IHEF 2024 forward look: Simon Emmett, IDP Connect

To say the international recruitment sector in the UK is in a period of change is to understate the enormous impact of a set of circumstances most of us working in the sector have never witnessed before.

The political discourse around international students is in sharper focus than in recent memory, but what’s been particularly interesting is how that stacks up against political shifts in other major destinations, including Canada and Australia. International students therefore have found themselves in an environment that’s facing heavier regulation, scrutiny and pressure. Uncertainly can be unpleasant – we often talk in the office and in our global meetings about how to create a positive environment for students to make their choices about where and what they are going to study. We want them to find the right university for their ambitions and aspirations.

The decision to study internationally is huge – a leap of faith that students will arrive and thrive; that they will make friends and feel socially connected with their new environment; that they will navigate the many challenges they will face with managing their academic workload, balancing part-time work, coping with homesickness and getting settled into new accommodation. There are many subsequent decisions students will have to make after they have chosen their university and course, and all of us working in the sector are here to help provide those answers.

But while this uncertainty is unsettling, it is not unfamiliar. The removal of the Post-Study Work Visa in 2012 decimated demand from key source / sending markets, and universities struggled to make up for the shortfall in the aftermath. It could be argued that the fall-out of any potential removal of the Graduate Route would likely be even worse, given the domestic funding model for UK institutions have struggled to keep up with inflation, and international fees have really been the main revenue stream that provides any kind of meaningful margin against the day-to-day operational costs of a university.

Just as damaging, though, is to our reputation - that the UK is an unwelcoming destination. This is a factor we still battle with within student perceptions around choices of study destinations, some of which we will discuss at IHEF  on 1 May when we will give delegates an exclusive look at our latest round of student research, Emerging Futures 5.

The findings of the research will be food for thought for the sector as we enter the crucial summer conversion period. The September 2023 intake taught us all to expect the unexpected – even universities with the best forecasting tools and teams were unable to predict student behaviour accurately, and probability data from previous cycles didn’t line up with what became reality on campuses across the UK. The client teams at IDP spend a lot of time out with university executive teams, listening to the issues that are keeping them and their recruitment teams up a night – lack of certainty on enrolment numbers is consistently up there.

As a result, listening to the student voice in real-time has never been more important – what are they saying and how will that impact their final decision on where to go? What messaging is most important for a university to assure students of their decision to come and study? How do we work collectively to inspire students to come to the UK against a background of dubiety and concern to the policies that impact them most?

This will form the basis of the IDP workshop on day 1 of IHEF. My colleagues, Rachel MacSween and Emma Skelton, will be running a workshop to look at what the main student concerns are based on our Emerging Futures 5 research and how we work together to think about some of the positives that we can control the messaging around to the students who still want to pursue study in the UK – which could be anything from accommodation guarantees and assurances, to information about internships or work experience, or the student experience overall.

What remains now, and did in 2012 too, is the strength of the UK’s academic provision – our universities are recognised globally as truly excellent; powerhouses of research and scientific advances, pushing boundaries in art and humanities and offering students from every corner of the world a chance to learn in classrooms brimming with future leaders, entrepreneurs, engineers and humanitarians. A few months of policy disruption (and the fall out) will not undo the UK's position as a global leader in higher education – we have centuries of academic excellence behind us, and we can work as a sector to ensure we reaffirm the perception of the UK as being a place where bright minds have bright futures.