Many universities already have a fund for small institutional grants to support their local PhD students and young researchers in developing various transferable skills (e.g., writing a project/project and financial management of own project), and in preparing future interdisciplinary, international, or cutting-edge projects. Such grants can be used to cover e.g. travel costs, attendance fees for conferences, extra publication, dissemination and science popularisation costs, extra fieldwork, extra lab costs/consumables, individual trainings, etc. Those grants could be offered also to international PhD students and young academics under the same conditions as their local peers.  Information on grants should be available in English and easily foundable on the institutional website. The information could be part of the welcome package.

Allotting a space on the institution's website for the list of career promotion criteria could greatly contribute to foreign researchers seeking a more permanent involvement at the welcoming institution. Career paths should be structured, transparent, and clear for foreign researchers.

The main benefit of this practice is that this kind of training improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the support staff work. It also increases the levels of satisfaction of the end-users such as researchers in mobility, international PhD students and academic staff.

This training should be offered to all newcomer staff. It will enhance the procces of introduction to the newcomers and shorter the time for their integration.

As a result the newcomers will be able to engage in the process faster and deliver high-quality service, improving their capacity for the job.

The goal of preparing a check-lists of internal support processes is to collect and describe information in a user-centered manner.

• This checklist can improve the understanding of the most common service delivery paths across the whole organisation.
• It can be designed for several users' scenarios, facilitating service delivery description and visualisation.
• It can improve understanding of the services provided by every department and the organisational capacity to support researchers' needs.
• It can facilitate the training of the newly appointed staff. 
• The checklist can improve service delivery, easily orientating visitors about specific service paths across different departments.

Leadership development schemes vary from induction workshops for newly recruited academic staff to mentoring schemes for doctoral candidates, courses in project management, MBAs, job shadowing, general leadership development programmes to more established programmes in higher education. Prior research revealed that offering leadership development opportunities is closely linked to a wider culture of continuous professional development and to existing national legislative frameworks on work environment (Louisa Bunescu & Thomas Estermann, EUA).

The reasons for setting up leadership development and induction schemes can be diverse.

First, such professional development opportunities increase the level of preparedness of executive leaders at universities. Institutional induction schemes ensure continuity and a smooth handover of responsibilities.  

Second, they help acquire specific managerial (e.g. financial, legal, entrepreneurial, intercultural, international) competences while on the job and build confidence.

Third, leadership development schemes are also an opportunity for higher education leaders to learn how to better tackle crisis management situations, like the Covid-19 pandemic or influx of refugee students.

Training programmes on leadership skills are also offered to emerging leaders in higher education, including doctoral candidates in order to prepare them for the challenging roles that they might take up in the higher education sector (Louisa Bunescu & Thomas Estermann, EUA).

Networking and study trips abroad provide an efficient tool to boost the overall visibility of a higher education institution, including various opportunities for study and work it may offer.

Participating staff members / managers act as ambassadors of their institutions abroad and also expand their own professional expertise and knowledge through the exposure to other institutions' good practice.

Prior research found that informal opportunities for learning sliding into the spaces around formal events were often responsible for unexpected and influential perspective transformations and that these opportunities for learning are often undervalued. It was also proven that international study visits where participants agree their own collective agendas and develop a trusted validating community group are more valuable than transmission models of leadership learning (Andy Cramp, University of Wolverhampton).

Social integration, in a narrow sense, may refer mainly to socio-cultural integration enabling the creation of personal connections/networking of international PhD students/researchers/academics, and their family members with their local and other international doctoral and academic fellows. In a broader context, it covers also other integration activities like finding a proper place for living, opportunities for career development, language learning, smooth access to the labour market and education to family members, access to health care, etc. However, also handling all the administrative issues related to relocation (residence permits, health/social insurance, tax, vehicle registration, pets, etc.) in smooth, clear procedures helps a lot for better navigation in the new setting. Being comfortable with the local environment may be substantial to the overall PhD/academics' performance.

Often international welcome centres or one-stop shops established by local/regional/national authorities or associations of several HEIs/research organisations in the city can take over many of the mentioned responsibilities, provide services in a structured manner for a critical mass of clients, promote the city/region efficiently, organise various events about life in the country/city, provide labour-market orientation and dual-career counseling services, offer domestic language courses, etc.

Here we focus on listing possible partners for collaborations to provide more advanced and higher quality services and a broader portfolio of them. Practical steps on how to establish them are also briefly drafted. Although establishing collaborations with numerous external partners might seem a laborious effort, such synergies might bring fruit in clearer/more detailed guidelines, databases, shared responsibilities, better information flow, and even saved human/financial resources.

Transparency and reliability are one of the key factors of a successful scientific activity. The transparency can be achieved by establishing an international scientific committee responsible for supervision and verification of scientific work. Such committees can be established for the HEI’s projects or units. The committee’s work will  improve the HEI’s scientific staff competencies and will be an opportunity for exchange of experiences and knowledge between the engaged institutions. Working with experts from various countries and institutions will be a way to improve communication and cooperation between the engaged institutions and will also increase the HEI’s visibility. The committee members can also be engaged in scientific staff selection and evaluation processes. The experts selection can be based on the HEI’s international partnerships and HEI’s staff personal networks.

However, the existence of such committee(s) shall respect the relevant institutional regulations and project funding agreement requirements. Nevertheless, although similar bodies might exist as part of the instututional structures, the practice might provide some inspiration about the mandates it can have.

