About Us

EMPRA (Education Marketing and Public Relations Association) is a group of Learning and Skills/FE education marketing professionals formed in response to the Foster Report on FE, and also in response to the need for a national and well-connected professional marketing, PR and Student Services support group for the sector.

EMPRA began in 2006 primarily to provide information, advice and entertainment for marketing, communications, public relations, recruitment, student services and support staff in the Post-14 training and education sectors.

EMPRA calls on the services of both sector and external experts to help provide knowledge and advice – providing an all-round credible service. EMPRA magazine, (currently an e-zine) is circulated nationally and is available on this site.

Our people

We are now looking for individuals to help grow EMPRA, if you have time and energy and a passion for marketing & PR in the education and skills sectors, perhaps you'd like to join the EMPRA committee.

Ruth Sparkes MCIPR.
Ruth is PR & Communications Manager for Cornwall College,the third largest FE College in the UK.

Having worked in newspaper advertising and magazine journalism for 5 years she joined the troubled Cricklade College in 1999. She has worked with national and local media for many years, and handled contentious and crisis issues, as well as marketing and strategic public relations planning for Cricklade College, East Surrey College, South Kent College and the University of Winchester.

She has also worked with CEL on the new Principal's Qualifying Programme, AimHigher and Davies Lane Primary School along with various other public and private sector organisations.

Ruth has won various marketing and PR awards including awards from Heist, FE First, UFI and the DfES. She holds the Postgraduate Dip in Public Relations and was chair of the CIPR, Wessex.

Ruth has been an invited Heist awards judge for the past 3 years and has contributed articles to The Guardian, The TES Education Marketing, FE Today, Profile and Education News magazines.

Joe Clancy
A well known journalist with 20 years experience in national newspapers, television and news websites.

After serving his apprenticeship on local weekly and provincial daily newspapers, he went on to Fleet Street and freelanced extensively for the Daily Mail and the Sunday Mirror. In 1980 he secured a staff position on the fledging tabloid, the Daily Star for which he covered most of the major news stories of the 1980s, including the Falklands War, the Yorkshire Ripper trial and the Zeebrugge ferry disaster.

In 1990 he went onto the news desk, until in 1997 he became disillusioned when the Star abandoned its focus on general news for TV and celebrity news.

The next four years were spent working for CNN Television in a variety of writing roles, including writing for its website which was the first news website in the world. He left when the web bubble burst in 2001 and set up as a freelance specialising in education.

He has worked predominantly for the Times Educational Supplement, for which he has produced more than 500 by-lined articles. He continues to work as freelance, with further education and environmental issues his specialities.

Nick Warren MA, MCIM
Nick began his working career at IBM, before returning to education as a research assistant at the Open University and as a lecturer at the National University of Mexico in Mexico City.

He was marketing manager at an Inner London college from 1990-1997. He is a former Chair of the Further Education Marketing Network and for three years organised the annual National Education Marketing Conference.

He is a contributor to the journals Education Marketing and FE Now and is an Associate Tutor at the Centre of Excellence for Leadership. Other work includes the launch of the FEFC's Guide to Needs Analysis and the FEFC's Marketing: A Manager's Guide. He now works as a resident consultant to several educational institutions.

Our registered address

EMPRA Ltd
Peat House

Newham Road

Truro

Cornwall

TR1 2DP

Tel: 07801 652932