2122-53-TRM-RD - AN ONLINE PROGRAMME MANAGEMENT SERVICE

The university has an ambitious plan for its taught portfolio, recognising the significant demand for skills development and the opportunity for a truly applied higher education experience. As a part of our strategy the university is seeking to extend its portfolio into the UK and Global online market to capitalise on its growing reputation as a leading applied and entrepreneurial university.

The university is seeking a commercial partnership to develop, scale and grow our online portfolio and extend our brand nationally and globally, in an operationally and financially sustainable way. We expect the partnership to be for up to 12 years with a value of up to £50m for the partner. We are looking for an online education partner with a considerable track record of partnering with Higher Education institutions, who will work with us to develop a new wholly online portfolio of post-graduate courses that reflect our ambition to be the world's leading applied university and ensure we are able to reach prospective students on a UK and global stage.

We are not seeking a model whereby the University only validates or accredits the provision - our vision for an online portfolio is founded on the premise that our online students will feel a part of Sheffield Hallam University and will be able to benefit from our teaching, learning and distinctive Hallam Model. We are not however expecting there to be any mandatory attendance on campus as a part of the course delivery; the desired model is a fully online one.

The university's current online portfolio (c.22 courses of which 17 are postgraduate level) has been developed organically for a Continuing Professional Development (CPD) market, predominantly in the health and education areas. We are not seeking in the first instance to replace any of this existing provision; rather we are looking to develop an additional offer with potential to attract high student numbers from both UK and international markets. As the partnership matures and we build capacity and capability within Sheffield Hallam we will want the flexibility to add to the portfolio and respond with agility to global trends and potential changes to UK market opportunities.