We are delighted to announce the arrival of Dr Charoula Tzanakou who has joined IER as Research Fellow on the ESRC-funded Precarious Pathways to Employment of Young People (#Paths2Work). Since completing her PhD at Warwick in 2012, Dr Tzanakou has worked at the Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) Research Centre at the University of Oxford and at the IER. In September 2013, Charoula was appointed as Research Fellow to work with Professor Alison Rodger, in the Faculty of Analytical Sciences, on an ESRC-funded project on the under-representation and low retention of women in academic science careers.

A new report using Futuretrack data, written by Gaby Atfield and Professor Kate Purcell, has been published by DELNI. The report focuses on students from Northern Ireland studying at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Northern Ireland, students from Northern Ireland studying at HEIs in Great Britain and students from Great Britain studying in Northern Ireland. Findings suggest that Northern Ireland students as a group were happy with the higher education choices they had made. However, the students in the Futuretrack cohort were graduating at a time of recession, and Northern Ireland students were particularly concerned about whether they would see a return on their investment.

IER and Cambridge Econometrics are currently undertaking a review of the literature looking at seven key methodological issues in estimating returns to Higher Education, Further Education and Skills. The project is sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

As a part of the project, a one day workshop is being hosted at the University of Warwick and is being chaired by Prof Peter Elias (IER). A number of academics will come together to hear findings from the review and to discuss their views and experiences of these issues. The aim of the study and the workshop is to set forth recommendations for BIS (and others) to utilise in future analysis so that the estimated economic value added of different forms of learning are robust and representative of the true underlying returns.

Findings from Stage 4 of the HECSU-funded Futuretrack study are highlighted in a special issue of Graduate Market Trends (GMT), published by HECSU (February 2013). An IER research team, led by Professor Kate Purcell, followed the progression of the 2005/2006 cohort of applicants to higher education from application to graduation. Data from the Futuretrack study has raised important questions about the types of employment obtained by graduates, finances, career opportunities and further study.

http://www.hecsu.ac.uk/current_projects_graduate_market_trends.htm

Further details about the research can be found on the IER website at: www.warwick.ac.uk/futuretrack , where PDFs of the project’s published Reports and Working Papers can be accessed and downloaded, as can PDFs of the online questionnaires used for each stage of the longitudinal research.

Professor Purcell notes: "This is the most ambitious and comprehensive research ever undertaken to explore the relationship between higher education and access to opportunity. The data we have collected is extraordinarily rich, the published reports produced so far only show the tip of the iceberg . There is much more to come..!”

On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Thursday 16 August, Peter Elias commented on whether the expansion in the University population has delivered what graduates were told it would - better prospects better paid jobs?