Navitas, which already works in the country at the UK’s Lancaster University branch campus in Leipzig, has agreed a five-year deal with the provider that has some 12 campuses across the country.

The new SRH International College will be based at SRH University campus in Heidelberg. Navitas will work to attract a greater number and diversity of international students.

For Paul Lovegrove, Navitas Universities Partnerships Europe CEO & global chief operating officer, German university degrees are “highly respected by employers around the world”.

“SRH provides the perfect, supportive learning environment in which students can develop their skills and prepare for their chosen career. I am confident that students joining SRH International College will enjoy a positive and rewarding experience,” he said.

Foundation and pre-master’s programs taught at the pathway school will give successful students automatic progression to degrees at multiple SRH campuses teaching in English, including in Berlin, Heidelberg, North Rhine-Westphalia and Dresden.

The college will begin welcoming its first international students from October next year.

“The partnership with Navitas marks a new chapter in the internationalisation of SRH Universities Germany,” said SRH University Heidelberg vice president Markus Breuer.

“It offers us the possibility of attracting a greater number and diversity of students from around the world who want to access degree programs which stand for excellence in higher education.”

Speaking with The PIE, Lovegrove said that Navitas’s ownership of European creative media higher education provider SAE Education – which it sold in 2022 – had allowed it to gain a “strong understanding” of the European higher education ecosystem.

While Lancaster’s Leipzig campus was much to do with the UK university maintaining a foothold in Europe after Brexit, the SRH partnership will mean Navitas can offer options for students across a number of states, as well as a wide range of programs.

“It offers us the possibility of attracting a greater number and diversity of students”

“Germany is attractive and it’s obviously one of the more popular destinations for international students and it’s growing,” he said, adding that unlike the UK pathway sector, it has not “reached a point of saturation”.

Additionally, Germany is not facing the same sort of political debates as in the UK and in the Netherlands where governments are looking to change policies that may impact the international education sectors, he suggested.

The many different types of institutions in the country – public, private and further education institutions – are increasingly seeing the value of partnering in order to internationalise further, he continued.

As for the Netherlands, Navitas is committed to its current partners – The Hague and Twente – but will wait to see whether government regulations will require operations to change.

While the Dutch government continues to consult on policy changes, Navitas’s flexible model will allow the provider to continue working in the country, he said.

“During the next few years, there is a role we can play which still helps [The Hague and Twente] with an internationalisation strategy but at the same time is something acceptable within the regulations,” Lovegrove concluded.