Fred Clarke (1880-1952) was a key figure in the internationalisation of educational studies and research in the first half of the twentieth century. Clarke aimed to heighten the ideals and develop the practices of educational studies and research through promoting mutual influences in different countries around the world. He envisaged the Institute of Education at the University of London, England, as having a leading role, and was the director of the Institute from 1936 until 1945. His notion of internationalisation was reciprocal and transnational in nature, with aspirations for partnership within a common tradition. This built on the ideal of a "Commonwealth" that was current in the interwar years, and emphasised the affinities between the dominion nations and in particular Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It also drew on the financial support and cultural influence of the Carnegie Corporation in New York. Two specific projects taken forward by Clarke to put these ideas into practice were his "world tour" of 1935 and his role as the "Adviser to Oversea Students" at the Institute of Education. These initiatives helped to convert strategic visions and policies into social practices, and to shape the subject of Education in higher education as a multi-disciplinary field in the generation after the Second World War.