In the 1990s, universities began branching out internationally, setting up offices or branch campuses in other countries and continents. But what are the reasons and motivations behind this? Has higher education become a global commodity? And how does university internationalization affect students, faculty and places – those involved and those not involved? In this first episode of Scoiety@Space, three geographers talk about their personal experiences researching the globalization of higher education: Sarah Hall from Nottingham University (UK), Francis Collins from Waikato University (New Zealand) and Kris Olds, University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA). The conversation reveals that there is a surprising multitude of motivations, strategies and emergent global-local relations. It also shows that there is not just one way, one model of globalization. We need to look at the peripheries, the vast number of ‘normal’ universities rather than a few elite institutions, and at the internationalization at home, the global relatedness you can touch just by crossing the street.