18.76
References	21076
DOCUMENT CONTENTS
Keywords Plus (ID)	397
Author’s Keywords (DE)	1196
AUTHORS
Authors	850
Authors of single-authored docs	127
AUTHORS COLLABORATION
Single-authored docs	140
Co-Authors per Doc	2.26
International co-authorships %	21.88
DOCUMENT TYPES
Article	352
Book	2
Book chapter	28
Conference paper	15
Editorial	1
Retracted	1
Review	13

As shown in Table 1 and Figure 1, a total of 416 documents related to IoHE in Asia were published from 228 Scopus-indexed sources. In the time span from 2003 to 2022, original articles accounted for 84.6% with 352 items (as shown in Table 1), book chapters and books 7.2% with 28 chapters and 2 books, reviews 3.1% with 13 items, conference papers 3.6% with 15 items. In particular, there was one retracted document which failed to meet the journal’s publishing requirements. In the 416 publications, there were 1022 authors in total, including 187 authors single handedly publishing their works (accounting for 18.3%) and 140 single-authored documents (33.6%).

By the end of the period in question, the average citation per document of the analysed publications was 18.76. The average co-authors per document was 2.26. The general statistics underlines a limited number of authors and publications on IoHE in Asia despite the large quantity of publications as well the 40 year research history on this topic in the world, especially in Europe and America (Mittelmeier & Yang, 2022). The numbers of conferences, books and book chapters on the very topic were alarmingly small. The findings are in line with the current context of HE in Asia, which is believed to fall behind Europe and America (Jampaklay et al., 2022) with much restricted integration into the world’s HE network (Ghazarian, 2011).

Countries’ contributions to research on IoHE in Asia

The results from VOSviewer software show that there were 46 countries (or territories) having published research works on IoHE in Asia (as shown in Table 2). The most prolific country in this area is the US with 67 documents (accounting for 16.1% of all the surveyed publications), which also received the highest number of citations (1907 citations). These figures highlight the US’s status as the world’s top country in the field of HE with their special attention to HE in their own nation as well as in Asia. This finding resonates with the results in Wit, J. W. M. (2001) (D. Wit, 2001). Subsequently, China stood at the second position with 52 documents (accounting for 12.5%) and 477 citations, making China the top country in Asia in the field of IoHE. The Chinese government gives top priority to promoting internationalization in HE to reach for a Chinese world-class education. This result was also asserted in a number of previous research studies on China (Huang, 2003; Li & Eryong, 2021; Sombatsompop et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2022). Yet, the most obvious constraint lies in the limited number of citations and attraction of Chinese publications among the international research community. The third most prolific country was the UK with 44 publications (10.5%) and the second largest number of citations, only after the US, at 1097. These figures demonstrate the country’s developed international education and extensive interest to IoHE (only preceded by the US) not only locally within their country but also in Asia (Muñoz, 2022), (Bahtilla et al., 2022). In the top 10 countries with the most publications on IoHE in Asia, apart from the top 3 mentioned above, there were 1 country in the Pacific (Australia) and 5 Asian countries namely, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and South Korea. They are well-known for their advanced and modern HE together with large numbers of international training programs and international students (Ota, 2018).

Table 2. List of 46 countries with publications on IoHE in Asia.

No.	Country	Number of publications	Number of citations	Citation rate	Ranking	Country	Number of publications	Number of citations	Citation rate
1	US	67	1907	32	24	South Africa	6	52	3
2	China	52	477	23	25	Spain	6	66	4
3	UK	44	1097	20	26	Vietnam	6	21	3
4	Australia	39	709	14	27	Belgium	5	35	3
5	Hong Kong	36	513	13	28	Denmark	5	17	2
6	Japan	34	636	12	29	Iran	5	15	0
7	Canada	26	1615	15	30	Israel	5	83	1
8	Taiwan	22	299	9	31	Indonesia	4	3	1
9	Malaysia	15	185	4	32	Colombia	3	18	0
10	South Korea	15	487	7	33	Italy	3	15	2
11	India	10	17	2	34	Norway	3	17	3
12	Thailand	10	57	5	35	Philippines	3	9	1
13	Finland	9	70	5	36	Poland	3	9	2
14	Netherlands	9	141	3	37	Saudi Arabia	3	61	2
15	Russian Federation	9	38	5	38	Sweden	3	20	1
16	Singapore	8	184	2	39	Austria	2	3	2
17	France	7	28	4	40	Brazil	2	1	0
18	Germany	7	29	4	41	Brunei Darussalam	2	8	2
19	Kazakhstan	7	49	3	42	Chile	2	6	0
20	New Zealand	7	162	5	43	Egypt	2	1	2
21	Turkey	7	54	0	44	Pakistan	2	5	1
22	Mexico	6	19	3	45	Qatar	2	1	1
23	Portugal	6	121	4	46	United Arab Emirates	2	32	1

