The name change, which was made official last month, is a reflection of the representative body’s focus, according to Vivienne Stern, director of UUKi.

“It makes it clearer who we are and what we do,” she told The PIE News. “I think for international partners, it’s really important that they understand what our function is.”

“I think for international partners, it’s really important that they understand what our function is”

Universities UK International is part of national representative body, Universities UK, and promotes the UK’s university offering overseas, as well as acts in the institutions’ collective interests.

Stern said that the name change is more of a “refining of our purpose” as opposed to a “radical shift”.

“There is a kind of focusing down on what it is that we can do at a national level that individual universities can’t do for themselves, or other bodies like the British Council or UKTI can’t do adequately without anybody else getting involved,” she said.

While this name change took place just two months after the UK voted to leave the European Union, Stern maintains that this had already been in the pipeline for a while, to make it clearer for external partners what the organisation does.

“You don’t want to be sitting there with the secretary general of the Chinese Scholarship Council talking for 10 minutes about what you’re organisation is,” she said.

“I think it’ll make that conversation shorter.”