International Branch Campuses

This presentation was given to at the Offre d’enseignement supérieur a l’étranger: incitations bénéfices et modelés économiques – analyse et retours d’expérience workshop on transnational education (TNE) organised by France Stratégie.  It sets out the traditional business models for TNE, discussing the way that these are blurring and changing over time.  It then considers the forces driving the changes in TNE and speculates on a future in which TNE business models will change so significantly that they will no longer be TNE as we currently understand the concept.

This lecture is part of the MA in International Higher Education Management at the University of Bath.  It covers TNE partnerships: scalability, profitability and sustainability:
1. What is TNE?
2. TNE in the landscape of internationalisation of higher education
3. Why the interest in TNE?
4. What are the main forms of TNE?
5. How important is TNE?
6. Characteristics of TNE partnerships
7. The scalability of TNE partnerships
8. How profitable is TNE?
9. Sustainability of TNE partnerships over time
10. Case studies of TNE partnerships

International branch campuses (IBCs) have a significant presence in Dubai’s higher education sector, yet the role of these institutions is not yet fully understood. Moreover, the evolution of the roles of IBCs in Dubai may be strongly influenced by public policy designs. This brief defines three key issues influencing the development of the education sector and relevant public policy.
First, in most importing nations, IBCs account for only a small proportion of the total number of postsecondary educational institutions, and most countries already have well established
public and private higher education sectors. In Dubai, however, the private higher education sector has developed rapidly and the number of IBCs is nearly half of the total number of
education institutions licensed to operate in the Emirate. Second, foreign education providers engage in a variety of capacity-building roles in Dubai, ranging from providing access to
expatriates excluded from the public system to signaling the increasing modernity of the Emirate to the world. Consideration should be given to how future public policy decisions may
affect these roles. Third, the use of free zones to facilitate the importation of foreign education providers has resulted in dual quality assurance mechanisms at the federal and local levels, as well as a lack of coordination throughout the sector. This has created an environment where there is significant duplication of degree offerings, confusion over regulation, and concern about
the quality of some programs. While such constraints are common in rapidly developing educational systems, left unaddressed they can challenge the effective contribution of
the entire sector to the development of the Emirate and the nation, as well as the long-term sustainability of each institution.* This brief provides an overview of key public policy issues and presents a set of questions to help frame the ongoing conversation.

While the label “international branch campus” can imply that the ownership or condition of facilities is important in the model, most operating definitions only require that there be a physical presence in a foreign country. The research has revealed that IBCs actually come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from rented storefronts to government subsidized architectural wonders. These data reveal five models that universities use when seeking to establish an IBC’s physical plant. It is important to note, however, that the use of these models will be limited, based on local regulations (e.g., some countries do not allow foreign ownership of facilities), as well as the ability to find a willing government, private, or academic partner to provide the space. Each arrangement comes with its own set of opportunities and obstacles. Wholly owned endeavors provide some stability and freedom from external interference but also pose a financial risk, should the enrollments not meet projections or government hospitality lapse. Partnering reduces the financial risks, but could lead to outside interference in academic affairs. While the models of facility ownership have been identified, more research is needed to understand their operational implications.

Executive Summary

International branch campuses (IBCs) remain a prominent and distinctive form of transnational higher education. This report defines, describes, and lists IBCs using the most up-to-date data and resources publicly available. While there is continuity with definitions and lists used by the Observatory and C-BERT in the past, the report embodies a unified definition and list of campuses.

In addition to describing and listing IBCs, the report attempts to categorize the many models of IBCs in existence.

For this report, an international branch campus is defined as “an entity that is owned, at least in part, by a foreign education provider; operated in the name of the foreign education provider; and provides an entire academic program, substantially on site, leading to a degree awarded by the foreign education provider.”

There are currently 249 entities that fit this definition. The report also classifies other types of cross-border higher education (CBHE) activity which fulfill some but not all the requirements to be considered IBCs.

In this, Part 1 of the report, data about location of home and host countries, age of IBC, enrollments, types of academic programs offered, and focus of research activity is provided and a new typology of IBCs is discussed.  The report also explores institutional and government motivations, and evolving quality assurance arrangements.

