The marketisation of higher education

Universities encounter an increasing global competition as regards students, faculty and funding. This is driven by their being in the midst of dramatic transformations of administrative and scholarly goals. In order to stay on top, universities employ managerial and marketing tactics used in the corporate world and use branding in a strategic manner. This however can create tension in terms of ethos since universities are public institutions.

BRANDINGUNIVERSITIES (Branding of universities: Cross-national study of competition and identity in higher education) is an EU-funded project researching this topic. It joins organisation aesthetics, higher education and globalisation studies. The global branding of academia is a phenomenon it introduces. Universities, like all other institutions, rely on emblems to create a symbolic identity and visual memory to be identified with.

Quantitative and qualitative data of visual material images from 14 European countries and 19 countries worldwide are used and information is being compiled on university structure, capacity and history, as well as national context. This will aid in examining the historical changes and cross-national differences in the way universities are structured.

Results show that branding in higher education is exemplary of the change in the social role of education. This is in large part due to the growing global knowledge economy and knowledge being viewed as a commodity that can be marketed.