Call for Expression of Interest – Hosting a group of Latin American UG students for a semester.

We have an exciting opportunity for the UK HE sector, for which we are seeking Expressions of Interest to help us validate the feasibility before launching a full open call for proposals.
To summarise:

• A large private university in the region is looking to send groups of their UG students to a UK HE institution(s) for a period of 18 weeks to undertake their studies, in an international setting.
• They are interested in partnering with a UK university and are keen on exploring different possibilities such as 1) renting out facilities and providing teaching staff to accompany the groups, 2) having UK university teachers delivering a percentage of the curriculum jointly with accompanying teachers, all the way to 3) relying on the UK university to deliver all the classes. The curriculum already exists in English.
• They are looking to host a total of 90 – 200 students every year. The students are likely to be divided in groups of around 30-40 students – each group would be focussed on a particular field of study, e.g. Engineering, Business and Finance etc. They may send more than one group under one field of study.
• UK universities would be limited to hosting one group per field of study but could host multiple groups under different study areas.
• Our client also wants the students to stay in residential accommodation linked to the UK university – could be privately owned, but accommodation would need to be organised through the UK university, and not under a separate agreement.
• Their budget for the 18 weeks is approximately £3,500 GBP per student (or 105k per group of 30) including accommodation. The university is keen on finding out different costs for the UK so a validation of this budget is welcome so the programme can be flexed accordingly (i.e. shorter terms).
• The cohort would arrive September 2020, but they are looking to sign contracts that last 3 years.

At this stage we are seeking validation that this is of interest to UK HEIs and gain an understanding of how feasible it could be in terms of alignment to UK HE priorities and budget requirements.

To achieve this, we are seeking Expressions of Interest until 2nd April 2019. To submit an expression, please write to Jessica Swann with a brief response to the following questions:
- Would you be able to rent your facilities in this way to host this group?
- Would you be interested in teaching a percentage of the curriculum to the students? If so how much?
- Do you have experience with this type of intervention?
- Do you consider the programme is possible in the budget?
- Would you be interested in partnering with another UK university nearby to host two groups from the same study area? Would you be interested in sharing the teaching of those two groups?
- What’s the maximum number of students you could possibly host, with particular consideration for accommodation?
- Do you have any other suggestions, concerns or thoughts on the opportunity?

We are also going to host a video conference online with the UK sector on Monday 1st April in which we will discuss the opportunity in more detail and answer any questions you may have about what will be required to tender.

An open tendering process will be launched by the end of next week, and we’ll be seeking initial proposals by the end of April, which we will present to the client in the first week of May.

Please get in touch with Jessica Swann with any questions or for further information.