 
Key findings of the report include:

Overall
• Net IBCs. At the end of 2015, the number of international branch campuses worldwide hit 249, up 26% since the end of 2010 when taking into account IBCs that closed or changed status in that time.
• Steady Growth. In absolute terms, growth is steady: from 2011-2015, 66 IBCs were founded, compared to 67 from 2006-2010. In relative terms, as the base number has increased, the growth rate is down. From 2006 - 2010, the number of IBCs grew 45%.
• Students. At the end of 2015, an estimated 180,000 students worldwide were enrolled in IBCs as defined in this report.
• New Countries. Six new home countries, nine new host countries, and six countries newly engaged as both host and home appeared from 2011-2015. New home countries include Belgium, Estonia, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and Taiwan. Since 2011, nine countries have become new hosts to IBCs: Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, Ghana, India, Malta, Nicaragua, Rwanda, and Saudi Arabia.
• Developing Countries. Developing countries continue to become both home and host of IBCs, though there remains very little activity in Africa and South America: from 2011-2015, only four new IBCs were developed in Africa outside of the MENA region and just one in South America.
• Future. Branch campuses constitute a small portion of cross-border higher education (CBHE), but continue to grow in number. Though only four campuses were confirmed to have opened in 2015, this apparent slowdown is due, at least in part, to a lag in visibility and reporting. There are around twenty IBCs currently under development, suggesting ongoing growth

Home Countries
• Top Home Countries. IBCs come from 33 different home countries, an 18% increase from 28 home countries at the end of 2010.  The top five home countries, in terms of number of IBCs, are the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and Australia. Together, these countries account for 181 branch campuses, or 73% of total IBCs.
• US & Europe. Growth continues to be largely driven by providers based in the United States and Europe. Of the IBCs currently under development worldwide, around half are planned by institutions based in the US and UK.

 
Host Countries
• Top Host Countries. IBCs are hosted by 76 countries, a 10% increase from 69 countries at the start of 2011.  The top five host countries are China (32) , the United Arab Emirates (31), Singapore (12), Malaysia (12), and Qatar (11), which together host 98 IBCs, or 39% of the world’s total. China has overtaken UAE as the top host country.
• Trends. The number of IBCs continues to increase, with concentrated growth in China, Malaysia, Mauritius and South Korea from 2011-2015 and slowed growth in UAE.

Part 2 of this report, to be published in 2017, will be based on interviews with institutional leaders at a sample of IBCs in operation for at least a decade. Part 2 will go into greater detail on motivations and operations of mature IBCs and explore the question of how to judge success from different perspectives and what combination of conditions breeds success.

The present report is free to Observatory members and available for purchase for non-members. Please contact info@obhe.org for login details or to purchase the report.

Against the backdrop of unprecedented growth in the global demand for higher education, the UK government has recognised that there is a huge potential market beyond conventional ‘export education’, if its universities can find ways of providing ‘transnational education’ (TNE) to the millions of foreign students unable or unwilling to travel to the UK.  This paper tests the thesis that TNE represents ‘one of Britain’s great growth industries of the future’.  For TNE to flourish, three conditions need to be satisfied, namely: that there is already a strong base of UK TNE activity and expertise on which to build; second, that there will be continuing growth in demand for UK TNE; and, finally, that UK universities have the capability and willingness to expand supply to meet any future growth in demand.  It finds little evidence to support the thesis that TNE is, in fact, likely to be a great growth industry and highlights the dangers for policymakers of setting objectives in the absence of a strong evidence base about current capabilities and future market trends.

In his book The World Is Flat (2005), Thomas Friedman effectively argued that globalization has led to the creation of worldwide markets and a leveling of the playing field for the competitors within those markets. Higher education has not escaped this trend. The last decade has witnessed the development of multinational colleges and universities: institutions that have extended their academic operations outside of their home country with a combination of research sites, outreach offices, joint degree programs, and branch campuses.

The  Higher Education Academy has developed a  strategic framework for internationalising higher education (including transnational education). The framework is designed as an enhancement tool to inspire and assist in enhancing HE policy and practice, recognising internationalisation as a process rather than an end in itself. This Good Practice Guide is designed to complement the framework, providing guidance on TNE which will help HEIs take forward internationalisation objectives.