Source: Analysis results obtained with VOSviewer software.

Transnational research collaboration network between scientists on IoHE in Asia is demonstrated in Table 3. The country is represented with a node and the size of the node is proportional to the number of publications while the thickness of the link between the nodes represents the collaboration level between the countries. As seen from Figure 2, the US, China and the UK claim the largest research collaboration networks on the topic. The most prolific countries are classified into nine groups with different colour codes. The first three groups including the US (coded with brown colour), China (pink colour) and the UK (blue colour) maintained strong cooperation with several different countries; while the fourth group coded with purple colour represents Hong Kong’s collaboration with other countries. Australia and Hong Kong together constitute the fifth group coded with light yellow colour while the sixth group (in red) involves Taiwan, Germany together with some other countries. Similarly, the seventh group (in green), eighth group (in turquoise) and ninth group (in orange) are composed of the collaboration between other European, South African and Asian countries.

Figure 2. Visual representation of the countries’ publications and collaborations. Source: Analysis results obtained with VOSviewer software.

Table 3. Journals and publishing houses with the greatest publications on IoHE in Asia.

No.	Sources	Articles
1.	Journal of Studies in International Education	48
2.	Higher Education	31
3.	Higher Education Policy	11
4.	Studies in Higher Education	11
5.	Asia Pacific Journal of Education	10
6.	Sustainability (Switzerland)	7
7.	International Journal of Comparative Education and Development	6
8.	Asia Pacific Education Review	5
9.	European Journal of Higher Education	5
10.	Frontiers of Education in China	5
11.	Higher Education in Asia	5
12.	Journal of Research in International Education	5
13.	International Education Studies	4
14.	Asian Education and Development Studies	3
15.	Discourse	3
16.	Education in The Asia-Pacific Region	3
17.	Higher Education Research and Development	3
18.	International Journal of Educational Development	3
19.	International Journal of Educational Management	3
20.	Journal of Asian Public Policy	3
21.	Journal of International Students	3
22.	Journal of Teaching in International Business	3
23.	Nurse Education Today	3
24.	On the Horizon	3
25.	Research in Comparative and International Education	3
26.	Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology	3

Source: Analysis results obtained with Biblioshiny software.

Contributions of organizations in research on IoHE in Asia

There were 414 organizations with contributions to research on IoHE in Asia, mainly from America, Europe and Asia. Top five organizations with the greatest contributions to IoHE research are presented in Figure 3. In the first place is the University of Hong Kong with 27 publications throughout the 20 year period (making up 6.5% of all the publications). All the four remaining organizations had under 10 publications. These five leading organizations published 60 documents in total, accounting for 14.5% of the overall number, which can be considered a minor proportion. It can be seen that research on IoHE in Asia was conducted by various countries and organizations, which implies the growing interest in post-secondary education in Asia from HE community all over the world (Knight & De Wit, 2018). The results indicate that higher education in Asia has developed and shown significant interest in the internationalization of education. However, research on this issue predominantly belongs to developed countries in the Americas, Europe and Australia, rather than being intrinsic to Asian countries’ concerns. This is an existing problem that has led to a slower pace of IoHE in Asia compared to other continents.

Figure 3. Top five organizations with the greatest contributions to research on IoHE in Asia. Source: Analysis results obtained with Biblioshiny software.

