Education PR Case Studies

We were selected by Nazarbayev University, a higher education institution in the capital of Kazakhstan, to enhance their global media profile. One of their goals for enhancing their international media profile was to increase the number of international student applications and admissions. This can be achieved in a number of ways including student diaries, graduate outcomes, faculty profiles, and research outcomes, all demonstrating to potential students what the school can offer them.

We were selected to support the development of King’s Business School, a brand new school with the aim to have its own identity built on the shoulders of the world-renowned King’s College London and in its own new building, Bush House. Focusing on communications strategy, BlueSky’s consultants crafted messaging for the school that dubbed the institution as ‘the premier undergraduate business school’ when faced with launching a new school without a flagship MBA programme. Through this striking messaging, and reaching out to journalists with finely-tuned pitches, BlueSky then delivered significant results.

We were initially engaged to raise the global profile of LSE IDEAS, LSE's foreign policy think tank, currently ranked Europe's top university-affiliated think tank. Our focus was on their Executive Masters in International Strategy and Diplomacy and two bodies of research, one looks into how companies can help support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the other looks at why people become radicalised.

Higher Education institutions place a lot of focus on being unique. Apart from their competitors. Something “other” than what students can access elsewhere. And, for the majority of those claims, whilst they are made in good faith, it is ultimately highly unlikely that they are entirely accurate. The chances are another institution offers something remarkably similar…

Initially we were enlisted to raise the profile of the flagship management programme (the Executive Global Masters in Management) of the Department of Management in business education and management media globally, over the past three years BlueSky has considerably expanded its remit with LSE, working to create awareness and enhance the reputation of the Department through its programmes, faculty expertise and successful student community in key markets around the world.

BlueSky Education worked with the Saїd Business School at the University of Oxford to increase the Saїd Business School’s international visibility in its own right, as the University of Oxford is already an established name throughout the world, and drive student recruitment in key international markets such as Western Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

We were appointed by UCL School of Management when the Department of Management Science and Innovation was rebranded and relocated to Canary Wharf on a separate campus from the main university, to promote UCL School of Management in its own right. During which time they have hired a separate Dean to manage the facility.

We were selected out of numerous PR firms to build and manage credibility and brand awareness for one of the world’s next great universities, Université Paris-Saclay - a collaboration of institutions who joined together, following a €9bn investment from the French government, in order to compete on an international platform - when the university was merely a concept. We took its aim to become one of the top 10 universities in the world, and shaped it into a strategy to bring all activities across the different institutions together to promote Université Paris-Saclay to an international market as a potential global leader in higher education with expert research rivalling universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Stanford, MIT or Harvard.

We have recently been engaged by École Polytechnique to promote the institution globally and raise its international profile to coincide with the launch of a new bachelor’s programme that will be taught in English for the first time in the university’s history.

The Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Canada is a leading international business school which offers several degree programs at the undergraduate, masters, doctoral and executive-level, including a BCom, an MBA, a bilingual EMBA, and a PhD in Management.

HEC Paris - a leading European business school located close to the diverse Paris business community. Specialising in education and research in management, HEC Paris offers a complete range of educational programs for the business leaders of tomorrow. The school has earned international acclaim for its superior programs, ground-breaking research, and outstanding faculty and student body. Whilst working with the BlueSky Education team, in 2018 alone the school received more than 2,200 applications, about 800 more than the previous cycle, and used the opportunity to admit 391 candidates, up from 232 the year before, enrolling 235, up from about 140.

The European School of Management and Technology (ESMT) was founded in October 2002 by 25 leading global companies. Based in Berlin, this leading European business school offers a full-time MBA and an Executive MBA program as well as executive education.

The school Darden is the business school of the University of Virginia in the USA. Founded in 1954 and based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the school is consistently highly ranked by both the Financial Times and the Economist.

The school emlyon is one of France’s top business schools and also one of the global leaders in the teaching of entrepreneurship and the fostering of start-up businesses.

The company Prodigy Finance is a specialist finance company founded by a group of graduates from the leading international business school, INSEAD. The company takes an innovative approach to student funding by setting up mechanisms by which a school’s alumni can, in effect, invest in the next generation students and, at the same time, earn an attractive rate of interest.

The programme The International Masters in Practising Management takes place across five different business schools in Brazil, China, India, Canada and the UK. Devised by world renowned management guru Henry Mintzberg, the program is often cited as the ‘Anti-MBA’ and adheres to Professor Mintzberg’s high-profile views on business education, focusing not on getting a better job, but doing a better job. The programme states a preference for candidates who have a minimum of 15 years’ management experience and sessions often take place in unusual environments such as long-distance hiking trips.