The purpose of this article is to analyse some of the key ongoing debates in transnational higher education (TNHE). First, we discuss a selection of the claimed benefits and drawbacks of TNHE for home and host country stakeholders (students, governments and institutions), and then we suggest alternative realities, for which there appears to be evidence in practice. It is concluded that (1) recent TNHE developments on the provision side act as a counterforce to the spread of neo-colonialism; (2) international branch campus development continues but there is evidence that the forms, motives, and markets of these initiatives are changing; (3) distance/online/MOOC programmes do not pose a threat to the sustainability of other forms of TNHE; (4) the majority of TNHE programmes are of acceptable quality due to high levels of competition in international higher education markets and increased regulatory demands from quality assurance agencies; and (5) these forces also contribute to students generally being satisfied with their TNHE study experience.

At the start of 2016, there were 230 international branch campuses operating worldwide, but of the campuses that were established since the mid-1990s, around 10 per cent have failed. The purpose of this article is to propose a framework that the strategic decision makers in higher education institutions can refer to when evaluating opportunities to develop branch campuses in foreign countries. The framework derives from empirical evidence that was the product of a rigorous search of the literature and other secondary sources, and it has drawn upon business management theories such as institutional theory, Porter's industry-based view, and Barney's resource-based view. Thematic analysis was used to identify the following themes, or influencing factors, in the data: environmental, industry, and organisational. The framework provides higher education managers with an analytical tool to guide a process of systematic data collection and analysis, which includes reflection on institutional objectives, resources, and competencies. It is likely that the systematic, data-driven approach promoted by the framework will in future reduce the number of international branch campus failures.

The UK has been the main exporting country for transnational education (TNE) – that is, for providing higher education to foreign students who study wholly in their own country.  In the latest data (2020/21), UK universities reported 488,095 TNE enrolments, up 13% on 2019/20.  This compares with 605,130 for international students studying in the UK.

Post-Covid, there is growing interest in New Zealand entering the global TNE market. There are several reasons for this interest:

- Covid-19 and growing geo-political tensions have blunted the appetite for conventional export education (studying overseas) in key source markets, notably China.

- While global enrolments in higher education have soared to reach 235.3m by 2020, only 6.1m (2.4%) are internationally mobile, a percentage which has not changed since 1980.

- Export education is increasingly seen as exploitative and environmentally unsustainable.  TNE, in contrast, reduces the carbon footprint of international education and typically involves building deep partnerships between exporting HEIs and the host countries.

This presentation considers what New Zealand universities can learn from past and present global TNE development, and reflects on where Aotearoa’s approach may differ from the UK’s. It examines the need for stringent Quality Assurance processes to ensure students entering TNE pathways are set up for success.

The university branch campus is a phenomenon on the rise, but we have limited knowledge of the strategic choices underlying the start of these international ventures. The objective of this paper is to shed light on the motivations and decisions of universities to engage (or not) with the establishment of international branch campuses. As a point of departure, institutional theory has been selected to frame the potential motives for starting an international branch campus. Secondary literature, including professional journals and university reports and websites, has been analysed to obtain information that alludes to the motivations of universities for adopting particular strategies. It was found that university managements’ considerations can be explained by the concepts of legitimacy, status, institutional distance, risk-taking and risk-avoidance. We argue that universities should avoid decisions based on a single dimension, such as legitimacy, but rather consider a broad spectrum of motivations with reference to a range of theories and concepts rooted in different disciplines and traditions.

Higher education is a labour intensive activity and strong organisational performance depends upon employee commitment. This study analyses antecedents and consequences of employee commitment in universities that are involved in transnational higher education, with a focus on identifying differences between the employees at home and foreign branch campuses. The data for the study were obtained using a questionnaire that was completed by both teaching and non-teaching staff at three institutions in the UK, three institutions in Malaysia, and two institutions in the United Arab Emirates. A conceptual model was proposed and tested using structural equation modelling. The results indicate that employees at international branch campuses are not as motivated and committed to their organisations as their counterparts at home campuses. The findings suggest that institutions need to employ different and customised human resource strategies at home and foreign campuses, specifically with the aim of improving employee commitment and performance at the foreign campuses.

Everyone knows that there has been a marked increase in transnational higher education activity over the past twenty years.

But it is unclear how this has affected those who make their living in higher education, which is why this research study is so important.

