Building strong links between the UK and emerging powers around the world
21 September 2012
- We share the rich cultural assets of the UK with the rest of the world. The English language, the arts, education and our ways of living provide opportunities to build trust globally.
- The world is changing, economic and political power is rapidly shifting. It will be increasingly important for the UK to develop and maintain strong relationships with the main emerging powers of the 21st century. These include G20 economies such as Brazil, China, India, South Africa and Turkey.
- Our work builds strong links between people in the UK and people in the places that will matter most for the UK’s future prosperity.
- We have been playing an active role in most emerging powers for decades and have already developed trust and countless deep and lasting relationships for the UK.
Prioritising our resources to meet the huge demand for our work
- There is huge global demand for English and our other cultural relations work. This is particularly strong in rapidly growing economies, where skills training and economic diversification are recognised as essential to prosperity.
- We are focusing resources on building cultural relations with key emerging economies – the ‘BRICs’, Brazil, Russia, India and China – as well as other growing economies such as the Gulf States, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa and Turkey. These will be the critical partners the UK’s future prosperity and security.
We have been working in emerging powers for decades. For example, we opened our offices in Turkey in 1940, Mexico in 1943, Indonesia in 1948, and South Korea in 1973. Our largest overseas operations are in China and India, with 300 staff in each country, working across four and five premises respectively.
In 2012 we launched ‘UK Now’, the largest festival of UK arts and culture ever held in China, with more than 100 events to engage business leaders, key influencers and members of the public in ten major Chinese cities during 2012.
In Brazil, we are developing a major four-year arts programme to coincide with the Olympic handover from the UK to Brazil. We have also used sport to help young people increase their citizenship skills, community engagement and self-esteem. In partnership with the UK’s Youth Sport Trust and the Ministry of Sports, we have brought specialist training to more than one million young people. The programme has been so successful that the ministry has extended it with a goal of reaching more than 45,000 schools and an estimated 13.5 million children.
We work with more than 60 South Korean higher education institutions to highlight the opportunities in the UK for study and education partnership.
We are supporting more than 60,000 English teachers through training and professional development in Indonesia.
In 2013, following on from the China focus at this year’s London Book Fair, we are organising a Turkey focus for the festival that will bring the best of Turkish literature to the capital.
The UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) brings together Indian and UK academic institutions, government and industry to share innovation, strengthen leadership and international co-operation in the higher education sector, impart more skills, build capacity and improve academic mobility. So far, more than 600 successful partnerships across the education sector have been created.
