2015…. Where countless dreams came true!

What an amazing year!

Most importantly: we made a HUGE step in making the original StudyPortals dream come true: Transparency in Study Choice Worldwide! We now list the majority of all ranked Universities in the world, and welcomed Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Beijing University, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hamad bin Khalifa University, University of Victoria, RMIT, University of Southern Queensland, etc. as clients.

We did a complete interface overhaul and switched to a mobile-first design, bringing study-choice from the students desks to their couch. We have also expanded transparency to new sectors: successful launch of LanguageLearningPortal and PreparationCoursesPortal

Our Impact

We helped approximately 12 million unique users this year in their information quest and 200,000 of them have actually gone abroad and started a study. Imagine the change on those lives!

The Global Study Awards: Together with the British Council and ISIC, we launched the Global Study Awards. This award will support successful candidates to study abroad by awarding £10,000 each to nine inspiring students. The winners of the first round will be announced in early January – we have had 43,000 applicants already!

Giving students a voice! The 2015  International Student Satisfaction Awards! For the third year in a row, StudyPortals is recognizing universities with great student satisfaction according to our users. On our STeXX portal, you can learn what students have to say about their study experience.

We support Knowledge for Children: K4C is a non-profit organization that supports primary education by building self-reliant schools in Cameroon and Uganda. All of our Christmas donations will go to a school in Masaka, so that they can be supported for a full year. You might recognize Jolanda who used to work for StudyPortals. She is there on a voluteering mission since October.

Award Hattrick!

We won all three of the three most prominent business awards of the Netherlands in 2015: FDGazellen, Deloitte EMEA Fast 500, and Sprout challenger. Very flattering but our favourites are certainly the ‘Change The World’ award from Entrepreneurs’ Organisation and the Top 20 best Employee Satisfaction company awarded by NRC.

Events

We’ve been travelling the world to attend some of the most influential international Higher Education conferences: Just to name a few- NAFSA in Boston, EAIE in Glasgow, GMAC, NACAC, AACRAO, UPSEA, IIE, EFMD and this is just the short list.

Bringing transparency to US Education, together with Prime Minister Mark Rutte (NL) and Geert Bourgeois (Flanders): StudyPortals had the honour of being invited to join the joint mission to Georgia, USA.

Research highlights

• We investigated the top 500 universities in the US and Canada through student eyes in cooperation with the British Council IELTS.
• We launched a report on CRM systems in higher education to help universities better communicate with their students.
• We released the third report and case studies as part of the IDEAL project which examines how Higher Education institutions can and do contribute to adult learning by way of distance education in collaboration with UNESCO Lifelong Learning Institute and the International Council for Distance Education.
• We also looked at the most dynamic market in Higher Education: the foundation and pathway market together with Cambridge English.

Our impact and research is frequently mentioned in the media, to name a few: the Washington Post, Times Higher Education, University World News, the Guardian and of course The Pie News!

We finally, launched ACT the new StudyPortals Analytics and Consulting Team with iE&D Solutions which will help us provide a range of services ranging from marketing strategy development, market research and market intelligence, as well as staff development training.

New partnerships

We joined forces with Uniplaces to also bring transparency to student accommodation.

We are working closely together with English UK in order to boost our common goal to help students choose an accredited language school in the UK.

On the student side, we joined forces with Netherlands-Asia Honours Summer School (NAHSS) with the objective to sustainably create an overview of study options, internships and scholarships in Asia.

Last but not least StudyPortals invested in Web2Present, an innovative webinar service provider focused on helping universities and business schools increase student applications, convert applicants into actual enrollments, find new agents, and stay in touch with their network of alumni through interactive webinars.

Looking ahead to 2016

A lot has happened this year and these were only the highlights. We already have big plans for 2016, including our very own conference. We will be travelling in time to understand the Student of the Future, upcoming developments and trends and changes awaiting everyone in international education in the next decades. Don’t worry, we’ll invite everyone and we will keep you posted about what is bound to be the most exciting conference day ever!

We are looking forward to start again in 2016 with renewed energy, great partners, exciting ideas and challenges ahead.

We want to make study choice transparent globally, to help students around the world find their dream study and enable them to obtain access to education, but this wouldn’t be possible without our fantastic partners and friends.

We wish you a great holiday season and all the best for 2016!