International Positioning

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InternationalPositioning

• Dr Robert Coelen

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International Positioning

• Dr Robert Coelen

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This presentation

• Positioning
• Quality perception local international
• Price Quality link
• Internationalisation
• Academic vs. Commercial Approach
• The Leiden Model

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(No Transcript)
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De wereld als podium De Rijksuniversiteit
Groningen kiest voor de wereld. Uit ambitie, maar
ook uit noodzaak. De RUG neemt maatregelen om
zich versneld te ontwikkelen tot een werkelijk
internationale gemeenschap. Tot een universiteit
die een prominente positie inneemt op de
wetenschappelijke wereldkaart, niet alleen op
onderzoek- maar zeker ook op onderwijsgebied.
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Positioning, what for ?

• Must be clear about the motives
• Are you well positioned ?
• Most European universities are currently
  positioned not as the result of deliberate action
  in relation to international attention
• Must have a clearly defined and realistic goal

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Strategic positioning World Class

• Want to be world class
• The region deserves it - Edinburgh
• The country must have it Australia
• Were building it Virginia Tech
• Must get there in the next decade
• The goal of strategic positioning is to make the
  University of Minnesota one of the top three
  public research universities in the world within
  a decade.
• How many world class universities can there be ?
  (250 T. van Raan at Leiden University)
• What is world class ?

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Strategic PositioningRegional Relevance

• Service the region
• No aspirations to be world class
• local issues to service the region
• Provide opportunity for disadvantaged groups
• Specialist environment
• Tropical environment
• Great Barrier Reef can be world beater !

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Strategic positioning Specialisation

• University focussed on a few related disciplines
• Medical
• Engineering
• Economics

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Positioning

• How your target market sees you in relation to
  your competition
• It is about the students perception of you
• The defining characteristics of your university
  have placed you where you are now
• Mismatch (?) between how you see yourself and how
  your prospective students see you

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Image and Reputation

• Reputation result of past actions (academic)
• Image the portrayal over a short period
  snapshot (marketing communication)
• Successful service business (high reputation)
  characterised by high demand and high sales
• HE institutions high reputation linked to high
  demand and low sales (selectivity)
• Reflect unable to buy a service would
  deteriorate reputation use pricing to control
  demand
• quality in service industry is coupled to price

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Transactional vs Relationship Marketing

• Related to international student segment
• TM focuses on one-off interaction
• RM longer term relationships with a network of
  stakeholders
• Framing activities in the
• TM model
• uses 4Ps price, place, promotion, product
• Dependent on snapshot assessment
• Significantly affected by ranking
• RM model
• Development of relationships, beyond just
  exchange of education for money
• Network of stakeholders including, existing
  students, colleagues abroad, alumni, captains of
  industry, etc
• Less affected by ranking

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Positioning parameters (PQSDP)

• Pricing
• luxury, quality, good value, low value, cheaper,
  cheapest
• Quality
• what is the prospective students perception of
  your quality ?
• Service Support
• Important characteristics
• Distribution
• transnational delivery, local consumption,
  e-delivery
• Packaging
• your environment and your presentation

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International Student Concerns

• Quality of the education
• Prospects of a job
• Life style
• Personal Security
• Affordability

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Quality and Cost

• Undeniably a link
• Higher Education
• Staff student ratio
• Infrastructural resources
• Quality of academic staff in unregulated
  remuneration system
• Rewarding top academics with assistance
• Price - Quality
• Quality Brands Prestige, Exclusivity

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What is QUALITY ?

• Large number of organisations/jurisdictions are
  attempting to define this
• UK quality review
• Professional organisation peer review
• AUQA - Australia
• CHE/DAAD - Germany
• ENQA European Association for Quality Assurance
  in Higher Education
• Visitation programme in the Netherlands
• Discipline based international benchmarking
• Output (graduate) based

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Good quality

• Education is an experience good
• If the quality is good
• Education is a good experience

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Quality Enhancement

• Enhancement is an innate feature of the academic
  process
• Obligation towards alumni
• Local/national community expectation

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Which quality counts ?

