2. International PGR enrolment trends Internationally, competition for postgraduate research students is becoming more intense, forcing universities to run fast just to stand still. At a national level, governments are adapting policies and introducing new graduate schemes to make their countries more attractive to foreign students. Universities are continually honing international strategies and intensifying international student recruitment. This section provides an overview of the competitive landscape for international postgraduate research students. The most recent OECD data, from 2012, indicates over 4.5 million foreign tertiary education students enrolled outside of their country of origin; an increase from 4.3 million in 2011 and 3.8 million in 2009. Since 2000, the number of foreign students has more than doubled, representing an annual average growth of 7% per year4. Of the UK’s competitors, the US received the most foreign students (16.4%), followed by the UK (12.6%), Germany (6.3%), France (6.0%) and Australia (5.5%). Together, these five countries hosted around half of all tertiary education students pursuing their studies abroad in 2012. While all countries overviewed in this report have increased their number of foreign students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, their relative shares have shifted. The US share of international students declined from 22.8% (475,169) in 2000 to 16.4% (740,475) in 2012. During the same period, Australia’s share increased from 5.1% (105,764) to 5.5% (249,588). Figure 1: Distribution of foreign and international students by destination country, 2013 Other OECD countries 10% Turkey** 1% Korea** 1% Spain 1% South Arabia** 2% Netherlands 2%
Other non-OECD countries 20%
Austria 2% Italy** 2% China** 2% Canada* 3% Japan 3% United States 19% Russian Federation** 3%
Germany 5%
France 6% Australia 6%
United Kingdon 10%
* Year of reference 2012 ** Data refer to foreign instead of international students Source: OECD 2015 Education at a Glance report 4  http://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/EDIF%202013--N%C2%B014%20%28eng%29-Final.pdf
12