Customer experience research has demonstrated a need to refocus our student-facing website and publications to be more customer-oriented.

To achieve this, Education UK has undertaken a competitive EU tender for the supply of a new Education UK website and advertising sales management. Following a rigorous selection process, we have now appointed two new suppliers. Selection took place after a competitive EU tender process which included evaluation by representatives from BUILA and British Council colleagues from key markets worldwide.

We are delighted to inform you that we have appointed Sapient to develop and deliver the new Education UK website. Sapient is a top-ranking interactive agency which brings with it award-winning creative talent that will help us deliver an exciting new on-line presence for Education UK. The new website will be launched in Autumn / Winter 2009, when the existing contract ends.

We are also delighted to inform you that Hotcourses has been appointed to manage advertising sales on our behalf. We have worked with Hotcourses since 2001 and look forward to continuing our relationship with them.

We will be working with Hotcourses to develop a new range of advertising opportunities for both the website and publications. Changes to the advertising portfolio will be phased in pending further research. Your pre-existing advertising arrangements with Hotcourses will continue to be supported and any new arrangements made with them in the next few months will not be affected.

We will soon be tendering for the supply of our content and publishing assets and aim to appoint a supplier by December 2009. The new supplier will be responsible for continuing production of our portfolio of publications (Club UK, Postgraduate UK and the Guides to UK education) and will be working with us to help develop this further.

We are planning a series of presentations over the coming months to give you an opportunity to find out more and how you can input into this project.

We are also ensuring ongoing input from institutions through the following groups:

• Strategic working group for further and higher education
• English language promotions group
• Education UK Partnership boarding schools panel.

If you would like more information or have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.