How do European higher education institutions internationalize?

This article explores how higher education institutions (HEIs) internationalize, employing information on the internationalization activities (IA), context and organizational characteristics of 431 HEIs from 33 European countries. A latent cluster analysis identifies three distinct clusters of HEIs with distinct portfolios of IA: basic, academic and entrepreneurial. The basic portfolio includes the most common IA, whereas IA requiring larger organizational capacity are rare. The entrepreneurial portfolio distinguishes from the academic portfolio as it also includes IA aimed to attract resources. We explore what contextual and organizational traits characterize HEIs with different IA portfolios. Small HEIs tend to display a basic portfolio, without national variations. On the contrary, strong national variations exist in the frequency of academic and entrepreneurial portfolios, which strongly relate to the actual and potential importance of tuition fees as a source of revenues.