Lynn Gambin will be chairing the second session at a Policy-UK forum on 10th March 2016 at the Royal Society of Chemistry, London. The forum, 'Creating a generaton of Apprentices - funding, quality and a route to employment', is scheduled to coincide with National Apprenticeship Week 2016 and will provide delegates with an opportunity to hear the latest progress and policy priorities aimed at ensuring young people have the skills required by employers. With the Government committed to creating 3 million new apprenticeships by 2020, this for will consider how these new apprenticeships will be funded, what can be done to ensure their quality, particularly since concerns have been raised by Ofsted about the number of apprenticeships being awarded for ‘low-level’ skills (examples include tea making and cleaning floors), as well as how to encourage more employers to provide training and qualifications for young people, including the success of Trailblazer groups. Delegates will also discuss the availability of Higher Level apprenticeships and how their status can be improved and recognised as an alternative to university, as well as assessing whether the post-apprenticeship route into employment is adequately defined and supported.

IER's Lynn Gambin will chair the second half of the event which includes sessions entitled 'Are apprenticeships delivering for young people?' and 'What employers want - do apprenticeships address the skills shortage?'.

Details of the event can be found at here.

Dr Lynn Gambin has been appointed as a Specialist Adviser to the House of Commons Education Committee on the inquiry into Apprenticeships and traineeships for 16-19 year olds.

Lynn is involved in a programme of research on apprenticeships, skills and training at IER. Her research considers a variety of issues including: employers’ perspectives on training; the returns to training for employers and apprentices / trainees; employers’ responses funding arrangements for apprenticeships; and comparison of training and apprenticeship systems across Europe. Lynn has, with IER colleagues and external partners, carried out a number of relevant studies, including: a review of recent research into apprenticeships; a review of the methodological issues encountered in estimating the returns to different forms of learning and training; and, a review of the approaches underlying the current BIS estimates of the returns to different qualifications.

A new report by researchers from IER and IFF Research has been published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The report, 'Employer Routed Funding: Employer responses to funding reform' (BIS Research Paper Number 161), explores how employers’ engagement with the apprenticeship programme would vary depending on how funding is reformed.

Professor Jenny Bimrose (IER) will be hosting the fourth Organisational Innovation ESRC seminar at the University of Warwick on 18 September. IER has organised the seminar on behalf of the Aston Business School. The seminar entitled 'Building skills at individual level: the role of workplace learning and national apprenticeships' includes a welcome from Professor Jenny Bimrose and Professor Helen Shipton (Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University). Professor Alan Brown and Dr Lynn Gambin, from IER, will be presenting alongside Professor Lorna Unwin (Institute of Education, University of London), Professor David Guile (Institute of Education, University of London), Professor Alison Fuller (University of Southampton) and Professor David Collings (Dublin City University).

This seminar will investigate how medium-sized businesses can realise the potential opportunities that modern apprenticeships offer, especially bearing in mind the Coalition Government’s intention to expand this provision, and will look at other potential sources of new skills, for example, graduate employment. For more information on the ESRC seminar series - Organizational Innovation, People Management and Sustained Performance see: http://www1.aston.ac.uk/aston-business-school/research/centres/aston-centre-for-human-resources-achr/esrc-seminar-series-overview/.