IER News & blogs

Jenny Bimrose went on a study visit from 8^th – 15^th October to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, in Port Elizabeth in South Africa, in her capacity as Associate Fellow. During this visit, Jenny presented a keynote at the annual postgraduate research conference, together with her international research collaborators, ProfessorMark Watson and Dr Mary McMahon. The presentation was entitled: ‘Across the miles: International collaborative research’.

This week IER welcomes Dr Kelly Kuang and Sophie Perdrix who will be working and collaborating with Professor Alan Brown and Professor Jenny Bimrose.

Dr Kelly Kuang is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Vocational and Adult Education at East China Normal University. Kelly will be spending a year at the Institute, supported by a China Council Scholarship. Her research interests are focused on tertiary vocational education and training, in particular workplace learning/work based learning, modern apprenticeship and comparative studies of vocational education and training.

Sophie Perdrix is a doctoral student in the field of vocational psychology and career counselling at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She has been working for three years on an empirical longitudinal study investigating the effectiveness of a career counselling intervention. She will be visiting the Institute until the middle of January.

Graduate employability is a hot topic in the media at the moment, with much talk about the fierce competition for graduate jobs. IER researchers provide insights into their work on graduate employment in an article for the Knowledge Centre, discussing findings from Futuretrack, an independent, interdisciplinary, policy-related research project about the relationship between higher education, career decision-making and labour market trends.

Professor Jenny Bimrose, Professor Alan Brown and Dr Sally-Anne will be attending the IAEVG conference on Career Guidance and Development Practices around the World, in Cape Town, South Africa (19-21 October). Professor Jenny Bimrose will present with IER Associate Fellows, Professor Mark Watson and Dr Mary McMahon on ‘Paradoxes in the career transitions of older women’. Together with Professor Alan Brown, Jenny will be presenting on ‘Stories of career adaptability from England and Norway’. Dr Sally-Anne Barnes, with Jenny, will present on ‘Developing and integrating IT innovations in careers guidance in the UK’. Sally-Anne will also be showcasing some on the IT systems researched and developed for careers guidance organisations in the UK.

Bernard will be speaking on ‘Provident funds in Cyprus – where they came from and where they might go?’ at the 18th Regional Social Insurance, Pension Fund and Provident Funds conference to be held in Nicosia (11-13 October).