This blog has been written by Anna Zvagule, Head of Communications at London Higher.
It’s been just over a year since I joined London Higher. It’s also been a year since we developed a new strategy and new brand, and we’re finally seeing this make an impact. So, how did we get here?
London Higher has been producing a great deal of really useful and important publications for a very long time. In fact, we are gearing up to celebrate our 25th birthday next year! But, sadly, not all of these brilliant outputs have been effectively communicated previously, meaning that a huge opportunity to connect with our membership, stakeholders and political influencers has been missed in the past.
Getting to where we are today has been a real team effort, and it has been all hands on deck in the past year. This is why it’s been fantastic to celebrate this hard work with colleagues, members and sector friends at our autumn reception last week. We’ve devoted real time to considering the best and most effective format for outputs, how our engagement with stakeholders aligns with our priorities and how we can best spotlight the work of our members. We’ve even tried some new formats, such as video clips.
When I came in, I set some big goals. And it hasn’t been an easy road, but we have managed to achieve a great deal: quadrupling our website visits, steadily growing our social media following, increasing our publication readership tenfold (!) in some cases, and much more. I need to thank the brilliant London Higher team for embracing these goals and working hard to support me in achieving them.
This past year has been turbulent politically, with lots of, often negative, rhetoric affecting higher education, so it has felt like firefighting at times. Reactive comms have featured heavily, but this has been a blessing in disguise as it has given us plenty of opportunities to give our membership, and wider audience, a chance to hear what we have to say on key issues such as research and immigration, for example. We have also been able to come together with other sector bodies in support of international students through the #WeAreInternational campaign and in support of the creative industries through the Creative Education Manifesto.
Our newsletter has grown massively, showing us that people want to hear what we are up to and how they can get involved, and we’ve even managed to make it look a little nicer too. The real highlight, however, has been to be able to feature many of our staff with their monthly contributions, as well as our member universities.
On the political engagement side, we have been lucky enough to engage not only Government, but also His Majesty’s Opposition, for example with Shadow Higher Education Minister Matt Western kindly coming to speak at our AGM in the summer. Our CEO and Head of Policy have just spent time at both the Conservative and Labour party conferences talking to key stakeholders. We have strengthened our links with local government too and have some exciting plans forming ahead of the London Mayoral Election next spring.
We have worked particularly hard to build and strengthen relationships, marking two very special milestones this year, welcoming the University of Reading and Paris Dauphine into the London Higher family. We recognise the shared interests of the capital and its neighbours and see the benefits of building on this. Similarly, welcoming our first international centre has been an exciting move and another way we have shown our commitment to fostering international collaboration.
Throughout this year I have worked hard to establish a network for London university comms and public affairs teams, letting them know that we are here to support them. I am very excited that our second in-person networking event will be taking place in December, with a focus on the upcoming Mayoral and General elections. I have also been lucky enough to be elected as Vice Chair on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Greater London Group, working with, and learning from colleagues in PR across a range of sectors, including those in higher education.
We’ve had to be innovative, and we’ve had to try things without knowing whether they would work. And in some cases, they didn’t. But that’s ok because we have learned heaps this year, we’ve changed things and we’ve improved things.
I have set some big goals for next year too, so there are plenty of exciting things to come. In the meantime, we are always on the lookout for blogs, newsletter features or other ways to amplify the great work our beloved London HE sector is doing, so please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