Dr. Michael Clarke, currently the Principal of Global College Malta, explores the challenges that come along with the increased mobility that transnational higher education has allowed academics to enjoy—focusing specifically on British expatriate academics based in the UAE. Get answers to questions such as:
• What are the benefits and drawbacks for British academics working abroad?
• How does working overseas affect long-term career aspirations?
• What are conditions like at higher education institutions located overseas?
• How can educational practices from overseas be used to improve education at home?

Whether you are an educator or an administrator in a higher education setting, the insights and recommendations in this study will equip you with the tools you need to improve the learning experience for students and working conditions for staff.

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to discover how higher education institutions may segment the market in a competitive higher education hub and to assess the usefulness of strategic group analysis as an analytical technique for market and competitor analysis. As a case example of a competitive higher education market, this research investigates how higher education institutions in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) position themselves and compete with one another.
Design/methodology/approach - The research relied mainly on secondary data, which were obtained from the websites of institutions and regulatory bodies. Then, hierarchical cluster analysis was used to identify strategic groups and institutional competitive strategies in the UAE higher education market. A panel of experts helped interpret and explain the cluster results.
Findings - Eight distinct institutional clusters were identified, which include public and privately owned institutions, as well as elite and specialist institutions. Institution and programme accreditation were found to be particularly important in the UAE market. The institutions in each group appear to operate in a particular market segment, targeting students that have similar needs and wants, and who often share similar demographic features.
Practical implications - It is concluded that strategic group analysis may help institutions to evaluate potential markets, select target segments and develop competitive strategies. In the UAE market context, the results demonstrate how institutions may position themselves to create strong and distinctive identities. The results of the research may be of interest to higher education institutions that operate in competitive markets, and particularly those that want to evaluate foreign markets.
Originality/value - This is believed to be the first study to use a strategic group approach for analysing competitors in a higher education hub.

The international branch campus has emerged as a popular form of transnational higher education but to date little research has been undertaken on student perceptions and experiences, other than the student feedback evaluations conducted by institutions. This research employed a survey questionnaire to investigate student perceptions of study at international branch campuses in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country which hosts the largest number of branch campuses globally. Across the seven dimensions examined – programme effectiveness, quality of lecturers and teaching, student learning, assessment and feedback, learning resources, use of technology, and facilities/social life – it was found that students are largely satisfied. The findings refute many of the criticisms of international branch campuses in the literature, regarding quality, political or ideological issues.

There is currently renewed interest in transnational education (TNE) amongst UK universities as a means of taking education to the 98% of tertiary students worldwide who are geographically-immobile.  In this discourse, the home universities are characterised as the dominant players, seeking strategic opportunities to commercially expand into foreign markets.  This paper argues that, in contrast, there are four key stakeholders in TNE – the home university, the partner organisation, the host government and students in the host country – and a TNE partnership is shaped by their relative power and motivations.  The paper finds that unless the motivations of stakeholders are broadly aligned to the form of TNE partnership, it is unlikely to succeed.  It highlights the fluid nature of these motivations which change over time – often slowly, but sometimes abruptly when there is a change in university strategy or policy on the part of the host government.

The growth of transnational education has been a major focus of attention for the UK sector since 2010.  During a period when international student recruitment has stagnated, transnational education (TNE) has been widely seen as an alternative way of diversifying revenue and building international profile for universities.  The UK presently dominates the global TNE market.  In 2017/18, approximately 700,000 students were studying for UK higher education qualifications in their own country – more than twice the number of international (non-European Union) students who travelled to the UK to study.  Despite the interest in TNE and the growth in offshore enrolments, there has been growing scepticism about the net economic benefits of TNE and the sustainability of TNE models.  This article reviews the drivers of TNE activity and concludes the high-tide mark for UK universities has been passed and that TNE may be entering a period of decline.