• In the current context
• Perceived quality (local foreign)
• If based on substance
• Recommendation by non-local academics
• Successful alumni
• Internationally successful staff
• Big differences between local and foreign
  perception may exist

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Local versus International Perception

• Local
• historical, longitudinal perception, slow to
  change, collective memory
• International
• often no history, must resort to snapshot
  assessment
• Country profile very relevant
• Underpins importance of country strategy

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Snapshot assessment

• Local knowledgeable and trusted sources
• Academic community
• Successful alumni
• Agencies
• Third party independent and accessible
  assessment
• Repetitive occurrence strengthens this type
• Government issued
• Ranking lists

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Q.U.A.L.I.T.Y

• Quasi
• Universal
• Agreement on a
• Litany of
• Interesting
• Tests to promote
• Your university

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Methods

• Ranking groups (SJTU)
• Top 20, Top 100, gt400, not ranked
• Countries
• USA, UK, Australia, Netherlands
• Bachelor level disciplines
• Business, Sciences, Law, Literature, Medicine,
  Engineering, Computer Science
• Master level disciplines
• Business, Sciences, Literature, Computer Science
• Annual tuition fees expressed in EUR (exchange
  value)

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Undergraduate average tuition fees
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Postgraduate average tuition fees
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Bachelor and Master level by rank
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Ranking..

• Public/accessible Global rankings are relatively
  new
• THES Malaysian issue
• Berlin Principles
• Universities are also responding
• Leiden University Symposium on ranking 16/2/06
• International Ranking Symposium in Leiden, 2-3
  February 2007 Institutional, National, and
  International Response to University Ranking
• Like it or hate it, we have to deal with it

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IREG Meeting Berlin

• Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education
  Institutes
• International Experts Ranking Group (IREG)
• http//www.ihep.org/Organization/Press/Berlin_Prin
  ciples_Release.pdf
• Those who producing rankings and league tables
  should hold themselves accountable for quality of
  their own data collection, methodology, and
  dissemination

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Internationalisation of

• Teaching and learning
• Admission, Credit, and support
• Graduate outcomes
• Governance and Administration
• Staff
• Foreign operations
• Collaboration
• Culture and environment
• Student recruitment

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Motives for Internationalisation

• Academic
• Utilisation of non-local academic content,
  principles, or teaching methods to enhance
  learning
• Cultural
• Enhance the accessibility or applicability of the
  academic process, expand the skill set of our
  graduates to include cultural acumen
• Political
• Position the university or the nation to enhance
  influence within and beyond the nation state
• Economical
• Enhance the financial well-being of the
  university to add value, not to support core
  activities (risk).

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The mix of motives

• Strong determinant in how the university carries
  out internationalisation
• Influenced by external factors that impinge on
  the university
• Determines how the university measures progress

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Leiden Universitys motives

• Internationalisation as a quality enhancement
• Attract excellent students
• Added dimension of intercultural adaptability of
  our graduates
• Attract excellent staff
• Added dimension of intercultural adaptability of
  our staff
• Better graduates
• Better academic environment

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Internationalisation means to an end

• Must lead to improvement in quality and the
  perception of quality (image/brand) of the
  university
• It must therefore be woven into the processes
  that enhance the quality of our university and
  not become an end by itself
• Internationalisation through existing
  international relationships

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Components of a foreign academic relationship
driven strategy

• Primarily mobility driven, both staff en students
• Normal academic activities
• Inward and Outgoing mobility
• Organically grown, but strategic choice of
  partners

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Outcomes of Inter-university Relationships

• Students and staff have the opportunity to gain
  international experience
• Collaboration in teaching
• Recognition of useful mutuality in teaching
  programs and exclusive specialisations (allowing
  coordinated exchange and expansion of study
  options)
• Synchronised curriculum to allow free-flow of
  students
• Jointly taught programs
• Collaboration in research
• Increased availability of resources.

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Other Outcomes.

