“The Destination Adelaide Plan will be an important addition to the resources that Flinders University, the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia have invested over many years to showcase our strengths and expand our state’s share of the international education market,” the chair of the South Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, Colin Stirling, said in a joint announcement.

“Destination Adelaide provides a great opportunity for the higher education sector to work in partnership with the state government”

“Destination Adelaide provides a great opportunity for the higher education sector to work in partnership with the state government to maximise the potential of our international student sector,” he added.

The three public universities are “particularly important in any future collaboration in growing the state’s international education footprint”, according to South Australia’s Employment, Higher Education and Skills Minister, Gail Gago.

The funding announcement took place during a trade mission to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia this week, where Gago officially launched SA’s new international strategy, following the announcement of additional state funding for the campaign last month.

“The Destination Adelaide Plan is a framework to guide the significant investment of an additional A$5.7 million over four years we announced in the 2015-16 State Budget, in line with our state’s economic priorities,” Gago said.

Its goals include increasing student numbers (which stood at around 30,000 in 2014), building the StudyAdelaide brand and advocating for the sector on a national level.

It aims to boost the state’s booming international education industry, which accounted for over A$1bn of the state’s export earnings and supported 8,000 jobs last year.

While in Malaysia, Gago also witnessed the resigning of a collaborative agreement between Flinders University and HELP University in Kuala Lumpur to continue two joint Bachelor of Psychological Science programmes.

“This is the first of what I hope will be many more partnerships created under Destination Adelaide to promote and market our world class universities overseas,” she said.