“International experiences often sharpen people’s sense of injustice and responsibility”

Let’s start with the effect you investigated in the area of poverty reduction, an effect that has been confirmed by other researchers as well: What mechanisms of international academic mobility were you able to identify to explain this effect?

When looking closely at poverty reduction, one thing becomes clear. International student mobility does not reduce poverty through quick, direct interventions; its effects unfold slowly, through institutions, practices, and relationships. Four mechanisms recur.

The first is reflexive agency. Studying abroad often changes how people think about problems and their own role in addressing them. Exposure to different systems and policies prompts people to question what they once took for granted. Many returnees describe a shift from seeing poverty as individual failure to seeing it as something shaped by institutions, rules, and power. This reshapes how they act, often through sustained institutional and civic practices through which change emerges over time.

The second mechanism is knowledge translation. This is not about copying solutions from elsewhere. Returnees adapt ideas and approaches so they fit local realities, for example by adjusting financial models, redesigning programmes, or reframing policy categories so vulnerable populations become visible. Poverty reduction happens when ideas are made workable inside existing institutions.

The third mechanism is transnational social relations. International study creates lasting relationships across borders that shape how people judge, compare, and sustain their work. After returning home, many continue to draw on these ties for advice, collaboration, credibility, and perspective over extended periods of time.

The fourth mechanism is civic understanding. International experiences often sharpen people’s sense of injustice and responsibility. Poverty is no longer seen only as lack of income, but as exclusion or denial of dignity. This reframing shapes long-term engagement across areas such as education, health, or housing.

Taken together, these mechanisms help explain why the effects of international student mobility on poverty reduction tend to appear gradually. Quantitative evidence suggests the association becomes visible only over a long horizon, around fifteen years. What makes the difference is not a single breakthrough, but the steady work of people carrying what they learned into institutions, policies, and everyday practice over time.

Another area of impact you investigated is the democratic consciousness of internationally mobile students and researchers. Here, too, you were able to identify various mechanisms of impact. What are they?

International study shapes democratic consciousness by changing how they see authority, responsibility, and their own place in public life.

One key mechanism is comparison. Studying elsewhere places people inside systems that work differently, sometimes in small, everyday ways. Classroom discussion, how disagreement is handled, how authority is questioned, or how people are treated as equals all create reference points. These comparisons stay with people after return and quietly recalibrate what feels acceptable, legitimate, or unjust.

A second mechanism is moral reorientation. Many people describe moments abroad when responsibility stopped feeling abstract. Seeing others act out of care, speak up without fear, or take part in civic life makes dignity, accountability, and inclusion feel real rather than rhetorical. Democracy becomes less about institutions alone and more about how people relate to one another in practice.

A third mechanism is reflexive judgement. International study often creates distance from what once felt normal. For those returning to authoritarian or hybrid settings, this sharpens sensitivity to risk and constraint. For those returning to democratic settings, it often leads to a more critical, grounded view of how democracy actually works. In both cases, people become more deliberate not only about when and how to act, but also when to wait, adapt, or hold their ground.

A fourth mechanism is practice. Democratic consciousness forms through doing, not only observing. Participation in student groups, community work, media, or activism abroad helps people learn democracy as something enacted, negotiated, and imperfect.

Finally, transnational relationships matter. Ongoing ties with peers, mentors, and institutions abroad provide perspective and reassurance that alternative ways of organising public life remain possible, even when local options seem limited. 

Against the backdrop of these findings, what practical conclusions for politics and science do you think can be drawn from this? And how do you assess the current developments in countries like the USA, Canada and Australia in this regard?

Across the USA, Canada, and Australia, recent years have been marked by a shift toward tighter regulation and political narratives that increasingly frame international students through lenses of control and risk, rather than as long-term partners.

Against this backdrop, one practical recommendation is to treat international student mobility as part of the long-term infrastructure of open societies, not as a short-term lever to be tightened or loosened in response to pressure.

Current developments in these countries do not close mobility altogether, but they narrow the political imagination around it, privileging control over confidence. Over time, that narrowing risks eroding the very qualities these systems depend on: openness, credibility, and global connection.