Case study: Swiss HE programme marketing

Re-Thinking solutions for mobility exchange imbalance issues

Different funding structures and destination preferences coupled with an ever-increasing demand for outgoing mobility exchange, both within and beyond Europe, has led to a considerable imbalance between Europe's HEIs and their global partners. Currently, it has reached a critical level. An overhaul is needed to rekindle partnerships and to ensure sustained, balanced partnerships that are mutually beneficial for all parties. For Swiss HEI's the issue is compounded by the results of a marginally won referendum that introduced quotas that contravened EU bilateral contracts and promptly led to Swiss exclusion from EU mobility programmes. In this case study, the authors track the rapid development of internationalization within their own institution and outline how the current challenges of addressing the imbalances are being meet. External socio-economic factors are considered, tried and tested and then easy-to-implement solutions are presented. Within this context, HEIs programme marketing takes a pole position in guaranteeing success. Therefore, the approach of ‘target and relationship marketing’ was realigned to deal with the fast changing paradigms. The current approach has partially been successful in capping and reducing mobility imbalances. However, there is not a sustainable solution, especially, in the face of increasing numbers!