Sussex postgraduate campaign shortlisted for award
A University of Sussex campaign to promote its new scholarships for Masters students has been shortlisted for a national award.
More than 150 students, universities and businesses from across the UK entered the Prospects Postgraduate Awards, across eight categories.
Sussex will compete against six other institutions for the award of Best University Campaign after doubling the number of Sussex students applying to stay on to Masters study.
Sussex introduced two scholarships this January – one for Sussex students and one for non-Sussex students – to encourage them to undertake postgraduate study:
- The Sussex Graduate Scholarship is available to final-year Sussex undergraduates progressing onto full-time Masters study. Students with a first-class degree are eligible for a £3,000 award and students with a 2:1 are eligible for a £2,000 award.
- The Chancellor’s Masters Scholarship, worth £3,000, is available to UK/EU students who have or expect to achieve a first-class honours degree from any university in the UK.
Terry O’Donnell, Senior Postgraduate Liaison Officer, said: “Against a national backdrop of declining Masters student numbers, our scholarships and promotional campaign have exceeded expectations.”
The scholarships and campaign have helped the University to:
- treble the intake of Sussex students with a first progressing directly to full-time Masters study (56 compared with 18 in 2012-13),
- almost double the intake of Sussex students progressing directly to full-time Masters study with a 2:1 (127 compared with 67 in 2012-13)
- recruit 78 non-Sussex students with a first-class degree.
The Sussex Graduate Scholarship promotional campaign combined traditional and online activities to target final-year Sussex students. It required inventive use of social media, web and email alongside more labour-intensive channels such as recruitment events, drop-in sessions, careers fairs, posters and postcard campaigns.
The campaign resulted in a total of 226 applications – up from 111 for 2012-13 entry.
Terry added: “Key to success was momentum, with clever use of crucial intervention points such as the handing out of scholarship postcards as students handed in final dissertations, and the deliberate deadline extension, allowing for additional activities such as online chats and drop-in sessions to target undecided applicants.”
The Chancellor’s Masters Scholarship campaign used selected channels to raise national awareness, target the key audience and drive traffic to the University’s website. Channels included key postgraduate websites, mailing lists such as UCAS – used to target finalists with Brighton postcodes – and advertisements in national newspapers and online.
Terry said: “Across both campaigns and across all activities and promotional materials, our message was clear and consistent: namely that we were both rewarding and attracting excellence with a flagship new scholarship scheme.”
The Prospects Postgraduate Awards launched for the first time this year and are dedicated to celebrating best practice and the most exciting developments in UK postgraduate education.
The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony on 19 November in Manchester and the University will be holding a reception on campus on 26 November for recipients of its scholarships.
The Awards are run by the postgraduate education publisher, Graduate Prospects, which also operates prospects.ac.uk and the official postgraduate course database.
Mike Hill, chief executive of Graduate Prospects, said: “It’s fantastic to see such a positive response to our first awards in the postgraduate arena. The standard of entries was high across the board, reflecting the calibre of postgraduate education in the UK. I wish Sussex the best of luck.”
The judges include representatives from Universities UK, AGCAS, NUS, UK Council for International Student Affairs, Higher Education Academy, Association of Graduate Recruiters, British Council, Higher Education Data and Information Improvement Programme, Million+, Thirtythree, Higher Education Academy and the UK Council for Graduate Education.
You can follow the Prospects Postgraduate Awards on Twitter at @postgradawards.