An international branch campus (IBC) is a form of international higher education whereby one or more partnering institutions establishes a physical presence in a foreign location for the purpose of expanding global outreach and student exchange. Generally named for their "home" institution and offering undergraduate and graduate programs, graduating students are conferred degrees from one or all partnering institutions, dependent on the agreement.^[1] Instruction most often occurs in properties owned or leased by the foreign institution, sometimes with a local partner, and may also include additional services and facilities to mirror Western universities. IBCs are delivered in many formats and currently exist all over the world. As a relatively new method of delivering post-secondary education, IBCs have been deemed successful and yet face continual criticism.

While the internationalization of higher education is considered a contemporary phenomenon, it has a variety of historical roots. During the colonial era, the practice of setting up "branch" institutions in foreign countries or sponsoring schools in the colonies was commonplace, serving the most basic purposes characteristic of the period. This practice continued into the nineteenth century by American Protestant missionaries, who established colleges grounded in the U.S. model in countries such as Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon, practices from which the American University of Beirut was founded.^[2] In a broader sense, higher education institutions have long held global orientations, in that they served international students, employed professors from different countries, and functioned chiefly in the common language of Latin.^[2]

Close resemblances of the contemporary branch campus model emerged in the early twentieth century. At this time, these campuses functioned primarily to serve U.S. military and civilian personnel in the U.S.-owned Canal Zone.^[3] Florida State University, among other institutions, began providing this type of cross-border program as early 1933. In the 1950s, Johns Hopkins University opened a branch campus in Italy which is now considered the oldest established branch campus still in operation.^[4] The first concentration of branch campuses in a single country was established in Japan during the 1980s for various diplomatic reasons. Wanting to improve the relationship between Japan and the United States, the Japanese government recruited several U.S. universities to establish branch campuses on its soil, of which nearly 30 did in cooperation with Japanese institutions or private companies.^[2] Only one of these campuses (Temple University, Japan Campus) remain today; the rest mostly closing due to inconvenient locations and difficulties in English language instruction.^[3]

International branch campuses began to proliferate in the mid-1990s and further into the twenty-first century. The first non-American institution to establish a branch campus in the modern era was French Fashion University that opened in Norway in 1990. The rest of the 1990s saw a wave of diversifying institutions expanding abroad, primarily from Australia, Mexico, Chile, Ireland, Canada, Italy, the UK, and Sweden; to target areas in Africa, Southeast and East Asia, the Middle East and South America.^[4] There were approximately 50 IBCs at the end of the '90s boom (not including those in the Japanese bubble), reaching 183 in 2011.^[4][5] Some have seen the development of the IBCs an extraordinary form of privatization in the public sector (largely due to the geographic separation from the state); however, Jason E. Lane and Kevin Kinser have argued that the extent of an IBCs privatization should also be assessed in relation to fulfilling public purposes in the host country.^[6] As of 2023,^[update] there are 333 international branch campuses worldwide meeting the Cross-Border Education Research Team definition.^[7]

Most international branch campuses are located throughout Asia and the Middle East.^[4] IBCs have developed in dense pockets in regions such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Malaysia. Both the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have transformed themselves as educational hubs (a collection of campuses from multiple institutions in a common space, creating educational 'hubs', 'cities,' or 'parks'), with Saudi Arabia and Malaysia following closely behind. These academic reforms are mostly market-driven; approximately two-thirds of the new universities in the Arab Middle East are private and nearly half are branches of Western institutions, mostly from the United States,^[11] and others from Australia and the United Kingdom.^[12][13]

Many of the countries with the most IBCs (United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, Malaysia and Singapore) have struggled with the problem of brain drain.^[14][15][16] The logic of hosting a foreign institution's branch campus is to prevent local students from actually studying abroad by luring them to stay by receiving a foreign degree at home and at a considerably lower cost.^[3][15] Hosting a foreign branch campus can also enhance links with industry, as in some cases programs offered at the campus are aligned by the government to reflect the nation's industry needs; in other cases, such as typically in the Arab Middle East, IBCs help expedite the process of transitioning from an oil economy to a knowledge economy.^[16]

Just over a quarter of the IBCs in operation as of March 2023^[update] are from American institutions, with the United Kingdom, Russia and France also accounting for over 10 per cent each.^[7] For many institutions, the establishment of a branch campus abroad is an opportunity to improve international relationships, ability to attract foreign talent, increase prestige and tuition revenue, and expand opportunities for external funding.^[17]

Most IBCs focus initially on providing education; however, some IBCs have evidenced interest and commitment to engaging in research.^[25] Hans Pohl and Jason E. Lane developed a methodology using SciVal data to determine the research productivity of faculty/researchers at IBCs.^[26] Their research demonstrated that IBCs in countries such as Qatar, UAE, and Malaysia contribute a significant portion of those nation's overall research productivity. However, in an analysis of research-producing universities in Abu Dhabi, their research suggested that IBCs may not necessarily have greater impact than other forms of educational investment when it comes to overall research productivity.^[27]

The Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT) was founded in 2010 by Professors Jason Lane and Kevin Kinser, then at the State University of New York at Albany, to track and study the development of international branch campuses.^[28] C-BERT maintains a publicly accessible list of IBCs operating around the world, using the definition:^[7]

An entity that is owned, at least in part, by a foreign higher 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.

The largest 'exporter' countries on the C-BERT listing, as of March 2023,^[update] are the United States (84 campuses), the United Kingdom (46), Russia (39), France (38) and Australia (20), while the largest 'importer' countries are China (47 campuses), United Arab Emirates (30), Singapore (16), Malaysia (15) and Qatar (11). The list contains a total of 333 active campuses.^[7]

Though a variety of studies concerning the student experience and satisfaction in IBCs have found that most students react to their branch campuses similarly to their peers at the home institutions,^[29] criticism of IBCs abound. Most prominent among these concerns are those that relate to attracting and retaining host campus faculty, misalignment between home and branch campus,^[30] replicating diversity and quality of the student body,^[31] mirroring forms of cultural imperialism,^[32] lack of data to drive decision-making,^[13] organizational culture,^[33] and the ability of IBCs to adapt to the "new" local context.^[12]