Industry experts recently set out to answer a seemingly simple question: how many overseas offices do UK universities have? One estimate landed at around 112, based on publicly available information and sector input. But what stood out wasn’t the number, it was the lack of consensus on what actually counts as an “overseas office.”
This ambiguity reveals a larger issue. It’s not that the data is incomplete, it’s that the metric itself is outdated. International higher education has evolved, but the way we describe and measure it hasn’t kept pace.
While focusing on offices highlights where education is governed, it overlooks how and where learning actually occurs.
From physical presence to distributed reality
Traditionally, global expansion in higher education was defined by physical infrastructure like branch campuses, and in-country hubs. However, over the past decade, universities have moved toward far more distributed ways of operating internationally. They now deliver programmes through partnerships rather than standalone campuses. Staff are employed across multiple jurisdictions without establishing formal offices, and globally mobile faculty and researchers are supported to work across borders. Regional engagement now happens via worldwide networks, rather than being limited to individual physical locations.
In this sense, the universities’ operations have grown significantly larger and more complex than their visible office presence would suggest.
Melbourne’s Monash University, for example, operates across Asia through a mix of branch campuses, research collaborations, and long-term regional partnerships. Meanwhile, RMIT’s activity in Vietnam shows a similar approach, combining local staffing and partnerships into a sustained local presence that goes far beyond the idea of an “office.” Meanwhile, institutions such as Deakin University and the University of Lancaster are developing new campuses in Indonesia, demonstrating how expansion is increasingly shaped by local context and collaboration.
Universities as multinational operators
As a result, universities have begun to resemble multinational organisations. Their teaching, research, and workforce are globally distributed, while the regulatory frameworks they operate within remain highly localised.
This change has been heavily influenced by tightening regulations across employment law, tax (including permanent establishment risk), and immigration compliance. Institutions must now navigate a patchwork of jurisdiction-specific requirements, which has driven the adoption of more flexible operating structures, from local entities to partnership-led delivery to Employer of Record arrangements.
At the same time, talent has become more mobile, with academic work no longer confined to a single institution or country. Researchers collaborate internationally as standard practice, faculty take joint or visiting appointments, and specialist expertise can be sourced globally.
Why “expanding abroad” no longer looks the same
In this environment, the traditional concept of expanding abroad has become almost obsolete. Universities cannot rely on a single, standardised model when each country presents different regulatory conditions and opportunities.
Countries are using transnational education (TNE) to reshape their role in the global education landscape, from campus hubs in India to fast-tracked partnership approvals in China. These developments reflect a growing competition to attract talent and investment, and establish institutional presence in foreign countries, particularly as immigration pathways tighten in traditional destination markets such as the UK.
At the same time, growing geopolitical uncertainty has made international education relationships more complex, and, in some cases, more fragile, meaning institutions must navigate the evolving political contexts and policy changes which influence how and where they operate.
Against this backdrop, counting overseas offices offers only a view of where governance might sit, but not where the actual business of education happens.
Rethinking how we measure global presence
If physical offices no longer define international activity, how should we measure it?
One emerging idea is to shift toward a regulatory presence index or international operating footprint. Rather than focusing on visible infrastructure, this approach would consider where universities are operationally active and exposed, including workforce distribution, partnership networks, and regulatory obligations.
Such a shift would better reflect the realities of modern global education: a system defined less by location and more by connectivity, compliance, and collaboration.
What this means for the future
This transformation has implications beyond how we describe internationalisation; it will also shape how the sector is evaluated and funded.
Research systems, for example, are still largely structured around nationally anchored institutions. While frameworks such as the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF) and Australia’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) have traditionally linked research outputs closely to institutional affiliation, evolving models like REF2029 are beginning to reflect a more flexible and mobile research environment. As research becomes increasingly collaborative, international and less tied to a single institution, systems for assessment and accountability are having to adapt accordingly.
In practice, research funding is already beginning to follow teams rather than institutions. As global academic work becomes more distributed, evaluation systems will likely need to recognise the underlying infrastructure that enables it, including international employment models and mobility mechanisms.
Ultimately, the debate around overseas offices highlights a greater transition, as global education has moved beyond the traditional model defined by physical expansion and into one characterised by distributed operations and regulatory complexity, making it harder to quantify and compare outcomes using conventional metrics, and instead moving the focus to governance and risk management to build long-term institutional resilience.
Emma Prodromou, Global Business Expansion & Immigration Manager, joined Mauve Group in 2005. She is responsible for ensuring immigration compliance for global workers, researchers, and faculty staff within the international education sector and beyond. Emma works closely with immigration partners, consular officials, and embassies, and also supports clients in establishing overseas entities.
