As Wales higher education faces a period of robust change with mergers and alliances looking to form super universities and world leading partnerships, the higher education collaboration within Wales International Consortium is stronger and more successful than ever.
The Wales International Consortium is a collaboration of all universities in Wales. It is unique in the UK as the only country-wide collaboration, created and led by the universities themselves. Though it works closely with Welsh Government, its paramount purpose is to respond to the demands on Wales’ universities from a complex and ever changing international education market.
The Consortium was initially created to increase international student numbers, and its remit almost immediately extended to support the development of broader internationalisation strategies and establishing models of best practice within international activity.
Wales higher education has developed some groundbreaking and award winning internationalisation activities including: peer-guiding programmes to improve the international student experience; teaching collaborations; international research collaborations; staff and student exchange programmes, staff recruitment; knowledge transfer and commercialisation; study and work experience abroad; development of alumni networks; language programmes and establishing offices overseas.
A regular programme of best practice events and conferences organised by the Wales International Consortium has produced a framework for sharing internationalisation expertise throughout Wales including: digital marketing initiatives; international admissions processes; funding applications; alumni relationships; cultural awareness and managing international partnerships.
Wales International Consortium recognised that the contribution to the Wales economy by international students was not always fully appreciated, and so commissioned an impact assessment report jointly with the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales and Higher Education Wales. It was estimated that international and EU students paid around £110 million in tuition fees in 2010, spent a further £79 million on living costs and that a further £23 million was spent on visits to Wales by friends and family. It is figures like these that mean that the impact of international students on Wales’ economy cannot be ignored.
Currently there are 13,118 international students in Wales from over 120 countries, a figure that has increased almost 100% in the last six years including significant increase in figures of research student choosing Wales - an increase of almost 50% since 2005/06.
The highest recruitment is from China with 3,597 students in Wales, an 85% increase since 2005/06 with many new partnerships and programmes between Wales and China. A particularly successful scheme has just been facilitated by Wales International Consortium between creative industry departments in Wales and the company KEASS Design Agency in Chongqing which has resulted in a annual internship scheme. Two Swansea Metropolitan University students have been selected to visit China for 3 months to work at the KEASS Design Agency.
Student numbers from India, now at 2,264, have almost doubled in the same time period. The collaborative approach of Wales higher education has resulted in a significant partnerships for Wales and India. Two of the most significant developing partnerships are the Low Carbon Technologies programme and the Sustainable Product Engineering Centre for Innovative Functional Industrial Coatings developing renewable energy for the UK. As a result of the success of these international partnerships the Indian Department for Science and Technology is now on the verge of signing an agreement with the Welsh Government to provide a framework for further collaborative research finding bids.
Though a small nation Wales has the capacity to lead the world in many areas of excellence and Wales higher education sits at the heart of many of those initiatives. In recent months it has announced two world leading research projects. A High Performance Computing project, backed by £24 million from the Welsh Government, in partnerships with global technology giant Fujitsu, and the Bio-refining centre of excellence BEACON. Both projects involve multiple Wales universities combining expertise to ensure that the projects are world leading centres of expertise which can only further the growing reputation of Wales for excellence amongst international students