Language as a Strategic Choice — Drawing Global Research Talent by Switching to English

Global universities are switching their language of instruction to English to strengthen international rankings and research power. This paper quantifies the benefits of switching to English on university research performance and faculty recruiting. Using the two-way fixed effects (TWFE) estimator and the staggered difference-in-differences (DiD) estimator, we show that introducing English as the official language of instruction in a degree program increases the academic ability of new international faculty hires in Dutch and Belgian universities by a 7-21% average journal impact factor (JIF). These results are robust to a battery of controls including university and time fixed effects as well as university specific time trends. We argue that switching to English reduces labour mobility barriers, allowing universities in non-English speaking countries to recruit from the global talent pool. It removes language hurdles to scientific communication, which potentially accelerates knowledge diffusion and increases research power