University of Glasgow Connect

Global Glasgow: Recruitment

Ian Thomson, Director of Recruitment & International Relations at the University of Glasgow, explains why attracting global talent to the University is key to delivering our ambitious plans and to creating a vibrant, multinational and multicultural environment for our community to succeed within.

The University of Glasgow welcomes World Changers from over 140 countries. This multi-cultural mix is important to the development of each student and staff member academically, personally and professionally.

Student recruitment

For most international students coming to Glasgow, a degree from an overseas university serves three functions: to enhance their employment opportunities upon graduation, to achieve personal growth, and to contribute to an improvement in society, wherever in the world that society may be.

For domestic students at Glasgow, sharing a campus with a diverse body of international peers exposes them to different world views and lived experiences, and enhances their learning journey, equipping them with international cultural competences.

Our aim is to recruit strong numbers of high-quality international students across all cohorts, from diverse geographies, for a wide-ranging portfolio of programmes, whilst being mindful of the need to do so in a way that is sustainable.

We use both traditional and partnership-led means of attracting students to apply. Like many universities, we make use of student fairs and events, we use agents, and we participate in overseas government scholarship schemes. But equally important for us, is collaborating with global partner institutions to develop articulation arrangements (such our Master of Global Business, the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters Degrees, and the Northeastern University partnership), recruiting students through our Transnational Education (TNE) partnerships in China and Singapore, and working closely with Glasgow’s pathway provider, Glasgow International College, which offers preparation courses for progression into undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Continuing to attract global talent

It has been my privilege to lead the international student recruitment team, based in Glasgow and overseas, over the past 13 years and to see the University become a ‘selector’ of students rather than a ‘recruiter’.

It is also critical that we support the recruitment of international talent to our World Changing Glasgow community across academia and professional services, and this is something that a future edition of Connect will feature.

It is crucial that Glasgow continues to attract the best talent from across the world, international students and colleagues are significant to the University, enriching our campuses and our communities. This is why recruitment is one of the four pillars of the Global Glasgow 2025 Strategy and for us, success will mean sustaining and developing our position as a “study destination of choice” and an “employer of choice” for global talent who then achieve their goals within our community.