The Partnership Development Conference provides a great opportunity for us to examine the global operating environment and consider how we best respond to changes. On 4 and 5 December 2007, we were able to showcase innovation, share best practice and discuss new approaches.

This year, we were fortunate to have the input of a cross-sector working group that helped us design a programme which included sessions led by practitioners with real hands on experience. Highlights included:

Parallel sessions
A varied series of parallel sessions were on offer to delegates throughout the two days. Examples include:

Maximising return on investment
In this session, Gill Broadhurst from Liverpool John Moores University evaluated the costs of recruitment per student, per activity, by school and department. Stephen Williams from the University of Warwick then presented a case study on an Indian television scholarship programme (students had competed to win full scholarships live on a reality television show). The session presented the issues faced when institutions consider whether to take part in this kind of international marketing opportunity. The presenters concluded by providing delegates with a number of tasks including risk and cost benefit analysis.

			'A very good practical and innovative approach to costs and how to invest in recruitment.'
			'Great session! Very informative.'
			'Excellent, thorough and useful.'

Forecasting international student mobility to the UK
In this session, Dr Janet Ilieva presented a new forecasting model which aims to predict demand for UK education. The British Council has commissioned the Economist Intelligence Unit to develop this model and Andrew Williamson from the Unit provided delegates with a project outline and shared some preliminary findings.

'Excellent, informative, great to see that the British Council is looking at the bigger picture! (Even though the formulas scared me!)'

Plenary sessions
Three main plenary sessions were presented:

			Global economic review
			Managed migration
			Customer service excellence

Country sessions
Partnership teams and senior managers from China, Vietnam, Pakistan and Nigeria delivered market updates.

Colleagues from Nigeria received particular praise for the content and structure of their session.

			'Excellent, all encompassing session from lively and knowledgeable speakers.'
			'The speakers were amazing, very interesting, engaging, full of knowledge …I learned so much.'

Individual appointments
Those of you who attended the conference this year were able to book appointments with representatives from 26 countries; 19 of these countries are supported by the Partnership. In addition, delegates were delighted to be able to discuss market opportunities with British Council representatives from non-Partnership supported countries such as Canada, Ghana, Iran, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.

AGM
The AGM took place on Tuesday 4 December 2007. This included a Review of the Year and concluded with a presentation from Accelerator, the agency we contracted to conduct the review of the menu of services. Richard Harvey, consultant, presented the findings of the evaluation, with a specific emphasis on customer service excellence. The final report of this important work will be published at the beginning of 2008.

Staff conference
Each year, we host a staff development conference to coincide with the other conferences the global team deliver in December. This makes it possible for all British Council education marketing colleagues to get together and address key issues and developments affecting our work overseas.

Our objectives were to:

			ensure that we are working strategically to deliver benefit for the UK's education business;
			consider ways in which our new internal structures enable us to respond to the global education market;
			assess implications and potential actions arising from performance indicators, commissioned research studies and strategic reviews with specific client and sector groups;
			exchange best practice / innovative approaches in areas relevant to the successful delivery of the PMI for International Education (PMI2) and the Education UK Partnership;
			facilitate the growth of support and services we can provide to all sectors within education;
			provide an opportunity to address questions from staff about the way we support the UK's education business.

We’d like to share with you some of the session outcomes:

Menu of services review
A working party will be established to take forward development of the menu of services.

Financial modelling
It was agreed that we should look to use the financial model currently used within the British Council's English and Exams team to see what lessons can be learnt and whether the same principles can be applied to the Partnership model.

Entry requirements
Concerns were raised from colleagues about some institutions lowering their entry levels and the impact this is having on the definition of the quality of a UK qualification in market. This will be taken forward with the operating Board when they meet in March 2008.