The term “geopolitics” is increasingly invoked in higher education research, yet it is often used loosely, creating conceptual ambiguity that obscures underlying mechanisms and effects. This article addresses this gap by clarifying geopolitics in relation to international higher education and analyzing the policy levers through which major global actors shape academic mobility, research collaboration, and knowledge flows. We present the case of knowledge diplomacy and knowledge security to demonstrate how geopolitics affect cooperation and contestation in global higher education. Drawing on a comparative review of policy developments from 2018 to 2025, we examine regulatory measures from the United States, China, the European Union, and other influential nations, focusing on knowledge security instruments. Key examples include the US CHIPS and Science Act and China’s Export Control Law. We show that geopolitics constitutes a defining context for higher education, re-territorializing knowledge networks, securitizing emerging research domains, and imposing compliance requirements that reshape institutional practices. We conclude by proposing a research agenda to analyze global power dynamics, strategic competition, and their implications for international cooperation, institutional autonomy, and individual agency.
Wang et al. (Sun,) studied this question.
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