A simple online mobility management app enabling an inviting person/department to enter all the parameters on incoming PhDs/academics prior to his/her stay, sending out an auto-generated welcoming email (s) with information and access to all university services (online library, pass/card, other electronic services before their coming to the receiving institution.) easing thus the whole pre-arrival process immensely.
This should be done in cases of incoming PhDs/academics who already know that their mobility/ job position has been approved/confirmed. 

IT mobility system/database is an important segment in organizing information regarding mobility. Each institution should develop its own database, and, if needs be, offer information from it to the other institutions. 

Short interactive workshop to familiarise PhD researchers with basic career planning methods and tools and introduce them into the job search strategies and tools for researchers (in both local and international labour market).

By the end of the workshop participants should:

• Understand the key steps of career planning process and know the basic tools to support to support it;
• Be more aware about their skills and capabilities they have and need to develop and how these are linked to different career paths in academia and beyond;
• Be more aware about the various career paths for researchers;
• Be more knowledgeable about the local and international labour market for researchers and main job search tools and strategies;
• Be able to formulate a personal action plan to follow up after the workshop.

Both the specialised blogs and podcasts are a very effective and efficient way how to better connect with the current and potential target audience of international PhD students, academics, and researchers providing an insight into host HEI's institutional life and culture and welcoming environment. Those media allow you not only to keep the members/followers up-to-date with the latest events, but also promote vital topics and new initiatives, inspiring stories, and express opinions. Both activities should bring less formal but still valuable and entertaining content which should be complementary to the content published on the host HEI institutional website and social media. Both activities help encourage their followers/readers/listeners to become host HEI's ambassadors and raise its visibility and global presence. 

The great benefit of podcast listening opportunities is their mobile nature. Podcast audio content gives listeners the ability to dive into topics without having to set aside time to read or watch a video (e.g.during commuting, jogging, cycling, cooking, etc.). 

Accommodation is the second most important aspect of the successful impelemtation of international academic mobility, right after getting a job/fellowships/scholarship. The requirements for accommodation may vary according to cultural customs, financial possibilities of academic, family conditions (single or with a partner, or children), relationship to ecology (type of transport), health status (need for lift, etc.) In any case, the apartment should have basic equipment: furniture, basic electrical appliances. In the case of international academic and international PhD. student, it is usually a lease for a certain period of time. It is necessary to take into consideration the possibility that some young academics or students may be interested in living together (larger flats), some prefer single living (smaller flats). It is welcome if the institution can offer accommodation in its own accommodation facility, which usually represents a separate room with basic facilities and accessories and a shared kitchen / study room.

In case the own HEI lodging facilities are limited, it is desirable to reach out to external partners for ensuring extra rooms, flats. The practice idenifies practical activities, where a HEI can be a mediator between the external contractor and the incoming international.

Volunteering is a great way to meet people, become familiar with the community and develop skills to include on a resume. 

Volunteer opportunities offered to international partners help spouses connect and feel welcome as international students and scholars embark on a new life in another country. Such opportunities foster the level of satisfaction, social integration and wellbeing of international students and staff and their family members.

In the era of technology, it is a great idea to use social media for promotional purposes. Welcoming institutions should set up a page where they can promote the incoming academics and staff members, and do so in English so that other institutions could have access to it. It might significantly contribute to greater visibility and new possibilities for cooperation.

This could be a combination of a dictionary and glossary of the most common phrases and their definitions in English used in the academic and institutional life of the host institution/country. Special attention should be paid to country/region specific terms that have no actual parallel outside the host country/region, for instance, academic ranks and their hierarchy in the region of Central and South-Eastern Europe. It could be also extended by terms related to the administrative duties that need to be done shortly before or fight after arrival to or upon departure from the host country/institution. Such a tool would be of immense help to both international as well as local PhDs and academics struggling with proper vocabulary when talking to their colleagues.

Using physical and online exhibit marketing can be powerful for higher education institutions to foster their visibility and attract new students and early-stage researchers through the promotion of national and institutional opportunities for study and research.

Higher education institutions can use this channel to communicate externally about their institution and possibilities to engage with it, including existing scholarships, grants and other forms of support to collaboration.

Customised assistance provided to international Ph.D. students, academics, and researchers that fits best their specific needs, especially regarding information that may not be readily available on the institution's website or checklist. Immigration issues are the most crucial area of support. This service requires well-trained support staff in this area, with understanding of legal issues, practical procedures and possibly also collaborations and contacts for exact expert information provision. The goal is to provide the highest level and quality of service. Various levels/intensities of service provision might be opted for based on specific needs and available resources.

This service requires well-trained support staff in the area of work-related issues such as employment, health insurance and social security, taxation, and institutional duties with a focus on a specific group of academics – international academic staff. The goal is to provide highest level and quality of the service which might also require in-house legal advice. Safety, healthcare and wellbeing are essential for good functioning and a particular challange facing guests from abroad. It can be safely assumed they would be needing assistance all the way from the simplest general information, through getting through the necessary paperwork, to personal assistance and intervention.

Customised assistance regarding social integration and daily life of incoming international PhD students, academics and their families helps to make a better experience of settling-in in a new place, whether it is finding housing, opening a bank account, finding a suitable health care provider (s), securing childcare, building a new social network, learning a foreign language and generally, getting accustomed to a new culture and way of life. It can also include information on local/regional public transportation, host city parking policy, waste collection, registering a car, bringing in a pet, etc. Various levels/intensities of service provision might be opted for based on specific needs and available resources. The service might also be helped to deliver by a trained buddy/guide.