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This paper assesses how UK universities seek to maintain their global dominant position post-Brexit through comprehensive strategic partnerships with key European institutions as part of their internationalisation strategies. Drawing on 24 semi-structured interviews conducted from November 2017 to July 2018 in 12 UK universities vertically differentiated and spread along the highly hierarchised spectrum of British universities in all four nations, we aim to examine which types of universities are most inclined to form international comprehensive university-wide strategic partnerships, and how they identify their partners. The analysis is framed within Bourdieu's theory of "economy of practices" which considers all university practices as economic practices that are ultimately tailored towards maximising either material or symbolic profit. Unlike in business and industry, where organisations traditionally compete to maximise profit, universities must both compete and collaborate with one another in order to improve (or maintain) their position in the field. UK universities will need to navigate the post-Brexit space they find themselves thrown into, and in the process will need to review international institutional links with both European Union (EU) based and non-EU universities. This paper will assess how UK universities seek to maintain their dominant position in the field through comprehensive strategic partnerships with key foreign institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK higher education sector has entered a period of turbulence, as the consequences of the UK leaving the European Union (EU) hit home. Higher education institutions are bracing themselves for what will no doubt be a period of substantial change, uncertainty and challenge. The complexity of the intricate relationships linking EU member states, as well as the EU institutions and their member states, appears to have been misunderstood and understated in the UK, by both the political class and the general public, at the time of the June 2016 referendum. If information is indeed power, its current unavailability is a concern, given that the UK government's plans to remain firmly embedded within the European Research Area and the Erasmus+ programme remain non-committal. In what can be described as a game of high politics between the EU and the UK government, the fate of research and higher education collaboration will be sealed by high-level inter-governmental agreements decided behind closed doors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]