New solutions portfolio includes cutting-edge ‘TNE Matchmaker’ data-mining tool that uses AI to locate best-fit university partners

Acumen, a leading global education services provider, today launched Global Gateway, a comprehensive suite of transnational education (TNE)-related solutions designed to maximise enrolment outcomes for universities.

The new service features TNE Matchmaker, the world’s first AI-driven data-mining tool, which searches thousands of courses compiled across South Asia and Southeast Asia to locate best-fit prospective university partners in real-time. The tool accelerates the partner search process, reducing what has traditionally been a time-consuming and resource-intensive undertaking to a matter of seconds, with data from more countries being added regularly to update possibilities.

It is estimated that more than one million students will be looking to access TNE programmes in South and Southeast Asia by 2025.

“Acumen has been at the forefront of TNE for many years, advising dozens of institutions on their strategies and brokering many successful arrangements, so we are ready to take what we do to the next level,” said Michael Bartlett, Global Managing Director, Education, at Acumen. “With transnational education now fully mainstream, we remain at its cutting edge while leveraging our knowledge and experience, helping universities embed or optimise a crucial TNE element in their overall international strategies.”

Growing numbers of students wanting to stay close to home while still accessing an affordable quality international education and a demand for flexible delivery models as well as alternative study destinations have all contributed to the rise of TNE. And rising alongside it is the need for institutions to provide options to address these shifts in sentiment. Global Gateway offers a wide portfolio of end-to-end services to help stakeholders at all stages of their TNE journey.

“At Acumen, we believe we need to innovate in order to excel,” said Lakshmi Iyer, Executive Director, Education, at Acumen. “Through Global Gateway, our in-house team of seasoned experts can now resolve existing TNE challenges while scoping new markets for opportunities and, in that process, help drive sustainable success for our esteemed partners.” 

As part of Global Gateway, Acumen, in partnership with the China Center for International Educational Exchange, launched the UK-China Institutional Partnership Programme on the 25th and 26th of May, drawing 45 Chinese institutions and 9 UK universities. 

Under the Global Gateway Partnerships (GGP) programme – South East Asia, the University of Portsmouth and Manipal International University, Malaysia (MIU), recently held a signing ceremony for a BSc in Computer Science programme wherein students will spend the first two years at MIU and then progress onto Portsmouth.

“This new partnership showcases the impact of Acumen expertise streamlining the steps to collaboration for both parties with quality and due diligence a priority at every step of the process,” said Professor Delia Heneghan, Vice President, Global Education Practice at Acumen who set up many TNE partnerships in a previous role as a PVC for a British university. “Demand generation is built into our GGP model, a unique feature that ensures robust recruitment into partnership programmes that deliver growth for both parties and a top quality experience for the students.”