Collaborate and recruit internationally

 

Higher Education Update

You will be aware that the British Council is undergoing significant organisational change and we are refocusing our work to ensure that international higher education and the recruitment of international students are even more central to our mission.

We have listened to UK higher education sector feedback and we are now reshaping our work in response.  We are committed to ensuring the UK remains a first-choice study destination and to providing UK higher education institutions with market intelligence which supports the development of international strategies.  To do so, we are developing an ‘International Student Mobility and Marketing Programme’ (working title) to deliver this work.  This programme will include many of the interventions we currently manage such as the Study UK campaign, our work with education agents and counsellors, and our investment in scholarship programmes, alongside other new initiatives.

Details about the new programme are set out below, as well as information about our new UK Alumni and Going Global Partnerships programmes. Thank you to everyone who has helped shape our programmes so far. We look forward to continuing to work with you as they develop.

Education Insight Hubs

Following your feedback our insight and intelligence work was an area that you highlighted as being extremely valuable to your work in international education. As a consequence, all access to our global education insights portfolio (including research and analysis, market intelligence, reports and blogs) is now free of charge.

In addition, we are establishing overseas regional Education Insights Hubs to share our unique access to local expertise, connections and insight for the benefit of the whole UK sector. We look forward to working with you to ensure that our insight continues to respond to your international priorities.  Key products in this area of work are:

  • Market intelligence briefs exploring international markets for student recruitment and partnerships and revisions to our HESA data-mining tool
  • Curated data related to student mobility, economics, demographics, and domestic education, to support strategy and planning in international education
  • Policy briefs: Reports providing insights into new country-specific education policies and the opportunities that might arise
  • Global analysis of international higher education and TVET policy, plus in-depth thematic research covering topics such as transnational education, how higher education is evolving post-Covid and ensuring gender equity within higher education

International student-facing activities

Following feedback from the UK HE sector which recommended that the British Council move away from managing large scale face -to-face recruitment events, we are beginning to decommission our exhibitions and fairs. This decommissioning process happened at much faster pace due to Covid-19.

From April 2022 we will no longer be hosting our own exhibitions, and instead we will be working with and through partner organisations who host study abroad fairs. Our staff in-country will support the UK education sector by acting as an honest broker. We will also be working with the UK education sector to identify in-country partners. 

In addition, we will be moving-away from operating our own direct marketing services and from activities supporting individual UK institutions; we will provide the UK sector with suggestions of in-house agents and specialist PR agencies who can support you with these services.

We will continue to ensure that the UK remains a top destination of choice for international students and stakeholders through the StudyUK campaign and through new initiatives and activities that we will be jointly designing and developing with the UK sector. Our priority is to ensure that we are operating the right level of support for your recruitment needs across all priority markets.  All of our work in this area will be supported by initiatives such a Women in STEM and the GREAT scholarship schemes.

Education agents and counsellors

We have long recognised that education agents and counsellors have a critical role to play in how the UK engages and recruits international students. During Covid education agents have been crucial in supporting international students and recruitment to the UK. We are now working in partnership with BUILA and other sector stakeholders to create enhanced communications and training to support these important partners going forward.  Thank you to everyone who has been involved in helping to shape this new area of work to date and we look forward to continuing to work with you as this programme develops.

UK Alumni

Alumni have a vital role to play in advancing social and economic development in their home countries, as well as through being advocates for the UK and UK education. Building on the success of the Study UK Alumni awards, and working closely with UK institutions, we will create a global hub for UK Alumni to help them achieve their life goals and to maximize cultural links between the UK and the world.

Going Global Partnerships

Building on the success of the Going Global conference we will support institution-to-institution and government-to-government partnerships through a new programme called Going Global Partnerships. Going Global Partnerships will build strategic, mutually beneficial partnerships in tertiary education between the UK and other countries. 

The programme will strengthen higher education and TVET systems, enable research collaboration, internationalise institutions and enhance student outcomes. We are focusing our work in priority countries for the UK in areas of critical importance, including Transnational Education (TNE), the reduction of barriers to the delivery of UK qualifications internationally and positioning UK Higher Education as the partner of first choice. You can find more information about Going Global partnerships and how you can engage here.

 

We hope that these developments will offer greater support to the UK higher education sector’s objectives and individual institutional strategies.  We welcome your contribution so far and look forward to working with you as we move forward.  

Please get in touch if you have any questions or would like more information about our plans by writing to:  BCEducationServices@britishcouncil.org