IER News & blogs

Sally Wright and Professor Chris Warhurst have a new ESRC-funded Impact Accelerator Award to support their work for the working group tasked with responding to the job quality recommendations made in the UK Governments’ Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices. The working group is co-chaired by Martyn Evans, Chief Executive of the Carnegie UK Trust, and Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the Royal Society for Arts.

In July 2018, Dr Giulio Pedrini and Dr Luca Cattani from the University of Bologna will visit the IER for a month, working with Dr Daria Luchinskaya (IER) and Dr Charoula Tzanakou (PAIS) to develop a collaborative programme of research on graduate employment between the University of Warwick and the University of Bologna.

In May, a delegation of senior staff from IER visited the Interface Demography and Tempus Omnia Revelat (TOR) research groups at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in Brussels. This visit was part of Warwick’s new strategic collaboration with the VUB. A Memorandum of Agreement has been signed by the two universities on 6 June.

IER will be developing joint research and PhD studentships with the two groups, both of which have research specialisms in job quality, labour market transitions and careers guidance.

Following the success of the visit, Catherine Vassallo, IER’s departmental administrator said:

‘IER and its counterparts at VUB (Interface Demography and TOR) were able to identify clear areas of shared interest, which have real potential to achieve innovative outcomes and build on our shared commitment to Europe-wide research.'

In April the CIPD launched the first report from its new UK Working Lives Survey . It found that whilst half of respondents would work even if they didn’t need the money, over half of respondents also said that their jobs fail to provide decent career development. A team from IER helped develop the survey tool and analyse its results, with Dr Sudipa Sarkar seconded to the CIPD as part of this work.

‘One by One’ is a national research project which aims to help UK museums of any size better define, improve, measure and embed the digital literacy of their staff and volunteers in all roles and at all levels. The project aims to deliver a transformative framework for museum workforce digital literacy. The project, funded by the AHRC, runs until March 2020. The first phase of the One by One project mapped the ways digital skills are currently supplied, developed and deployed in the UK museum sector and pinpointed current changes in the demand around these skills. Read the phase 1 report for more findings.