Interdisciplinary summer schools are a rather efficient way of universities and their faculties to introduce international PhD students and academic staff members to the fields of study they could offer. These summer schools could also offer a great opportunity to international PhD students and academic staff members to extend their knowledge on certain topics, introduce them to new ways of teaching certain fields of study as well as to meet new colleagues, and potentially establish connections within academic circles.

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.

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).

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.

One of the most frequent obstacles is the lack of human resources to participate in different types of research projects in the country. Attracting and retaining highly skilled researchers may help to bring new expertise and skills and also to create and maintain research and business relationships. Promoting international mobility of researchers is for the host institution and inevitable part of maintaining them later in the country which may result in overcoming labour shortages and boosting entrepreneurship in knowledge-based sectors in the host country.