Liverpool University wants 25% foreign students by 2014
Liverpool University has set itself the ambitious target of attracting 25% of its students from abroad within four years.
The university, which is sponsoring the city’s presence at the World Expo in Shanghai, currently has 2,700 foreign students and is hoping to almost double that figure by 2014.
With the university sector facing cuts, recruiting more foreign students is seen as a vital way of securing income.
It hopes the showcase will lead to more Chinese students choosing to study in the city, but also key research links could be forged.
Liverpool University already has well advanced Chinese links after established a new university in Suzhou – a two-hour drive from Shanghai – with Xi’an Jiaotong, one of the top ten Chinese universities, in 2006.
The new establishment’s full title is the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), and it is a separate legal entity from its parent institutions.
Liverpool confers its degrees, but the new university is hoping to shortly be given the power to award them in its own right.
XJTLU is based at Suzhou’s industrial park, outside the city itself, and is essentially a city in its own right with a working population of more than 1m people.
Liverpool University will be running a series of events at the World Expo in August.
It will confer an honorary degree on Peel Holdings founder John Whittaker.
Peel is the main sponsor of the Expo and is seeking investment in its multi-billion Liverpool and Wirral Waters schemes.
It will also hold XJTLU’s first-ever degree ceremony in neighbouring Suzhou.
The University will also hold an honorary degree ceremony for John Whittaker and Professor Zhou Hanmin (Deputy Director of the Executive Committee of Expo) on the Expo site. During this event, University of Liverpool alumni will also have an opportunity to re-confer there degrees in front of family and friends.
Prof Everest said: “We are sure we are going to benefit from the Expo by showcasing Merseyside as a great place to study.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity to raise the profile of the city.”
XJTLU is one of the park’s many success stories and China has ploughed more than £100m into it.
It has currently has 2,500 students but numbers are expected to quadruple in a few years.
XJTLU makes a major contribution to the number of Liverpool’s foreign students, with 500 already completing their studies there.
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