The PIE: Some countries like Austria and Holland have said they are not looking at boosting numbers but taking a quality over quantity approach to recruitment. 

GP: I think it is a question of either you get the numbers or you go for the quality. In the Netherlands they go for talent and they do that very decisively. You have other countries that say “as long as they have the basic requirements we’re happy”.  But that puts huge strain on teaching staff. So I’m sure that in the future you will see more fine tuned recruitment and marketing activities coming from most European countries.

“I think it is a question of either you get the numbers or you go for the quality”

The main problem in Europe is that we are all looking for students in science, technology, engineering and maths and naively many still think they can get them from within Europe. That’s not true, they have to go outside Europe to get students in those areas. And that means that you have to define your recruitment strategies very, very precisely.

The PIE: Have you noticed countries increasing their marketing efforts?

GP: Yes. You look at the efforts in Spain which recently introduced Universidad.Es for international recruitment; you have Campus France that’s not very old either. Then newly established one is Uni Italia in Italy. They’re all being put in place to enhance their country as a study destination and support universities in recruitment. We have had British Council and DAAD for ages but the others are all from the last one to six years.

“Agent use will increase but you need to be extremely careful about how you pick them, work with them and pay them”

The PIE: Do you think Europe is coming round to using agents?

GP: I think their use will increase. Some countries already use them and have found very good ways to do it. The Netherlands have developed a very good system; Sweden has now been trying in this area and I think that for smaller countries with not that much money to spend on recruitment, agents are a necessity. But you also need to be extremely careful about how you pick them, work with them and pay them.

The experience is also there, so we can borrow and learn from each other. In Sweden we looked at how the Netherlands had worked with agents and that avoided a lot of mistakes. So you need to be very careful, because if we are careful in selecting we will inflict quality control on agents and will in the end exclude the bad ones.