International Perspective

In order to give our students greater global competence, we prioritize international exchanges in education. It is only through actual interaction that relevant cultural understanding, as well as social and linguistic skills, can be acquired. That is why we want to increase the mobility of our own staff and students, and to encourage international students and staff to come and help us to achieve our goals.

We encourage our students to take a portion (3-12 months) of their bachelor's or master's degrees at a foreign institution. At the same time, we would like a significant number of foreign students to study at our university college. In order to achieve this, it's important that our academic staff develop close links with institutions abroad. These aims comply fully with the policy of the Norwegian government.

Exchange Programmes and Bilateral Cooperation

Vestfold University College participates actively in the major exchange programss within the EU's Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) - Erasmus, ISEP, as well as the Nordplus program. In addition to the major exchange programmes, we also have bilateral student exchange agreements with overseas institutions. We have such links with universities in Asia, New Zealand, Australia and the USA. These agreements give the majority of staff and students a possibility to study or work abroad.

 Humanitarian Engagement

Vestfold University College is engaged in a number of projects and activities in Latin America, the Middle East and in Eastern and Southern Africa. Humanitarian work and development assistance, in addition to academic cooperation, is high on the agenda. Vestfold University College participates also in the Norwegian Quota Scholarship Scheme designed to provide free education for students from developing countries.  

Internationalization at Home

As our goal is to provide international education, we aim to have an international aspect in the programs we offer and on our two Campuses. The means to achieve our goal includes the following:

• We are constantly developing more study courses taught in English. 
• All our study programs should include literature in English
• We encourage the use of guest lecturers from abroad
• All our study programs should include comparative studies
• We encourage the use of international case studies  
• The research produced at VUC should be of high international standards, and actively used in teaching
• We arrange International Days to showcase the international dimension in education 
• We encourage and facilitate, the formation of meeting places for international and Norwegian students