Threats and opportunities to building and maintaining reputation in 2025 and beyond
“Trump administration freezes future grants to Harvard” “Canada reduces international student permits for second year” “University tuition fees rising to £9,535 in England”
In 2025, the daily occurrence of headlines like this is no longer outside of the norm. Impacted by policy-driven narratives, public perception of higher education has been restless in many markets in recent years and current research demonstrates declining trust in the sector with key stakeholder audiences like prospective students and academics. Restrictions on international mobility and hostility in migration has seen student voting with their feet, and academics are reportedly losing faith in their academic freedom. Therefore, the challenge faced by the sector is managing those more negative perceptions and building reputation in the current tumultuous environment.
Our 2024/2025 Research project aims to explore the changing sentiment towards higher education, examining what people are saying and feeling about Higher Education and the ‘value’ of a degree in the midst of some of the biggest geopolitical (and perhaps misinformed) threats to the industry and to an individual institution’s reputation.
Looking at best practices in response to potentially dangerous narratives, we will attempt to address some key questions around reputation management: How are universities are responding to the current challenges? What can they do to mitigate damages? How can they demonstrate their resilience? Can universities work together and present a united front? And ultimately, what opportunities are available to build reputation in a time of perceived unrest?
In addition to a comprehensive review of sector trends and critical market snapshots, key elements to the research will include collecting qualitative and quantitative views from institutional reputation leaders and measuring academic sentiment globally when freedom of speech and their academic freedom is under threat.
The project is being delivered by the World 100 Reputation Network – a group of 40 of the world’s best universities spanning 13 countries, managed by Times Higher Education. The network focuses on membership engagement opportunities, research, communications evaluation and training. More information about the network is available at https://theworld100.com.
The summary findings will be available to all those who complete the questionnaire. A more detailed report is available to members of the W100 Network. Further details of W100 Research projects are available at Research Projects – The World 100.