Our international work

Higher education is viewed worldwide as being central to a competitive modern economy and an open and inclusive society. A major challenge for the English sector and the country is to provide world-class higher education in a global economy that is becoming ever more complex and subject to change.

Our response is to improve our understanding and knowledge of higher education in other countries. This informs our policies and activities, and enables us to build on the particular strengths that we, the English higher education sector, and our national partners can offer. We collaborate with other countries in supporting European or global initiatives where this brings mutual benefits and increased international engagement for our higher education sector.

We work with other national and overseas bodies on a range of programmes which involve sharing lessons, international benchmarking and research, and help to promote the reputation of UK higher education abroad.

International visitors programme

We provide international visitors to HEFCE with a set of presentations on the role and work of the Council. We work in partnership with other organisations where that means that the visitors can get a full view of the way that higher education operates in the UK. One of our main partners in this respect is the British Council and we liaise with their visit co-ordinators to provide high-quality, up-to-date information.

International Unit

HEFCE is the main funder of the International Unit based at Universities UK. This unit is the UK higher education sector’s mechanism for co-ordinating collaborative projects across the world. It is also the primary mechanism for the sector to engage with the Bologna Process (which aims to increase consistency and co-operation between higher education systems across Europe), being both a repository of knowledge on the wider European higher education scene and a lobbying agency to promote the interests of the UK higher education sector in the development of European higher education policy.

Enhancing Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance project

As part of our international work we have looked at ways in which higher education contributes to humanitarian assistance.

This included the Enhancing Learning and Research for Humanitarian Assistance (ELRHA) project, which we funded jointly with the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, Scottish Funding Council and Department for Employment and Learning (in Northern Ireland).