On Wednesday 13 June we published a report entitled ‘The shape of things to come: higher education global trends and emerging opportunities to 2020’.

On the same day we 60 representatives of the UK HE sector joined a debate about what the report findings mean for future HE.

The report

The report studies trends that are expected to continue to shape the Higher Education landscape during the next 10 years. It identifies the drivers of HE demand:

• international student mobility
• trans-national education provision, and
• the role of international collaborations in academic research

Among other key findings, the study:

• forecasts a significant slow down in the global growth of participation rates in tertiary education from 5% per annum in previous decades to 1.4% next decade
• forecasts a shift in the mobility balance from West to East
• found a strong correlation between student and trade flows: in some countries, such as Canada, Japan, China, South Korea and India, the correlation is above 70%
• found that the more that HE institutions engage in international collaboration the higher the impact of research citation. This study found that 80% of countries’ research impact is determined by their international research collaboration rate

UK institutions can access the full report here.

Users not associated with UK insitutions can access the report here.

The debate

Dr Jo Beall, Director Education and Society, British Council chaired a panel discussion which covered three main themes emerging from the report:

• The response of individual governments and institutions to  the findings of the report and how priorities and strategies will change
• The importance of international collaboration in research, and opportunities to partner with industry and the commercial sector
• Future opportunities and models for TNE

The panel

• Luke Clarke, Senior Policy Adviser, Royal Society
• Dr Janet Ilieva, Head of Research and Senior Education Adviser, British Council
• Carl Lygo, CEO and Principal, BPP University College, Apollo Global
• Paul Marshall, Chief Executive, The Association of Business Schools
• Professor Patrick McGhee, Vice-Chancellor, University of East London
• Professor Colin Riordan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Essex

Embedded below is video of the launch of the report and a debate on the implications for the UK sector (13 June 2102)

Embedded below is video of the announcement of the study's initial findings, with a response from UNESCO and OECD - recorded at Going Global 2012.

For further information relating to this research please contact: education.market.intelligence@britishcouncil.org.