NGRF - National Guidance Research Forum website
The NGRF website has a new home on the University of Warwick website. The LMI online learning module and website are in the process of being updated and moved to its new home: www.warwick.ac.uk/go/ngrf
The NGRF (National Guidance Research Forum) website was developed by a team at the Warwick Institute for Employment Research. It was first launched in 2004 for careers guidance practitioners, managers, policy makers and researchers as a collaborative project between the Warwick Institute for Employment Research (IER), University of Warwick, the Centre for Guidance Studies, University of Derby and KnowNet, a specialist software company. It was initially funded by the (then) Department for Education and Skills and subsequently by the National LSC, SSDA and Sector Skills Councils. In 2010 with funding from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Skillset, the LMI content was updated.
The NGRF is a shared knowledge base that seeks to bridge the gap between careers guidance research and practice. It was developed from the 'real world' problems that policy makers, managers, practitioners, researchers and trainers face. The development process for the website contributed to research capacity building within the career guidance community, because it involved a range of prospective users on an iterative basis. It receives around 11,000 visitors per month, with feedback showing that it is used by a range of careers guidance providers and is seen as a valuable resource. The website has three main sections:
- Making Guidance More Effective - presenting information and resources on career guidance theory and practice, and policy
- LMI Future Trends - presenting labour market information and data on 25 broad sectors
- LMI online learning module - designed to cater for a breadth of practitioners, with differing backgrounds, qualifications, levels of experience and needs to support their understanding of labour market information and intelligence
For the first section, six expert groups looked at key areas or problems and provided a mediated commentary on key documents and research findings online. For the second, the LMI Future Trends section, labour market information is combined from a wide range of robust sources to present a picture of the UK labour market and future prospects at a sector and sub-sector level. The third component, the LMI online learning module, works alongside the content in the NGRF to support practitioners reflections on their research and use into labour market information.
Initial project funding: 2002 -2005
Funding from various other organisations to 2011
IER project team:
Initial funder:
Department for Education and Skills