Global Horizons for Universities: the role of businesses

The analysis of the International Student Barometer by i-graduate suggests that overseas graduates perceive the UK as not adding sufficient value to their employability in comparison with our international competitors. Both universities and international businesses can work together to address this perception.

Additional analysis can also be undertaken to find out the facts on graduate employability and the benefits they consider their UK higher education gave them once they have settled into a job. This analysis would help better inform students contemplating studying in the UK. It would support the marketing drive by the Governments across the UK, the British Council and individual institutions.

To secure greater business involvement, the benefits for employers could be further articulated and good practice in, for example, the recruitment of overseas students studying in the UK set down.

We therefore propose to undertake the following work as a natural follow-on to the analysis and drawing together of existing practices by universities in our two reports: Global Horizons for UK Students and Global Horizons for UK Universities.

Methodology

1. i-graduate has an established process for tracking career progression of international graduates. They have agreed to work with a cross-section of UK universities to analyse the career paths of graduates. They will approach the following universities: Kings College London, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham Trent, Loughborough, York St John. The sample points will be 2, 3 and 5 years after their completion of their course of study in the UK. The analysis will ask factual questions about their employment, level and salary as well as qualitative questions about how they perceive their UK learning experience as having helped them, added value and given them an advantage against those who did not study in the UK;


2. we will match the competencies sought by employers against the competencies demonstrated by international graduates so as to demonstrate to employers and students the additional benefits of recruiting graduates who have an international exposure and set of experiences; we will involve the Erasmus network in this work. To confirm employer expectations of the sector and graduates, we will extend the Employer Barometer pilot process to identify employer perceptions of graduates and universities.


3. we will establish an employer group of international businesses to address the issues of Why Recruit Students with International Experience? How to best recruit them? What is current Good Practice? What are the Benefits and Results? We will involve those currently recruiting from the UK for their international businesses (eg Accenture) or are thinking of embarking on this approach (eg PWC) as well as other employers who are active on campus in helping students develop their employability skills. The aim will be for current practices on international engagement to be shared so that more businesses can recruit graduates from the UK for their worldwide operations. This group will reiterate the benefits they see in students having overseas experiences and recommend how these benefits can be better articulated to all students. It will consider how businesses can help more students gain this experience through providing more placements for both UK and overseas students including in their overseas operations (using schemes such as IASTE and Erasmus where appropriate). The views of senior business people will also be sought on their experiences and reflections of studying in the US and UK and on the relative effectiveness of the alumni networks; these networks can be important in helping alumni get jobs.

To help guide our work on this last area, we will establish a Forum of some 8-10 business people. This will be reflective of the wide range of CIHE businesses but not be confined to CIHE members.

The Project will be guided by an Advisory Group which will meet in February and June 2008 (towards the start and end of the project). It will be chaired by James Ross (a CIHE Trustee and Chair of the Leadership Foundation for HE).

Timing
The project will commence early in 2008 and be completed around June for a launch event in late September 2008.

The end product will be a final guide in the current series: Global Horizons for International Businesses plus possibly short briefings document on:

1. the advantages to students of their studying in the UK;
2. the benefits to businesses of their recruiting students who have an international experience;

The report and any accompanying briefings will form be a central resource that could be used by the British Council and UK universities in their international marketing.

We want the UK to be the preferred worldwide location for internationally mobile students and the preferred recruiting centre for international businesses seeking globally aware graduates.