"Attention, A-level graduates: The University of Oldenburg offers you more than just theory and practice. It is a manageable, innovative institution that is open to your future!" These lines come from an advert with which the University of Oldenburg first promoted itself to prospective students in April via the private radio station ffn. This is quite an unusual approach for a German university, as we are still a long way from ‘Dutch conditions’: for our partner university in Groningen, student recruitment has been part of everyday life for many years, alongside its overall budget. Whether on milk cartons or buses, the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen is everywhere in its efforts to attract potential students.

As competition amongst universities for students intensifies, we will have to rethink our approach in Germany too. University open days, Taster programmes and other subject-specific events may no longer be enough to win over A-level students. Targeting young people via ‘their’ medium – Radio ffn has 400,000 young listeners every hour in Lower Saxony, Bremen and Hamburg – is an experiment whose success remains to be seen. Insight into this may be provided, for example, by the visitor figures for the website, the address of which – www.uni-oldenburg.de – was specifically highlighted in the advert.

To date, around 75 per cent of the 11,200 students at the University of Oldenburg come from the region. “Sitting back and hoping that this will remain the case would be the wrong approach. In future, the continued existence of universities will depend just as much on the quality of their research as on the number of their students,” said University President Prof. Dr Siegfried Grubitzsch in this context.

Incidentally: we entrusted the production of the advert to a professional agency, whilst writing the script ourselves. The limits of what was feasible soon became apparent. In thirty seconds, it is impossible to present either detailed programmes or the qualities of a university in any meaningful way. This type of advertising can only serve as a signal and whet the appetite for more. We are keen to see whether we have succeeded. At any rate, the media response to the Oldenburg campaign has already been remarkable.

Yours,

Dr Corinna Dahm-Brey