• Expands influence of the university
• Expands knowledge about the university in other
  countries
• Can build on the reputation of the university,
  but
• Need to brand activities that are carried out
• Ensure home players have an ambassadorial role
• Selection of partners is important

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Were doing this already

• Much of the mobility and collaboration activities
  have been occurring for a long time
• Were internationalised already

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Were doing this already

• Much of the mobility and collaboration activities
  have been occurring for a long time
• Were internationalised already
• Professionalisation and addition of structure and
  systems to
• Streamline existing systems
• enhance the reputational yield from existing
  activities
• Increasing the extent of internationalisation
  (depth and breadth)

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Full Fee-paying International students (a
traditional view)

• Australia
• 80 85 of foreign students are Asian
• Business, IT, Engineering, Law 80
• Market segmentation
• Power, wealth, status, and prestige Asia South
  America - Africa
• Academic opportunity North America (degree
  seeking) Europe - Scholarship Students
• Life style/study opportunity North America,
  Europe (study abroad)

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Academic vs. Commercial approach

• Academic approach overriding foreign activities
  (to increase awareness) are academic in nature
• Commercial approach overriding foreign
  activities (to increase awareness) are commercial
  in nature
• Why not recruit full fee paying students on the
  basis of commercial marketing techniques ?

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How does a commercial approach address the issues
of concern ?

• To a lay audience or a less well informed market
  an education exhibition approach can impart
  significant apparent markers of quality
  (augmented by input from alumni, agents)
• Successful alumni can send a message about job
  prospects
• Issues of lifestyle, personal safety, and
  affordability can be very well addressed.

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Academic approach

• Carry out such activities as to enhance the
  reputation of the university
• Increase success research funding, multilateral
  programs
• Increase success in commercialisation of IP
• Recruit highly talented academics
• Partner with like-minded institutes to become
  locally (and more globally) recognised as having
  excellent academic qualities Produce excellent
  graduates who become successful alumni.
• Communicate these successes

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What approach ?

• Begin to build a relationship with the
  environment of the prospective target
• Academic approach
• Support academic approach to create greater
  visibility
• Building the image with the right values
• Must choose target countries over time (limited
  resources)
• National or supra-national (e.g. EU, consortia)
  support

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Make your programs accessible

• Leiden teaches almost all of its Master level
  programs in English (about 80)
• Leiden teaches about 200 undergraduate subjects
  in English
• Research supervision has been possible in English
  for a long time

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Primary method

• Leiden aims to increase its internationalisation
  efforts through the use of existing academic
  relationships
• Not to 280 or so agreements in IO
• Based on working academic relationships
• Carry out increased internationally visible
  academic activities

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Leiden Universitys Academic Links
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We place a high value our programs

• Place a realistic value on the cost of tuition
• Relate the cost to the quality
• Opportunity to provide valuable scholarships
• High quality High value High selectivity
• Stringent admission procedures

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Environment Funding Perception
University USD/Student
Leiden U 26,500
Sydney U 14,900
UBC U 23,200
UMD U 23,800
Warwick U 24,000
York U 22,600
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What are we doing ?

• Improve our processes involved in mobility of
  staff and students (scalability)
• Fine tuned IT support for logistics in mobility
• e-decision facility for visa processes
• Make process visible to all stakeholders from one
  database (Oracle/PHP)
• Include visa, housing, communication
• Housing, housing, housing
• Realise that if you charge fees, you must provide
  service support
• Students are consumers/customers

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The Battle for Attention

• Leiden wants to decide where this battle will be
  won
• Not on a level playing field
• Web, education exhibitions
• On a field where we have a natural advantage
• Colleagues who value Leiden University
• Institutes who are linked with Leiden

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Synergy between discipline-specific knowledge and
International Office

• International Office models/mechanisms of
  approach and communication
• Academics have discipline specific knowledge
• Potential sources of students
• Good locations to send students
• Funding opportunities
• Combine for synergistic effects

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Create Country Approach Plans

• Know what your programs want
• Allow faculties to bring their strategy to bear
  on program wishes
• Know your real academic links
• Contacts
• Academics with extensive in country experience
• Combine links knowledge with needs and ambitions,
  adjusted with country knowledge

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USP

• Globally unique features of the program
• European, nationally unique
• The academics involved
• Who ?
• Local
• Structurally invited
• What ?
• Honours, prizes, grants, etc
• Alumni

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Communication

• Difficult to combine local and international
• Do not create vastly different perceptions/expecta
  tions
• Need one image with different expressions
  suitability for situation
• Web - Print

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Non-Anglophone EU

• Let people know (where it is true) that English
  outside the classroom is OK !!