Constructing a national higher education brand for the UK: positional competition and promised capitals

This article examines national branding of UK higher education, a strategic intent and action to collectively brand UK higher education with the aim to attract prospective international students, using a Bourdieusian approach to understanding promises of capitals. We trace its development between 1999 and 2014 through a sociological study, one of the first of its kind, from the 'Education UK' and subsumed under the broader 'Britain is GREAT' campaign of the Coalition Government. The findings reveal how a national higher education brand is construed by connecting particular representations of the nation with those of prospective international students and the higher education sector, which combine in the brand with promises of capitals to convert into positional advantage in a competitive environment. The conceptual framework proposed here seeks to connect national higher education branding to the concept of the competitive state, branded as a nation and committed to the knowledge economy

Transnational higher education : a stock take of current activity

Transnational higher education (TNHE) development is not an entirely new international activity in the education services sector. The nature and scale of the global expansion of contemporary TNHE developments are, however, changing substantially. An understanding of this growth is currently largely lacking because of a dearth of comprehensive statistics. The scale of the latter TNHE developments has been particularly hard to identify and has until now been largely based on guesstimates. This article is an attempt at filling this gap. Through a triangulation methodology of available secondary data, this article is a very first attempt at providing a stock take of the current level of activity in TNHE worldwide.<br /

International education : a tertiary level industry update

Recent developments in the international education industry are notable in three respects. First, international student mobility has more than doubled in the last two decades or so. Second, programme mobility encompassing distance education has also led to new forms of cross-border education. Third, institution mobility through such commercial deals asfranchises and twinning arrangements are becoming an increasingly important feature of cross-border education, although on a limited scale. Such developments are leading to the emergence of a new market place for the international education industry. This article documents and analyses trends in painting a picture of these contemporary developments in crossborder education

Knowledge sharing in China–UK higher education alliances

Knowledge sharing through cross-border strategic alliances has been seen by firms as one of the critical strategies to pursue sustainable competitive advantage. However, empirical investigations on how knowledge sharing occurs in strategic alliances are limited and are rarely concerned with strategic alliances in the higher education industry. Based on an empirical investigation of China–UK educational alliances, this research sheds light on this under explored area. Findings reveal that the scale of academic and organizational knowledge sharing is affected by knowledge attributes and partner characteristics. While knowledge sharing in China–UK higher education alliances displays numerous similarities with that occurring in other industries, this study reveals features that are distinct to this important and increasingly international sector. In so doing, this paper offers valuable insights for managers and policy makers concerned with the internationalization of higher education