The purpose of developing an action plan is to set concrete short- and long-term goals for internationalisation at your unit/department.
Develop an action plan
Umeå University's Internationalisation Policy can be helpful when developing an action plan. The policy describes the university's strategic goals in relation to the university's vision and addresses four areas of development:
- Internationalisation at home
- International cooperation
- International experience
- Hosting that benefits internationalisation.
At the bottom of this page you will find material that you can use to develop an action plan.
Step 1: Discuss you current internationalisation work
Start by thinking about what you are doing today in terms of internationalisation. Feel free to methodically go through the points under the four development areas in the policy to see what you are already working on, as well as what you need and would like to develop. You can, for example, use the SWOT analysis to do this.
Step 2: Create your target objective
What makes you unique and proud when it comes to internationalisation? Where would you like to be in a few years? Set overall goals and it will be easier to implement sub-goals along the way in an action plan.
- Develop overall work objectives and add them in the action plan.
Step 3: Plan actions and activities
Ideas and visions are all well and good, but turning them into reality requires planning. Make the overall goals concrete by breaking them down into sub-goals.
- Break down the overall goals into sub-goals and enter them in the action plan.
- Develop measures and activities that you want to do to reach the sub-goals.
- Determine a person responsible for each action or activity.
- Set a date when the action or activity must be completed.
In addition to this, also think about what resources that are available and what the next step is to move forward. Schedule time now for follow-up and evaluation.
Step 4: Action plan template
Remember that one of the most important aspects of change and development is setting aside time to evaluate. Set routines at an early stage of the process to follow up on your action plan.
Questions to discuss:
- Did our planned measures turn out the way we thought it would?
- Did we get the desired results?
- Is there anything we need to rethink?
- Is there anything we can improve further?
- Is there a need for further development work?
Materials to download
In the headlines below you will find some material to use in the process - with the goal to develop an action plan for internationalisation.
Under the headline Get started you can find a presentation with inspirational material that describes internationalisation within higher education, as well as suggestions for various workshop methods. Under the respective headlines you can also find workshop materials for in-person and virtual meetings as well a template a SWOT analysis, and a template for an action plan.
The material is available in both Swedish and English.
Get started
Presentation on internationalisation - background and information on how to work with workshops, SWOT analysis and developing an action plan (PPT).
Internationalisation at Umeå University (PPT)
Workshop materials (in-person meetings)
Four areas of development – overall poster (pdf)
Internationalisation at home - bullet points (pdf)
International cooperation - bullet points (pdf)
International experience - bullet points (pdf)
Hosting that benefits internationalisation - bullet points (pdf)
Summary – Internationalisation policy (Word)
Download all files (ZIP file)
Workshop materials (virtual meetings)
Internationalisation at home – bullet points (Word)
International collaboration - bullet points (Word)
International experience - bullet points (Word)
Hosting that benefits internationalisation - bullet points (Word)
Download all files (ZIP file)
SWOT analysis and action plan
SWOT analysis is a technique used to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats for the purpose of developing a strategic plan. The method is used by looking at both internal and external advantages and challenges. Use the method to identify your strong areas and your areas of development.
SWOT analysis template (Word)
Download this template and use as a starting point when developing the action plan.
Action plan template (Word)