Warwick has been shortlisted for the Times HIgher Education Award for Outstanding International Student Strategy. Congratulations to colleagues from the Centre for Applied Linguistics, International Office and the Students’ Union who have been shortlisted for their work on addressing the issue of integration between domestic and international students.

Warwick’s outstanding international student strategy for 2013-14 focused on including an ‘intercultural’ component that took into account the social complexity of a truly internationalised university community in order to improve student satisfaction and retention, social integration and global skills development.

'Every student an international student'

The innovative approach taken in 2013-14, under the “Every student an international student” strategy, was to focus on developing all students’ global perspective and openness to change rather than the traditional focus on international students’ need to adapt to the host culture. Colleagues from the Students’ Union, Centre for Applied Linguistics and International Office formed an innovative “Campus Integration Project Team” to introduce an intercultural component inside and outside the classroom to provide a more inclusive community.

In Summer 2013, the Team developed a set of internationalisation questions for the Student Barometer survey to benchmark satisfaction with mixed nationality group work. In June 2013 a disappointing 62.7% of Warwick undergraduates agreed with the statement “Having students from different countries on my course has enriched my experience of working in groups”. By June 2014, following a series of planned interventions with staff and students across the 2013-14 academic year that figure had increased to 84%, an improvement of 21.3%.

As well as dramatically improving student satisfaction with mixed nationality group work, the Team achieved significant national profile for Warwick in May 2014 through the publication of a 44-page booklet entitled “Promoting Integration on Campus” and the Warwick Integration Summit.

On being shortlisted, Stephen Williams, Head of Partnerships in the International Office, said:

Whilst most UK universities have highly developed strategies for recruiting international students onto their campuses, far less attention has been paid to how those students are integrated into the campus community once they’ve arrived. At Warwick, the Centre for Applied Linguistics, International Office and Students’ Union have taken a collaborative and innovative approach to tackling academic and social integration which has significantly improved student satisfaction, particularly in relation to intercultural group work.

Since 2012, Warwick has shared its research and experiences to the benefit of the whole UK HE Sector through 4 Integration Summits and the “Promoting Integration on Campus” publication. Being shortlisted for the THE Award for Outstanding International Student Strategy confirms the important role of intercultural learning in enhancing the experience of all students. ”

In his recent key note address on international education at the UKCISA annual conference, Simon Marginson, Professor of International Higher Education at UCL, paid tribute to the sector-leading work being done at Warwick:

There are some great ideas around about integration and intercultural learning. On this topic, one of the best items I have seen is the joint UKCISA/Warwick booklet on Promoting Integration on Campus (2014), by Helen Spencer-Oatey, Daniel Dauber, and Stephen Williams. Strongly recommended.”

The collaborative teams also won our Outstanding Team Award during our Warwick Staff Awards 2015.