Modelling potential foreign applicant flow: Case of Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences

With ever lower enrolment rates and a call for internationalisation from National and European Union institutions, recruitment of foreign students might be the only feasible strategy for many universities to survive and advance. However such attempts by Latvia and individual Higher Education Institutions (among them Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences) have largely been unsuccessful. Research paper describes an imitations model that could help to better analyse current efforts and provide clues to what actions and strategies should be undertaken to improve the odds of attracting more foreign students. Such model constructed in ISEE systems Stella Modelling & Simulation Software would be governed by criteria derived from literature studies and verified by student mobility and recruitment professionals from 5 different European universities. Imitation model will help also for other HEIs from Latvia and other countries to analyse their current efforts to attract foreign students and develop new strategies.