Supporting your academics to build a social media profile not only enhances their research and international network but is also an important aspect for recruitment and rankings. In this co-presentation Dr Hilary Young (448 Studio) and Dr Sean Morrissey (University of Strathclyde) will discuss successful techniques and strategies that they have implemented to support and encourage academic social media communities that thrive.

Higher education isn’t immune from the basic marketing premise that getting your product offer right is just as important as anything you do to promote it – which for universities means ensuring a course portfolio that meets demand.

This session will explore the insights you need to understand opportunities for growing, contracting or changing your course portfolio. Does your portfolio reflect student demand and market needs? How to evidence something you’ve suspected for a while? What does it take to get organisational buy in to a review of what you are selling to an increasingly discerning market.

We’ll take you through 5 key stages of portfolio review and hear from Birmingham City University about the work underway there to review and overhaul its portfolio.

University research communication has changed. Press officers and news are out, in favour of communications business partners and multi-channel media campaigns.

Yet, Covid has shown the value in specialist science journalists and news media in holding governments to account and helping the public distinguish fact from fiction. University press officers help journalists to find stories and find experts to scrutinise developments.
Fiona Fox, chief executive of the Science Media Centre, will present a new SMC report into the future of university press offices. She will argue that specialist press officers are vital in the advancement of education, research and society.

Pete Castle, from the University of Reading press office, will describe how today's university comms priorities can coexist with traditional media relations.

I will be dealing with mechanisms on how the University of Navarra has been listening to stakeholders based on the data that we collected during the last 5 years, consisting of roughly 26.000 participants (prospective students, students and alumni). We will then share some learnings from this project and how our own stakeholders at the university perceive us, and how this knowledge can also be transformed into meaningful actions that will lead to an overall improvement of our core activities. I am certain that the session will generate a meaningful discussion about how these insights are relevant to other universities as well, towards a common understanding of metrics for measuring and managing university reputation.

Join the University of Aberdeen as we discuss how we broke through the noise of the COP26 conference in Glasgow by bringing teams from across the University together to deliver an integrated marketing communications campaign that amplified our voice and delivered great results.

Geographically removed from the conference but in the epi centre of the energy conversation, how did we ensure we were part of the conversation? An opportunity for the University to demonstrate our academic excellence on a global stage, how did we stand out from the crowd and generate results?