An in-depth look at the branding of universities
Universities face 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. The EU-funded project BRANDINGUNIVERSITIES (Branding of universities: Cross-national study of competition and identity in higher education) researched this topic. It teamed up with organisation aesthetics, higher education and globalisation studies. It introduced the phenomenon of the global branding of academia. This centres on the idea that 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 were used and information was compiled on university structure, capacity and history, as well as on national context. This aided in examining the historical changes and cross-national differences in the way universities are structured. Graduate students served as research assistants. They helped to sponsor international collaborations on research tasks and on related topics. This included inviting colleagues, traveling to conferences, and providing support through the long process of writing and publication of research findings. Results show that branding in higher education is exemplary of the change in the social role of higher education. This is in large part due to the growing global knowledge economy and knowledge being viewed as a commodity that can be marketed. Universities are viewed as training centres or sites where knowledge is produced. It is a contemporary model, preoccupied with ranking and branding, drawing heavily from the culture of globalisation.
