This is the decade for UK universities to be bold, brave and ambitious.

This is the decade for UK universities to be bold, brave and ambitious.

We are going through the most challenging period since the huge expansion of higher education in the 1960s – and it requires a fundamental rethink to how we operate. That includes everything from our culture and outlook to how we market ourselves globally.

At heart, universities are educational institutions where great teaching and outstanding research takes place. Yet, at the same time, they have to act and think like successful multinational businesses. Why? Because we are competing for students, funding and research collaborations across the world.

International students are highly mobile and ambitious, willing to travel thousands of miles for quality education. The cache of a UK degree is still high, but we can no longer be complacent. English-speaking degrees in the US, Canada, Australia and even European universities are now serious competitors.

If we tie that all together with an uncertain global economic outlook, we can best survive and thrive by taking these challenges head-on.

That’s why the University of Reading – and its Henley Business School – has established a permanent, state-of-the-art international base in a critical new market.

Officially launched 12 months ago, our new 30,000 square metre campus on the EduCity complex in Iskandar, Malaysia is a key part of our global strategy to meet the demand for higher education in Asia. We have high-quality staff in place and are on track to have 600 students this year, with the aim, in time, to teach 3,000 students from our current building.

But it has not been easy

There are three main lessons we have learnt in establishing ourselves in Malaysia.

First, it’s not for everyone

UK universities need established relationships and a willingness to support a host country’s vision. Reading may be in the top 1% of universities in the world but it doesn’t mean we could open a branch campus wherever we liked, raise the Union Jack and wait for grateful students to beat a path to our door.

Instead, Reading is building on decades of existing research and teaching partnerships in Malaysia, alongside close links with industry, regional and national government.

So it was a natural place to diversify and grow our income, build our international student numbers and expand our research base – in part to hedge against future economic challenges but also to further our mission to take our ethos and values beyond the UK.

Malaysia wants to transform itself from a net-exporter of students to a hub, drawing in thousands of students from across south-east Asia. Attracting overseas universities to Malaysia is a critical part of that plan. Its own universities are rising up the world university rankings, but it knows that exposure to overseas universities will drive higher standards.

We bought into the vision of a state-backed, economic ‘free zone’ run by the Iskandar Regional Development Authority to transform the whole peninsular and stimulate economic development outside the Klang Valley. That demands us stepping up to help address the challenges Malaysia faces – closing the skills gap; increasing R&D investment; and stimulating direct foreign investment.

Second, overseas expansion needs to be a market-driven, long-term strategy, with upfront investment to generate future returns

There are always risks. So we modelled ourselves on universities with outstanding, distinctive global brands already operating successfully in Malaysia, like Monash in Australia and Nottingham in the UK.

Crucially, we’ve learnt from the failures and struggles of other universities opening branch campuses with a fanfare and then having to retreat. It is not sustainable, wise or particularly ethical for institutions to see expanding overseas as cash cows, simply to repatriate surpluses.

That’s why we responded to customer demand and now offer a tight core of Reading and Henley’s strongest existing programmes in business, finance, real estate, built environment, pharmacy and psychology. These mirror the same syllabuses developed in the UK, with our continuing support over course-content and quality assurance that crucially allow students to obtain a degree from a UK university.

We offer 100% scholarships for the highest achieving students. We offer competitive tuition fees and discounts for students who want to take up opportunities to study in the UK. And our pitch is bold – that studying in Malaysia is the best of both worlds, with a top-class UK degree in one of the most dynamic countries in Asia.

Third, be flexible and agile – and look for new ways of working

EduCity is a new model of overseas campuses, where institutions work collaboratively rather than directly competing.

At Educity, together with partners such as Newcastle Medical School and the University of Southampton, we offer the range of most popular programmes that will create the next generation of business leaders, financiers, doctors, engineers, pharmacists, construction and property professionals.

We share facilities and our students benefit from cross-campus collaboration. Our fortunes are interrelated as we are spreading the risk.

It means this is not a here-today, gone-tomorrow project.

• We have put our money where our mouth is.
• We see ourselves as a global university – meeting the world’s need for a high skilled workforce and citizens.
• We are proud to fly the flag for UK higher education overseas – taking the best of our home institutions to the world.

And want to play our part, not just in Malaysia becoming a true knowledge economy, but in Asia’s extraordinary transformation – economically and socially, as producers and consumers, as leaders and influencers.

This is the Asian Century. We should all want and need to be part of it.