Universities around the world are scrambling to adapt, change, include, and revise curriculum and other educational resources to reflect the multicultural, interdisciplinary nature of our present time.  As program chairs, administrators, professors, and lecturers look for ways to incorporate the themes of globalization and multiculturalism, they must also reflect and determine the ways in which they use and teach English in their classrooms.  While English has become the lingua franca in Science, Business, and other fields, scholars still grapple with the implications of its adoption in many settings.  To what extent should English be introduced and taught in schools around the world?  Who “owns” the English language and can therefore shape its structure and aims?  What are world Englishes and how can we demonstrate them to our students?  Is English the language of the oppressor, an imperialist tool, or does global English offer an opportunity for greater understanding and cooperation amongst peoples and cultures?
Likewise, themes of globalization and multiculturalism are equally troubling and complex for students and their academic instructors.  What is the best framework for addressing globalization?  Who should teach multiculturalism and in what arena is it a possible topic of discussion? This volume of critical essays seeks to explore and offer insight to these and other questions surrounding language and culture in our globalized world.  Its contributors and topics are as multicultural and multi-faceted as such a volume would demand.  The essays include authors and/or studies from Algeria, India, Iran, Ghana, Germany, Kenya, Poland, Tunisia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, and United States of America.

Previous research has found that the country and institution choices of international students are greatly influenced by recommendations they receive from others who have experience of undertaking higher education overseas. For Western universities, it is of utmost importance to satisfy their international students, who can then encourage the next generation of international students to attend those same institutions. However, student satisfaction is not the only factor at play. Using a framework of ‘push and pull’ factors, rooted in the international student choice literature, this exploratory study investigates the determinants of destination choice of international students who decided to study at a university in the UK and examines their attitudes toward international branch campuses. The survey results and analyses suggest that overseas campuses could pose a considerable threat to home campuses in the competition for international students in the future.

This lecture is part of the MA in International Higher Education Management at the University of Bath.  It covers TNE partnerships: the challenges of managing partnerships across borders and culture:
1. The dimensions of the management challenges
 Culture
 Language
 Legislation
2. The limitations of home universities in managing TNE
3. The stakeholders in TNE revisited
4. What do stakeholders want from TNE?
 Home university
 Joint venture partner
 Host government
 Students
5. The importance of alignment
6. Case studies of successful and failed TNE partnerships

This paper analyses globalisation processes in higher education and the emergence of a transnational and global higher education market on the basis of the proliferation of international branch campuses. While most research only refers to a growth and global expansion of branch campuses in recent years, this analysis traces and illuminates four waves of international branch campus foundations in different areas of the world and their specific founding conditions. In doing so, it provides a macro-perspective on the emergence of the global higher education market. Although, both home and host countries of international branch campuses have diversified remarkably throughout the four waves and international branch campuses have become a widely accepted model of higher education provision, they are neither equal with respect to space nor are they distributed on a global scale. The global higher education market as embodied in international branch campuses rather unfolds in a dynamic driven by a centre-semi-periphery-periphery founding pattern and higher education institutions that choose locations for their branch with favourable conditions. This dynamics leaves a lot of blind spots and creates outer areas that are not (yet) incorporated into the global higher education market.

Purpose -The research aims to assess the achievements and challenges of international branch campuses (IBCs) to date, and to consider how IBC development may progress in the future.
Method -The article presents a review of the scholarly and grey literatures on IBCs. The commentary and discussion is structured around the objectives, perspectives and experiences of three key stakeholder groups, namely the institutions that own IBCs, students and host countries.
Findings - Some IBCs have failed to achieve their student recruitment and financial targets, while others have been successful, often expanding and moving into new, larger, purpose-built campuses. In the last few years, several countries have announced their intention to become a transnational education hub, or at least to allow the establishment of IBCs. It may be reasonable to assume that when there is demand for a particular product, supply will eventually follow. IBCs will survive and prosper as long as they provide benefits to each of their main stakeholder groups (i.e., students, institutions and governments), and as long as the local demand for higher education places exceeds the total supply.
Originality -The article provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review of IBC developments and research during the period 2000-2020. The findings and conclusions will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners.

In the last two decades, resource cities of the Arab Gulf Region have been known to urban scholars and the general public for their extravagant, large-scale urban developments. These so-called megaprojects have allowed Gulf governments to both brand their nations globally and compete regionally and internationally with other global economic centers. However, as oil-rich Gulf countries have attempted to diversify their revenue stream away from fossil fuels, a new urban typology has emerged in their capitals to facilitate the transition to the knowledge-intensive economy. In continuity with previous research on megaprojects in the Gulf and Asian countries, we have called this new typology Knowledge Megaprojects (KMs). In this paper, by using as a reference point for comparisons the existing literature on knowledge developments in the West, we set to exemplify KMs in the Gulf region by analyzing the case of Education City—a large knowledge campus being developed by the Qatari government in Doha. One main result of this study is that KMs replicate the same shortcomings of other more mundane, extravagant megaprojects and thus are unlikely to provide the right urban setting to foster a sustainable transition to the post-carbon economy in the Gulf.