Contributions of journals and publishing houses in publications on IoHE in Asia

The results show that there were overall 228 journals and publishers publishing documents related to IoHE in Asia, in which each of the 26 most significant contributors managed to publish more than three publications. Particularly, there were five major contributors with more than 10 publications; and the Journal of Studies in International Education is highlighted as the top journal in the area with by far the greatest number of 48 publications, accounting for 11.5% (as shown in Table 3)

Thus, the issue of IoHE has concerned not only universities and researchers but also publishing organizations regarding the introduction of IoHE to their readers including students, teachers, educational managers and researchers for the cause of HE development in the context of globalization.

Auth ors’ contributions to literature on IoHE in Asia

Table 4 shows the list of 15 authors with more than two publications on IoHE in Asia. The top three authors include Hugo Horta (University of Tohoku, Japan), Jisun Jung and Akiyoshi Yonezawa (The University of Hong Kong), each of whom published seven publications, with quite limited numbers of citations at 86–127. Meanwhile, Jane Knight (University of Toronto) topped the list of citations with the outstanding 1287 citations for her four publications, putting her in the second most prolific groups of authors. The remaining authors published three to four works with no more than 100 citations. It is noteworthy that 13 out 15 authors in this list are Asian (86.7%), although some of them are currently working in other continents such as Phan Le Ha (University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, US), Hyondong Kim (Dongguk University, US) and Ly Thi Tran (Deakin University, Australia).

Table 4. List of 15 most prolific authors on IoHE in Asia.

No.	Author	Institution	Number of publications	Number of citations
1.	Hugo Horta	The University of Hong Kong	7	127
2.	Jisun Jung	The University of Hong Kong	7	86
3.	Akiyoshi Yonezawa	University of Tohoku, Japan	7	97
4.	Jane Knight	University of Toronto	4	1287
5.	Jack T. Lee	University of Edinburgh, UK	4	92
6.	Jian Li	Indiana University Bloomington	4	26
7.	Miri Yemini	Tel Aviv University, Israel	4	81
8.	Roger Y. Chao Jr.	City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong	3	26
9.	K.-C. Ho	National University of Singapore	3	73
10.	Hyondong Kim	Dongguk University, US	3	33
11.	Phan Le Ha	University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, US	3	77
12.	Barbara Sporn	Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien, Austria	3	96
13.	Ka Ho Mok	Lingnan University	3	188
14.	Anatoly Oleksiyenko	The Education University of Hong Kong	3	68
15.	Ly Thi Tran	Deakin University, Australia	3	64

Source: Analysis results obtained with VOSviewer software.

In the 33 co-authors, there were numerous corresponding authors. Figure 4 presents the top five corresponding authors’ countries, which involve China in the first place, followed by the US, Hong Kong, Japan and the UK.

Figure 4. Corresponding authors’ country. Source: Analysis results obtained with Biblioshiny software.

Keyword occurrence analysis in the selected publications

The analysis of 416 publications with VOSviewer and Biblioshiny softwares resulted in a collection of 1488 most common keywords including internationalization, higher education, training program, human, university sectors, international, students, Asia. Each node represents one keyword and the thickness of the link between the nodes (as shown in Figure 5) represents the strength of connection between the keywords, which is determined by their co-occurrence frequencies in the 416 publications.

Figure 5. Visual representation of the most common keywords in the publications on IoHE in Asia. Source: Analysis results obtained with VOSviewer software.

The wordcloud consists of the most common keywords in the publications on IoHE in Asia identified with the support of Biblioshiny software and shown in Figure 6. In this figure, there are also some other common keywords such as international cooperation, education development, sustainable development and education objectives.

Figure 6. Keyword wordcloud. Source: Analysis results obtained with Biblioshiny software.

