Conversation Insights

This IC Global Café focuses on the community engagement between Wrexham Football Club and Wrexham University, and the impressive collaboration of three Leicestershire universities and five local authorities.

The connection between football and universities has been strong for some time, whether it’s the influence of the premier league on international student recruitment, the setting up of football universities or universities investing in their sports facilities and scholarships. Some universities have seen the benefit of investing in their local communities by sponsoring their local football clubs and building relationships, such as the University of Portsmouth and Swansea University. Some universities have incorporated this link with the local community into their overall university strategies and aim to harness their local and global connections for mutual benefit.

The Universities Partnership in Leicestershire is an excellent example of this and is unusual in involving collaboration between three universities for the greater good of their region. Wrexham Football Club has excelled at community engagement and has helped to raise the profile of Wrexham University.The connection with Hollywood will help too!

Our guest speakers for this Café are:

• Katy Davenport, Head of International, Wrexham University
• Paul Angrave, Associate Director of Public Affairs, University of Leicester

For this IC Global Café we are delighted to have as our expert speakers: Dr Vangelis Tsiligiris, Associate Professor, Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University and Founder of the TNE Hub; and Professor Christopher Hill, Faculty of Education at The British University in Dubai, an IC Global Fellow and Co-convenor at the TNE Hub.

In collaboration with the TNE Hub and in advance of their ‘Research and Practice Symposium’, this IC Global Café explores the different aspects of TNE collaborations in an ever changing global landscape and the impact that polarising politics and economies can have on decision making. We discuss the impact of TNE and how equity and sustainability can be achieved. The student experience is often not considered thoroughly enough and can make the difference in the success of a TNE partnership. We also look at what needs to be considered and how the partnership can help empower students.

With the growth of students studying Foundation Programmes with private providers and the decline of student numbers at in-house programmes:

• What are the future trends for Foundation Programmes?
• How has the foundation market and those that provide them evolved?
• What are best practice models and structures for universities?
• How can international student recruiters best engage with this channel to support their recruitment targets?

This IC Global Café we focus on this key route to undergraduate studies from the different perspectives of our expert speakers.

• Professor Nina-Anne Lawrence, Director of Warwick Foundation Studies, Head of Department and Chair of the University Pathway Alliance (UPA) will share how the Alliance is responding to market changes that have affected international student recruitment to the UK, the innovations introduced to programmes and whether foundation programmes are still valuable for international students.
• Dr Anthony Manning, Director & Dean of Global & Lifelong Learning at the University of Kent and an IC Global Fellow will share insights into the overall Foundation Programme market and observations as an in-house provider at the University of Kent.

If you work in the Foundation Programme market or manage this within your portfolio, don’t miss this insights.

With the rise of internationally mobile students from Sub-Saharan Africa, foreign exchange and currency instability and the recent UK Government’s decision of international students studying taught master’s courses in the UK not being able to bring dependents, what are the implications of this on international student recruitment and the region?

The imminent launch of the first ever ranking of universities in Sub-Saharan Africa by Times Higher Education (THE) also puts a spotlight on this region. What partnership opportunities are available to institutions? What role does policy play when building collaborations with institutions and increasing international student recruitment? What’s the local context and pulse on the ground?

At this IC Global Café we are delighted to be joined by expert speakers from Sub-Saharan Africa:

• Meekness Lunga Ayidu, Senior Regional Programme Manager: Higher Education (Sub-Saharan Africa), British Council
• Kaozara Oyalowo, Policy Officer (Africa and the Middle East), UUKi
• Stuart Rennie, Managing Director, SJRennie Consulting and Managing Director, AfaraEd and The IC Global Fellow

Our expert speaker Melissa Abache, Director of the International Office at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey and an IC Global Fellow gives advice on how to identify and engage with possible scholarship providers; looks into why and how sponsored student/scholarship programmes are beneficial for universities; and shares lessons learnt in establishing and managing externally funded or co-funded scholarship programmes in your institution for undergraduate or graduate programmes.

Our expert speakers Helen Etheridge, Higher Education and Science Lead for the EU Region at the British Council and Maria Tsakali, Head Thessaloniki office at the British Council Greece discuss student mobility, TNE, EU student numbers, British Council’s activities in Europe, and the Greece market.

In this IC Global Café our guest speaker, Helen Etheridge, Lead for Higher Education and Science for the EU at the British Council provides insights and data on current trends, increased competition, EU agents, employability, TNE and much more.

In this IC Café, you can learn about practical and successful IAH initiatives and programmes and receive best practice examples from our expert speakers, Anthony Manning, Dean for Global and Lifelong Learning, University of Kent and Maria Hussain, Faculty International Tutor, University of Leeds.

Learn from our expert speaker, Kathy Daniels, Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor (Engagement), Aston University as we explored how Internationalisation at Home can have a positive impact on students’ graduate outcomes and employment opportunities.

Our expert speaker, Mario L. Gallo, highlights the value of alumni: with, in, for and through international education. Learn about the importance of alumni as partners, ambassadors, promotors, mentors, innovators, leaders and more.