*Please be aware the workshop is over two days. Your registration fee will cover both dates. We will be planting an Olive Tree for this workshop as part of our Sustainability pledge.

As international education professionals, we are expected to produce data-led strategies, monitor success in our markets and show trends and patterns in student recruitment numbers. However, some of us have never received training in data and analysis, others will feel our knowledge is rusty and a few of us will positively fear numbers. What we need is a practical, supportive and tailored approach to help us build our knowledge, skills and confidence.

Summary

In this era, data is the lifeblood of successful institutions. It can guide organisations to efficiency, drive winning strategy and inspire change. It can help to identify strengths and weaknesses, show trends and patterns, monitor success, help with market understanding and improve decision making. Data can also create financial and resource efficiencies or justify whether to continue, adapt or stop certain activities. In short, it is a powerful tool and one that all international professionals are expected to master and implement.

Yet in our industry, the world of data is also challenging, with imperfect statistics and long lag times between releases. Meanwhile, analytical tools and techniques are constantly evolving. Mastering the details and techniques of this world can feel like an overwhelming task, even for seasoned professionals.

This workshop is designed to help you build confidence in your ability to locate, analyse and persuade using international education data. Workshop participants will gain hands-on experience with real world problems and datasets, and will be guided through advanced presentation techniques that will help their ideas stand out in meetings.

This workshop has been designed to help you learn how to:

• Analyse data and avoid common errors
• Analyse market attractiveness and benchmark against peer competitor groups
• Identify leading indicators for the development of medium and long term strategies
• Better understand misleading data and spurious correlations to identify what the data is really telling you
• Present data to drive collaboration, investment or executive buy-in
• Design captivating and informative data visualisations
• Locate hard-to-find data

What will I learn at the workshop? You will be able to:

• Understand data
• Improve your analytical skills and avoid common errors
• Build confidence around analysing and presenting data
• Use data to drive strategies, evaluation and decision making
• Receive an inventory of key international education data sources
• Learn where new and reliable sources of timely data can be found for UK institutions
• Understand how to use data to influence

When is the workshop?

This workshop is delivered in two parts as follows:

Part 1 | Friday 22nd October 2021 at 13:30 - 15:30 (BST)

Part 2 | Friday 29th October 2021 at 13:30 - 14:30 (BST)

Professional Trainers

Matt Durnin

Our expert trainer, Matt Durnin is Global Head of Insights & Consultancy at the British Council and specialises in the economics of higher education. He leads a team of global analysts to provide UK institutions with the data, analysis and insights required to succeed in the rapidly changing international education industry. Since joining the British Council in 2015, Matt has played a coordinating role in establishing more than 30 academic and research partnerships across 15 countries and has helped numerous universities form or revise their international student recruitment strategies.

Charlene Allen

Charlene has over 20 years’ experience in higher education. She has held senior roles across several universities in the UK, held a national sector leading role as Chair of British Universities International Liaison Association (BUILA) and sat on strategic international advisory boards for the British Council, Universities UK International and the UK Council for International Students Association. Her work has included the development and implementation of various internationalisation projects, lobbying on internationalisation matters and working with the Department of Education and the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy International Team on the UK International Education Strategy.

Sirin Myles

Sirin is a highly experienced International Leader and specialist in higher education. She has more than 20 years of international marketing and leadership experience in diplomatic and higher education organisations. Sirin’s career includes the British Council in Istanbul, marketing British education; Regional Director at the University of Southampton and Director of the International Office at the University of Reading. At Reading, Sirin had joint responsibility for all of the University’s Marketing, Communication and Engagement. Since 2016, Sirin has been providing a specialist independent consultancy, individual and leadership coaching to higher education institutions.