Conclusion

Bibliometric analysis of scientific literature on the IoHE in Asia within the Scopus database over 20 years (2003–2022) reveals that IoHE in Asia has garnered the attention of researchers worldwide, with an increasing number of research articles on this topic emerging. Articles published in reputable journals and sources have received a relatively high number of citations. The most influential countries in this research direction are the US, China and the UK. Over the 20-year period (2003–2022), there have been 416 works published in the Scopus database involving 850 authors from different countries around the world, including 127 independent researchers on this topic. A total of 414 organizations, including universities and research institutes, have contributed to this research, and 228 journals have published on this subject. The results indicate that the IoHE in Asia has gained global attention. It seems that there is a heated debate about this topic between researchers in the field, especially when the papers analysed have been effectively implemented in policy on internationalization of education in many countries, which might predict that the impact of these papers will continue to rise. The research results also highlight the constant interest paid by Asia researchers to IoHE in Asia, while the US, China and the UK are the three biggest names in the research area of IoHE in Asia with special attention to IoHE in their own country, region, as well as worldwide. Given the rapid development of science and technology and cross-cultural and international communication, it is positive that the process of IoHE in Asia is getting stronger and stronger. In the future, IoHE will be given top priority in the development strategy of HE institutions in Asia and all over the world.

Furthermore, there are also some noteworthy limitations of this research that should be clarified. First, the papers analysed in this research are limited in Scopus database only, which means that they are all in English, and papers in other languages, which might also be a useful resource for research, are excluded. Second, even though we tried our best to get rid of unrelated papers during the research process, our control method might not be completely optimized, and there might be some irrelevant papers got involved. Finally, some related data such as author names, institutions, as well as their years of research experience could not be found in Scopus database, which might cause an inconvenience in the usage of this research’s results.

We hope the findings offered by this research would be valuable materials for future research conducted in the field of IoHE in Asian countries. Specifically, the results demonstrated would give researchers useful information about research trends in recent years and suitable and popular keywords appearing in papers with high frequency, as well as a basic vision about how research in this field is being conducted in other countries outside Asia, which can be the important data for other relevant and potential research directions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hien Thi Thu Le

Hien Thi Thu Le works as a Full-time Associate Professor of Education at the University of Education—Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and as a Vice Dean of the Faculty of Pedagogy. Her main research areas include innovative teaching and learning methods in high school, evaluation and assessment in education and ethnic education.

Cuong Le Minh

Dr. Cuong Le Minh has a Doctorate in Mathematics Education, currently a main lecturer at Dong Thap University. His main research directions include training and developing professional competencies for students majoring in mathematics education, teaching methods of mathematics in high schools, application of information and communication technology in education, training and fostering teachers.

Trung Tran

Trung Tran is a Professor of Mathematics Education, Director of the Vietnam Academy for Ethnic Minorities, Hanoi, Vietnam, and VNU University of Education, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam. He has published many articles in prestigious international journals in WoS, Scopus and monograph editors of international publishers (SpringerNature, Taylor & Francis, DeGruyter). His main research areas are ethnic education, educational management, public policy and teaching methods. Besides, he also participates in interdisciplinary research between education and mathematics, computer science, economics and technology and the development of scientific research skills.

Thanh Thi Nghiem

Dr. Thanh Thi Nghiem is working at the University of Education, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Her research areas mainly focus on the management and development of human resources in education, state administrative management and education management, technology application in education and training, higher education and ethnic minority education. She has published a number of research results in the form of book chapters, proceedings of national and international scientific conferences, scientific articles in journals of the ISI/Scopus system and prestigious scientific and educational journals of Vietnam.

Hung Thanh Nguyen

Hung Thanh Nguyen is an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, Senior Lecturer at University of Education—University of Danang, Vietnam. He has published a number of articles in prestigious international journals. His main research fields are educational management and teaching methods. In addition, he also participates in interdisciplinary research between education and mathematics, technology and the development of scientific research skills.

Minh Duc La

Minh Duc La is a Doctor in Educational Science, a Lecturer of Faculty of Pedagogy, University of Education, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. His main research areas are theory and method of mathematics teaching, educational management, ethnic education.

Trang Ngoc Nguyen

Trang Ngoc Nguyen was awarded a Doctor of Education degree in 2017 by the Institute of Educational Science of Vietnam. She has been the Vice Director of the Interdisciplinary Institute of Social Sciences at Nguyen Tat Thanh University since 2022. She has been actively involved in national-level scientific projects funded by NAFOSTED and has published five Scopus-indexed papers as well as authored several books.