Albert Sanchez-Gelabert from Universitat Autonoma der Barcelona
Mr Sanchez-Gelabert will be a visiting student at IER until the end of the year. Albert is a doctoral student at the work and education research group (GRET) at the Universitat Autonoma der Barcelona (UAB). His research is focussed on students’ pathways through higher education and, especially, on their decision-making process with regards to course or higher education institution choices. He will be working with Heike Behle using Futuretrack data.
Recent events
LMI for All team at ALT C conference
The project team, led by Jenny Bimrose, attended the ALT C conference 'Riding Giants: How to innovate and educate ahead of the wave' to deliver an interactive workshop entitled 'The challenges of open data: emerging technology to support learner' in early September at the University of Warwick. Jenny Bimrose, Graham Attwell (IER Associate Fellow / Director of Pontydysgu) and Dirk Stieglitz (Pontydysgu) presented on the ‘LMI for All’ database and demonstrated the api. Participants explored the api and practical issues related to the production of apps and web developments.
To find out more about the LMI for All database commissioned by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills go to the IER project page.
Crowdsourcing and employability
Sally-Anne Barnes and Anne Green gave a presentation entitled 'Crowdsourcing: what does it mean for employability and skills?' at the international COST Conference on 'The Dynamics of Virtual Work: the Transformation of Labour in a Digital Global Economy' at the University of Hertfordshire on 4 September 2014. The presentation drew on findings from the CROWDEMPLOY project, which also involved Maria de Hoyos, Beate Baldauf and Heike Behle at IER.
Change: Connectivity and Collaboration AGCAS Conference
Jenny Bimrose was invited to open the 2014 Annual Conference for Higher Education Careers Professions (Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, AGCAS) at Scarman House on 8 September. The two-day conference was entitled: ‘Change: Connectivity and Collaboration’.
IER team present new findings on trends in Australia job quality
On 9 September 2014, Sally Wright and Chris Warhurst, leading a team of researchers from IER, the University of Sydney and Monash University, delivered preliminary findings on trends in Australian job quality at a meeting of Eurofound. The new data shows that even during the recent global downturn, the Australian labour market experienced an upgrading in the quality of jobs, with women particularly benefiting from an improvement in job quality. The Eurofound Global JOBS project brings together leading labour market researchers from around the world. During the meeting, researchers from other countries updated findings for Europe plus new findings from BRIC, Japan and South Korea. Eurofound will publish the Australian findings, along with those from the other countries, in a major publication in 2015.
Upcoming events
European Doctoral Programme in Career Guidance and Counselling: Summer School
The vision of the programme is ‘to establish Career Guidance and Counselling as a research-based and practice-orientated discipline in Europe. To reach this goal, we want to build up a strong community of researchers and research institutions in our field, who cooperate in international, transdisciplinary research, who work together in the academic training of career guidance and counselling professionals, and who jointly develop a new generation of academic leaders to safeguard the future of our discipline.’
Publications
New employers’ guide to improving skills utilisation
The new employers' guide by Chris Warhurst has just been published by Service Skills Australia, the equivalent in Australia of a sector skills council for the service industries. It explains what skill utilisation is, why it is important and how employers can benefit from it.
European Mobility of UK educated graduates. Who stays, who goes?
The Higher Education Quarterly has published Heike Behle's findings on the mobility of UK educated graduates. In the paper, she compares a group of European Mobile Graduates with those remaining in the UK. Mobility was identified as one way for UK-educated graduates to avoid employment in non-graduate jobs and add further value to their undergraduate degrees.
Behle, H. (2014) 'European Mobility of UK educated graduates. Who stays, who goes?' Higher Education Quarterly, 68, (3), 288 - 304.
Report on UK Skill levels and international competitiveness published
Research undertaken by Derek Bosworth, IER Associate Fellow, commissioned by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) provides an assessment of the level of skills held by the UK population compared to other countries. It shows that the skills gap between gender is continuing to widen, as women leave male counterparts behind.
