This newly developed and specially designed system enables all UK HE institutions to share their international student numbers, to eliminate the waiting time currently experienced for access to such data.
You can submit your data to a secure website and then access all participating institutions' data using an on-line data mining tool.
Since the launch of this project in March 2008, over 30 HE institutions have submitted their 2007 / 2008 student numbers and been given access to the on-line data mining tool.
From 1 December 2008, institutions will have the opportunity to submit their 2008 / 2009 international student data and have access to all the participating institutions' data before HESA have published the 2007 / 2008 figures.
The process for submitting your data is very simple. Instructions on what to submit and how to do this can be found on the dedicated early reporting website:
The site uses a secure server, so all uploaded data is protected. Institutions that wish to remain anonymous in the data tables may do so, but will only be able to access composite information.
You can also contact the Education Market Intelligence team, who will be happy to talk you through the submission process.
Access to the data is only available to institutions that have submitted their own data. A data mining tool is provided that enables you to cross-tabulate fields, build charts and export the data to Microsoft Excel spreadsheets:
The British Council, through the Education UK Partnership, has worked with Universities UK to develop this, the sector's first on-line international student data early reporting system. The project was initiated as a response to requests from colleagues in the sector for national data on international students to be available much earlier than is currently available through HESA (which is published some 18 months after students enrol). Earlier access to such data is of the highest importance to the sector and will allow more accurate monitoring of market trends and recruitment results.
In response to these requests, the British Council set up a working party in September 2007 involving representatives from fifteen universities to discuss a mechanism to enable data to be gathered and analysed within a much shorter timeframe. These representatives worked together to develop a specification for the project using data fields already used in the December HESES return.
The project was launched in March 2008 and a  letter was sent by Universities UK to all UK higher education institutions (34KB) detailing instructions for the data collection and the technical specification.
The project was introduced at two workshops that took place in May 2008. A presentation given at the workshops about the project is available.
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