Jason E. Lane

Driven to become more economically competitive, some national and state governments seek todevelop their local capacity with branch campuses, and the example of Abu Dhabi -- particularly New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) -- is instructive in how de facto research capacity at such institutions may be measured.

International branch campuses have evolved over the last decade in terms of their numbers and diversity, their relationship with the host government, and the strategies employed for quality assurance. We review the trends in these areas and suggest several implications for the way the phenomenon should be viewed.

Quality assurance for cross-border higher education often focuses on concerns about academic standards. But the challenge of evaluating international branch campuses and other foreign education outposts goes beyond enforcing basic standards of quality. We identify five issues that that make quality assurance in the cross-border context problematic.