About Nic

Nic Mitchell launched De la Cour Communications after a full-time career in daily news journalism – and then two decades in higher education corporate communications.

For the last ten years he has provided strategic support as well as native English-language editorial to UK and European higher education institutions and university trade media.

Nic has helped universities in Norway, Sweden and Czechia reach Anglo-speaking students and stakeholders and provided a news service and blogs for the European higher education PR and communication association, EUPRIO.

More recently, Nic is probably best known for his work for University World News, where he regularly reports on developments in European (including UK) higher education and research.

In April 2025, Nic completed a series of consultancy projects for the International Higher Education Commission (IHEC), including providing advice and copy-writing support for their final report  ‘Towards a future UK International Higher Education Strategy: Resilience, Purpose and Precision‘.

As well as University World News, Nic’s news articles and features have appeared in Times Higher Education special supplements, The PIE News and EducationInvestor. In 2015, he won the Outstanding Higher Education Journalist of the Year Award from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) for his reporting for the BBC on the brain drain from Lithuania since it joined the European Union after the fall of Communism.

What do others say about us?

Former BBC Online Education News Editor Sean Coughlan said Nic Mitchell produces “the kind of specialist journalism, with a thoughtful analysis, that people really want”, while University World News co-founding editor Karen MacGregor described his writing style as “reliable accurate, independent and insightful.”

Writing on LinkedIn, Dr Diana Beech, Director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s University of London, described Nic as “genuinely one of the best higher education journalists out there and always a pleasure to work with”.

She added: “You provide solid, in-depth and balanced analysis and always manage to find a unique angle on a story.”

See here for some examples of the high quality journalism and editorial support Nic has provided international higher education clients.