In recent years, an increasing number of major universities have set up international branch campuses (IBCs).  There are now over 200 IBCs, with more under development.  Little is known about the unique challenges that face IBC managers, who are normally seconded from the home university to set up and operate the satellite campus in a new and alien environment.  At the same time, there are significant financial and reputational risks for the home university should an IBC fail.  This paper reports the results of a qualitative study into the ‘lived experiences’ of IBC managers working in the three largest host markets for IBCs – China, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates.  It finds that the fundamental challenge for managers is balancing the competing demands of a range of internal and external stakeholders and concludes that universities need to do more to prepare and support IBC managers.

ئامانجی ئەم وتارە جگە لە پێناسەی پەناهەندە باسکردنی ئەگەری بوونی یان نەبوونی جیاوازی یە لە نێوان پەناهەندە و ئاوارەدا. پاشان ئاماژە بە پیوەرە دروستەکانی کامپی پەناهەندە ئەکات ، بۆ ئەوەی دواجار بەراوردبکرێت بە دۆخی کامپەکانی ئێزیدیەکان لە دەهۆک و سلێمانی بە مەبەستی تێڕوانین لە بوون و نەبوونی مەرجە نێو دەوڵەتیەکان  دەستنیشانکراوەکان بۆ کامپی پەناهەندە وودەرخستنی کەم وکوڕیەکانی دی.

The paper summarizes the findings from a survey of 78 International Branch Campuses (IBCs).  The paper provides information on the age of branch campuses, language of instruction, availability of student transfer options, academic program offerings, enrollments, and origin of students.

This research investigates the attitudes, working conditions, experiences, and job satisfaction of academic staff employed at offshore campuses. An online survey questionnaire was completed by 72 academic staff in 10 different countries, which included China, Malaysia, Qatar, the UAE, and Vietnam. It was found that the desire for adventure and travel, and to experience a foreign culture, were the most popular motivations for working at an offshore campus. Common challenges and disadvantages of teaching at an offshore campus are the lack of job security, support for research, academic freedom, and opportunities for development and advancement. However, such academics often have motivated students, smaller class sizes, greater autonomy at work, fewer meetings, higher disposable income, and less of the 'publish or perish' culture. Almost three quarters of our research participants believe that it is possible to have an attractive career teaching in transnational education, at offshore campuses.

In his presidential address to the International Studies Association, Amitav Acharya (2014, 1) observed that despite the fact that " IR schools, departments, institutes, and conventions have mushroomed around the world.. .the discipline still needs to overcome a central challenge related to its British and North American roots. " Interestingly, Acharya's observation about the continued dominance of IR perspectives rooted in particular Western nations comes during a time of unprecedented structural internationalization of the very higher education institutions that house those dominant IR programs (Rust and Kim 2012). Thus, we find that the IR programs rooted in the United Kingdom and the United States are not only extending their dominance over the intellectual components of IR, they are also now replicating the very institutional structures designed to protect and extend that intellectual dominance. Engaging the institutional layer of the sociology of IR set forth by Waever (1998), this contribution problematizes how the expansion of universities into foreign countries, and the associated replication of institutional structures, affects the development of IR.

The academic literature and professional journals both reveal no shortage of criticisms of the international branch campus and yet each year more branches are established all around the world and existing campuses continue expand. So, it seems that there must be demand for these campuses. But how well are they actually serving students?

The academic literature and professional journals both reveal no shortage of criticisms of the international branch campus and yet each year more branches are established all around the world and existing campuses continue expand. So, it seems that there must be demand for these campuses. But how well are they actually serving students?

The topic of international branch campuses saturates the literature; however, little attention has been paid to the university strategic planning process for institutions setting up programs abroad. Many US universities have considered opening a branch campus in order to meet the demand of globalization and break into new student markets. Currently, the US leads efforts in establishing its brand of higher education in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, China, and Qatar. This paper considers the challenges of establishing a branch campus based on the literature surrounding American branch campuses’ successes and failures and develops a conceptual model for planning, implementation, and monitoring for those universities considering exporting their brand and academic programs abroad.