Bis research paper number 128 The wider benefits of international higher education in the uk

4.2.2 Benefit type A2: Indirect economic benefits 
This benefit type comprises a range of tangible trade and commercial benefits to the UK, 
other than additional education exports (A1) or personal consumer behaviour (A4), that 
have arisen directly through the activity of the alumni since leaving HE in the UK.
4.2.2.1 Research 
evidence 
A minority (perhaps 1 in 10) of the alumni interviewed reported specific instances where 
they had personally been responsible for, or very influential in, commercial transactions 
with enterprises in the UK. These were typically between their employer in their home 
country (or in a third country) and a business or organisation in the UK, or could relate to 
development of new business ventures. Several of these were reported by those working 
in their family business (typically after undertaking a business-related course in the UK): 

Interviewee I10, an Indian graduate managing his family’s steel manufacturing firm, 
selected a major supplier based in the UK, through a contact he originally met while a 
student in the UK. 

I5, a Pakistani graduate in a management role in the family leisure-sector business, 
ordered £500k of go-karts from a UK supplier he met at a trade fair in the Middle East, 
reporting that he had struck up conversation with them because they were based in the 
same county as the university he had attended. 

I19 in Hong Kong worked in her family’s aviation business representing European 
manufacturers in Asia: 
“One of our main suppliers is actually a British company, and 
we are currently thinking of setting up a joint venture in Hong Kong...it’s mostly me who 
deals with that company.” 

I3 worked in his influential family’s diamond business and reported that he 
“like[s] doing 
business with people from the UK – it’s easier”
, and also intended to enable his UK HE 
academic contacts to engage in research in the Indian jewellery and diamond industry. 
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The Wider Benefits of International Higher Education in the UK 
In other cases there was economic benefit to a UK employer or organisation as a direct 
consequence of working with the graduate, including more than one who was involved in 
setting up new offices for a UK employer in their home country, such as: 

I66 from China who studied psychology and initially remained in the UK working on a 
post-study visa. She undertook much of the market research behind the decision for 
her UK employer to open an office in Shanghai in order to expand its Chinese 
operation, and helped them practically to open it. 

Indian graduate I86 who was assigned by his major employer to manage major UK 
contracts due to his experience of an MBA at Cardiff and resultant contacts. Recently 
they had been working on acquiring a UK business. 
A handful of graduates were specifically doing business with fellow alumni now working in 
the UK, including I25 who worked for a Sri Lankan engineering company (in East Africa) 
for whom he had set up several partnership ventures with UK engineering firms in which 
his fellow Sheffield alumni worked.