Recent changes in the policy setting and funding of higher education have presented institutions with the following challenges:

. To demonstrate how sector and institutional data can enable universities and colleges to position themselves within a changing policy framework

. To understand how the information that institutions themselves collect may be best utilised to help institutions design their marketing and student support strategies

. To identify the geographical areas from which institutions should be able to attract students

. To analyse the nature of the disciplines offered within institutions and the types of students they attract

The agendas of widening participation, extending access and institutional marketing share a common challenge to devise better ways of reaching potential students who are appropriately qualified and motivated to pursue their course offerings. Few higher education (HE) institutions have communications strategies that are effective in reaching all of the potential students who would benefit from their current subject and course offerings. University and college marketing initiatives are often unsystematic, even serendipitous, in the ways in which they identify schools and colleges for outreach and widening participation (WP) initiatives, and sometimes uncoordinated in the ways in which they present the full institutional profile of subjects of study in these activities.

This talk will set out relevant aspects of the changing higher education policy-setting arena and to present a systematic framework for widening participation and extending access in an era of variable fees Key to this exercise is the creation and use of geodemographic data to reveal the social, economic and demographic conditions that characterise areas as small as the unique (‘unit’) postcode. HE institutions may use geodemographics alongside their own data, as well as a range of other available government information.

Registration required:

No

Free:

Yes