Coventry University (CU) has secured its commitment to international experience as new figures show it helped more students travel and study abroad than any other UK university.
Figures released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) show that in 2014/15 the university was the top overall provider for international student mobility after providing a total of 2,264 student experiences abroad.
The most recent HESA data includes all Erasmus placements as well as any study, volunteer or research trip lasting at least five days.
Undergraduate experiences made up the majority of CU’s study abroad trips (73%) with the remaining being postgraduate travel (27%).
The figures show the success of a wider international effort within Coventry University that helped more than 5,000 students spend some time overseas.
Top 10 destinations for CU’s students included America, China, the Netherlands, Turkey, India and Malaysia. More than 20 per cent visited the United States with other popular destinations including Spain and Italy.
It is the first time data of this kind has been available as a benchmark for UK universities and shows the success of CU’s mission to offer every student an international experience during their studies.
Dr David Pilsbury, vice chancellor for international development said:
“We are extremely proud that Coventry is the sector leader in providing study opportunities overseas and we understand how valuable such experiences are for the personal and career development for our students.
Acquiring the leadership and management skills necessary for the global world of work really contributes to our impressive employability statistics as well as being transformative for students.
We are determined to build on this success and our plan is that by 2020 half of our studentswill take advantage of the opportunity to study abroad with all the benefits it brings.”