Erkner Encounter #9 with Dr Lee Rensimer, CGHE

On 10 May 2022 the TRANSEDU team met with Dr Lee Rensimer for a digital Erkner Encounter. Lee is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE) at UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. In his academic work, in which he particularly focuses on the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), he examines how ideas of Britain travel through British higher education and adapt in transnational higher education spaces. Among his more recent publications is an insightful survey-based study into the graduate outcomes of British offshore campuses in the UAE, addressing a crucial gap in the respective literature.

We had a very fruitful discussion, sharing thoughts on the underlying themes that connects all our research. We found that there are important similarities between our different geographical focus areas, but also significant differences. In particular this relates to the different ways of how offshore campuses of foreign universities become localized and regionally embedded, how governments rationalize these processes, and how their development is related to wider global power relations tied to postcolonial and neo-imperial hegemonies under the so-called knowledge-based economy.

A summary of Lee’s publications can be found here.