International students reacted positively when the University of Tartu introduced compulsory Estonian-language courses for English-language master’s programmes — in contrast to the situation in Norway and the Netherlands.Credit: Alexander Farnsworth/Getty
Two decades ago, European universities were racing to internationalize. The Bologna Process, launched in 1999 to standardize and improve the quality of higher education in Europe, promised seamless student mobility across borders. At the same time, governments actively recruited foreign talent to boost research competitiveness. English-taught programmes proliferated, and international-student numbers soared.
Today, that consensus has fractured. Across Europe, the policies that were once celebrated as essential for university competitiveness are now under attack. In Norway, fears that English was pushing out Norwegian in some academic departments led to stricter language requirements for research staff last year. And in the Netherlands, courses taught in English are being restricted and regulated.
This shift reflects deeper changes in European politics, with nationalist far-right parties gaining ground and entering parliaments in nearly every European Union country over the past decade. Not all those who oppose internationalization in higher education are motivated by nationalist ideology, but the practice is increasingly colliding with immigration policies, says Vassiliki Papatsiba, a higher-education policy specialist at Cardiff University, UK. “Universities find themselves caught between these pressures, trying to maintain international openness and competitiveness while responding to domestic political concerns.”
Dutch reforms spark academic pushback
Consider the Netherlands. In 2024, the Dutch government proposed the Internationalisation in Balance bill, requiring that Dutch be the default language for teaching in bachelor’s programmes. The policy emerged from a coalition government led by the right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV), and drew strong criticism from the academic sector, which was already reeling from large budget cuts the year before.
The government’s stated reasons for cutting back on programmes taught in English were to address housing shortages in university cities by reducing international-student numbers; to ensure accessibility for Dutch students; and to safeguard public investment in higher education by focusing on domestic students, who were viewed as more likely to stay and work in the country.
But Eddie Brummelman, chair of the Young Academy, part of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, says that whatever the validity of those concerns, “the extent to which internationalization causes or contributes to these problems is often exaggerated, conflated with other issues or unsupported by facts”. The bill has caused international staff and students to feel “ostracized, ridiculed and scapegoated”, he says, and is causing both Dutch and international staff to consider leaving the country. “They don’t want to work in an environment that goes against internationalization, which is so vital for well-functioning academia.”
Brummelman’s organization also slammed a proposal to end English-taught bachelor’s degrees in psychology at five universities. This had been made in April by Universities Netherlands, the umbrella body for the country’s 14 research universities. In a 27 May statement, Brummelman’s Young Academy called the package “a harmful act of anticipatory obedience”, saying it would legitimize the negative narrative around English-language programmes.
On the same day, partial relief came when the Dutch House of Representatives passed a motion that removes one of the most damaging elements of the Internationalisation in Balance bill: a mandatory assessment of all English-taught bachelor’s courses that would have forced them to be taught in Dutch unless a strong justification for another language could be made. The collapse of the Dutch government on 3 June, prompted by the withdrawal of the PVV from the interim government, further adds to the uncertainty.
“There’s a genuine case to be made for preserving or promoting Dutch as an academic language,” Brummelman says, “but that should never come at the cost of internationalization.”
Norway reverses course after outcry
Norway has faced a similar reckoning. In August 2024, the country implemented a law requiring all international PhD students and postdocs to complete a Norwegian language course equivalent to three months of part-time study, and tightening language requirements for permanent staff. The measure was introduced in 2023 by a coalition government that also brought in tuition fees for non-European students. Supporters of the policy said it would protect Norwegian as a language of scholarship.
But the backlash was immediate. Prominent scientists, including Nobel-prizewinning neuroscientist Edvard Moser, warned that the requirement would deter international researchers. The PhD and postdoc proposal was especially unpopular, given the numbers involved: in 2022, for example, 44% of PhD candidates and 74% of postdoctoral fellows at Norwegian institutions came from abroad. A legal challenge, filed in December 2024, argued that the policy violated European Economic Area labour laws.
The political winds shifted again in early 2025, when Norway’s EU-sceptic Centre Party, which was behind the language drive, left the government over disagreements with its coalition partners about energy policy. As part of that shift, the minister of research from the Centre Party quit. His successor, the Labour Party’s Sigrun Aasland, announced plans to reverse the language requirement for PhDs and postdocs, a move researchers hailed as a victory for international science. It remains unclear whether related rules for permanent academic staff — such as the requirement to reach a high level of Norwegian proficiency in three years — will also be revoked.
Norwegian university leaders have since been advocating a “new deal” on internationalization to rebuild the country’s global competitiveness. Norway’s experience “demonstrates how language requirements and other things like fees can become powerful instruments in broader debates about national identity and international engagement in higher education”, Papatsiba says.
External pressures breed resistance
Estonia offers a contrasting example of how European universities can navigate internationalization pressures without major political controversy.
The Baltic state’s push for higher-education internationalization took root under a liberal government in the early 2010s, spurred by reforms around 2013 that introduced free Estonian-language tuition but encouraged expansion of English-taught programmes to diversify funding. This led to a nearly fivefold increase in international enrolment, from 2.3% in 2011 to approximately 12.2% in 2019.
The COVID-19 pandemic has depressed those numbers slightly, as has the war in Ukraine: since the start of the hostilities, Russian students have no longer been accepted for bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Estonian universities, contributing to a 17% drop in foreign students from 2022 to 2024. Nevertheless, English-language teaching remains popular. In a few departments at the University of Tartu, the country’s oldest and largest, almost half the staff members are English-speaking.
Estonia’s internationalization journey could have created conflicts similar to those in the Netherlands and Norway, says Aune Valk, vice-rector of the University of Tartu. Before COVID-19, she says, two-thirds of students did not pay tuition fees, and politicians questioned whether the money spent on subsidizing international students should be redirected to other things, especially given that universities were asking for more money .
The large numbers of international academic staff have also caused some internal debate in Estonian universities, Valk says. Having lots of foreign staff increases the teaching burden on Estonian-speakers, because any course offered in English must also be offered in Estonian. Although this means that English speakers might have more time for research, Valk says that “quite a big part of your staff is not heard”, because administration and outreach happen mostly in Estonian.