SNI was asked by the Director General of the Technion, Prof. Matanyahu Englman, to conduct a study of the options for increasing the number of international postgraduate students studying at the Technion.
Universities around the world are competing for the resource of best students. In recent decades, many universities have formulated policies to increase the number of international students, in particular for advanced degrees. This trend is expected to continue over the next decade.
The rate of international postgraduate students studying at the Technion is 2.8% (123 international students out of 4439 graduate students in 2015). This rate is low as compared to that of the world's leading universities.
As part of the study, SNI was requested to review the models used by leading universities around the world for international postgraduate students and to examine how these models can be sustainable for the Technion in order to expand its research potential and achieve other benefits, such as promoting the Technion's standing in international rankings, turning the Technion into an internationally-oriented organization, and using students' mobility to improve the processes of transferring international knowledge in research collaborations.
The study collected information on the existing models that support international postgraduate students at leading universities globally in the fields of science and technology, and a comparison was made between them and the existing model at the Technion. In particular, the current model existing at the College of Engineering at Cornell University was studied. The findings were submitted to the Technion Board and were presented to the Academic Development Committee at the Technion and before the Board of Governors.
