Dr Deirdre Hughes OBE delivered a keynote presentation at the official launch of Work Experience Week at the Guildhall, London. Work Experience Week is dedicated to raising awareness of the benefits of high quality work experience. It covers all experiences of work, from apprenticeships to traineeships, internships to volunteering as well as more traditional work experience programmes. It was an opportunity for organisations across the country to host activities showcasing their work experience provision, and to demonstrate the difference a high quality placement can make to an individual’s employment prospects and life. This year’s launch event showcased experiences of the world of work for young people that help employers develop a talent pipeline for their businesses and expand development opportunities for their existing workforce.

Following successful events at the University of Warwick in 2014 and Aston University in 2015, The Third Midlands Youth Labour Market Forum, will be held on Wednesday 23^rd November 2016 at College Court, the University of Leicester’s leading conference venue. The forum was developed to engage with all those concerned with young people’s transitions from education to employment as part of the ESRC-funded Paths2Work research project, Precarious Pathways into Employment for Young People?

Melanie Simms, Professor of Work and Employment at the University of Leicester School of Management, is hosting the event this year and further details about the forum meeting, including instructions about how to register, will be sent to you later in the summer. In the meantime, please put the date in your diary to ensure that you will be able to attend what promises to be a very exciting event, now that we have entered the final year of the research project and have a great deal of data to discuss with you.

If you have any queries, please contact Dr Arlene Robertson, A.Robertson2@warwick.ac.uk Tel: +44(0)24 76 522328)

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.

On 26 November, Business in the Community published its report Destiny should not be determined by demography which considers the impact of school-business partnerships on young people’s employability, as well as the effects of such partnerships on schools and businesses. The report is based on research carried out by Terence Hogarth and Lynn Gambin at the Institute for Employment Research which aimed to assess the impact of employer-engagement activities, the uplift of employability skills and added-value impact on pupils of the Business Class programme. This research was carried out over the past two years in conjunction with Education and Employers Research.

The full evaluation report can be downloaded from http://www.bitc.org.uk/programmes/business-class/business-class-evaluation.

Researchers at IER are involved with colleagues at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) in the medium-term National Evaluation of the Talent Match Initiative. Talent Match is funded by the Big Lottery and is concerned with investing resources in a number of local areas in England where youth unemployment is a significant issue. The aims of the evaluation are to track the success of the initiative and projects within it - to identify what works well, for whom and in what circumstances; and to share learning and improve practice.

Duncan Adam, Gaby Atfield and Anne Green contributed to the first year Annual Report (click here for a Summary). Gaby Atfield contributed to a special report on the Involvement of Young People in the design and implementation of Talent Match, while Anne Green co-authored a theme report on Partnership Working.