METRO

As Director of Student Recruitment, Admissions and International Development for The University of Manchester, Dr Tim Westlake has masterminded a technological revolution in communicating with the University's potential customers both in the UK and, more profitably, overseas.

Manchester is the most popular university in the UK and received 54,000 undergraduate applications last year. Since he took over in January 2005, the University international student numbers have increased from 4,600 to 7,000 with the revenue they generate almost doubling from £47 million to £90 million.

Manchester now recruits the third highest number of international students in the world, after Melbourne and Sydney. Dr Westlake said: The University of Manchester has many advantages. I work in the building where Ernest Rutherford split the atom in 1917 and the University can also boast Alan Turing, the inventor of the first computer. Indeed, we have had 22 Nobel laureates, so our reputation has a worldwide reach which is backed up by our global ranking. In the 2008 Shanghai Jiao Tong rankings, Manchester University was placed 40th in the world, moving up eight places in just one year.

But he added: The University has significant advantages over many locations in the UK because of the brand of the City of Manchester and an international awareness as a result of two iconic global football brands, Manchester United and Manchester City. Compare us with London. There is no London United or London City, just Arsenal or Chelsea and so on, nothing identifiable with the city, and our two teams have put the city on the map.

He added: Students being aware of Manchester as a city provides a distinct advantage, but we need still need to demonstrate the University's world-class status to successfully recruit.

Dr Westlake does not, however, merely rely on the city's global image, but has instituted contemporary communication systems which can download information to student computers all over the world at the touch of a button.

He has also organised massive open events and forged relationships with the great and good all over the world to further foster Manchester's glowing academic reputation. He has also been appointed as a Director of UCAS, which prescribes and administrates the UK's university admissions' systems and in his spare time Tim has initiated a host of projects to support charities in the developing world.

The 45-year-old Altrincham based father of two daughters says he is: ...proud to be joining The Manchester Grammar School's governors. As the son of an army brigadier, who served across the world, I was one of four brothers, who went to an independent boarding school, Kent College in Canterbury, and I really appreciated all that style of education had to offer.

He added: I hope I can bring my knowledge of student recruitment to MGS and I think my role with UCAS may be particularly useful in that I understand just what university admissions departments require from sixth formers.

CAPTIONS:
Dr Tim Westlake in the room where Rutherford is believed to have split the atom in 1917, and in his office with the images from around the world taken by his brother.