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

4.2.8 Benefit type B3: UK influence during capacity building 
International graduates returning to their home country after study in the UK to undertake 
capacity building or other societal development work do so with embedded British values, 
ideas and structures, which may be seeds for long-term growth of different linkages and 
synergies with the UK. Some of these impacts may be by design – for example Chevening 
and Commonwealth scholarship alumni are expected to have a positive impact on their 
home countries. However, many other international students are also motivated to study 
abroad partly to gain skills and experience that they can contribute personally to national 
socio-economic development agendas, including education and research. Other mobile 
students can also help to build capacity less explicitly, and independently, through their 
own personal career trajectories after their studies. These varieties of impact would be 
considered another format of soft power. 
4.2.8.1 Research 
evidence 
The impact for the home country of graduates’ UK HE experience in terms of capacity 
building and societal development is covered in benefit type D1. This includes alumni who 
use their HE experience as a catalyst to pursue careers in development work, education or 
policymaking. Given the positive perceptions held by alumni about UK society, described 
in the last section, it is likely that many of these ‘capacity-building graduates’ will carry 
those UK values into their work. In so doing they may be embedding UK values within their 
home country’s society and structures, which in the long term should help to foster 
stronger diplomatic and cultural links with the UK, with possible economic results too.
Evidence for this activity is also described under benefit type D1, but brief examples are 
included here: 

Interviewee I61 was working on joint UK-Lebanon development projects to support the 
visually impaired in Lebanon, based on the standards and training methods she 
witnessed in London and work at with the RNIB; 

Alumnus I18’s current work in Malawi was on nutrition standards and related education, 
strongly informed by his learning in the UK and subsequent joint research work; 

I15 was working with Rothamsted Research and DFID in his development and policy 
projects on resources, ecology and agriculture in Kenya; 

Nigerian I68 was involved in setting up work placements in his Nigerian company, in 
collaboration with the London Business School; 

I56 has helped to develop national healthcare policies in Colombia, based on policies 
and practice he studied and saw in the NHS and NICE when studying in London, and 
was also setting up joint research projects with London institutions in his policy 
development work. 
One graduate considered that his ambassadorial role would help to derive a major long-
term benefit to the UK. He could conceive that as a result of UK support for capacity 
building and development of his country, reduced immigration might ensure in the long 
term:
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The Wider Benefits of International Higher Education in the UK 
“You help in alleviating suffering somewhere else, and your government is spending a 
lot of money sending assistance overseas, where people are struggling. Now people 
like to migrate to the UK because they think that’s where they’re going to make a living. 
But there will be a time when the UK will [have made] many other UKs in the world, 
and so then why would you go to the UK to look for a job when you can do it in your 
home [country]? I think the UK will benefit quite a lot in several ways. My being here, 
it’s like an ambassador, so we can advocate for the UK which has the aim of making 
sure that we are happy back in our homes. We have been there, yes, we have been 
taught what to do. I think the goal of the UK is to make sure that the world is somehow 
a better place but maybe, little by little, your government will [need to] spend less 
money to support international initiatives.”