Professor Jenny Bimrose, Emeritus Professor at Warwick’s Institute for Employment Research (IER), has been awarded the 2020 Rodney Cox Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her sustained and significant contribution to the careers sector in which she has worked in for over 40 years as a practitioner, educator and researcher.

The presentation was made by Dave Cordle, the Career Development Institute (CDI) president, on behalf of the CDI’s board of directors at the Institute’s annual UK Career Development Awards’ earlier this week.

The Award is presented annually to someone who has been a champion of careers education and guidance; who has supported the work of the profession in a variety of ways; and who stands as representing excellence, having achieved a significant amount in the field of careers guidance.

Professor Bimrose said: “It is a great honour to receive this award from my peers in the profession of career education and guidance. I feel deeply appreciative and very proud.”

Before beginning her research career Professor Bimrose qualified and worked as a careers practitioner around the London Boroughs, and took a role educating career practitioners at the University of East London.

She has a particular interest in the career development of women, a topic which formed the focus of her PhD which she completed on a part-time basis as a student at Warwick, in 2001. She has continued to pursue research and publish in this area, recently leading an international study into women’s career progression in nine countries. Acknowledging the depth and breadth of gender inequality and discrimination, her research confirms that while the goal of integrating women fully into the labour market remains aspirational, career guidance approaches that have been developed to meet the disparate needs of women offer promising ways of working, because they are grounded in the real experiences of girls and women (Bimrose, 2019; Bimrose, McMahon & Watson, 2019; Bimrose, McMahon & Watson, 2015).

Jenny is also interested in the theory and practice of career counselling and guidance, and in how career guidance practitioners can make best use of labour market information (LMI) in career guidance, together with ICT. Most recently she has been working on a European study on lifelong guidance and a study examining how parents and carers can be better supported to provide careers advice to the young people in their care.

Since joining IER in 2002 she has managed a broad portfolio of projects, including some international, leading on the early work of establishing the LMI for All portal which provides high quality, reliable labour market information (LMI) to inform careers decisions (https://www.lmiforall.org.uk/).

Jenny’s expertise has also been called upon by government – she has been a member of a number of reviews into careers advice and progression, including the Career Profession Task Force, convened by government, which produced the report; ‘Towards a strong career profession. An independent report by the Career Profession Taskforce.’

NOTES

The CDI Board presents the Rodney Cox Lifetime Achievement Award annually in the name of a special member, Rodney Cox, in honour of his contribution to the sector before his early death in 2014.

Recent publications from Professor Bimrose include:

• Bimrose, J. & Brown, A. (2020). The interplay between career support and career pathways. In Hedge, J., & Carter, G. (eds.). Career Pathways: From School to Retirement. New York:  Oxford University Press.

• Barnes, S-A., Bimrose, J., Brown, A., Gough, J. & Wright, S. (2020). The role of parents and carers in providing careers guidance and how they can be better supported: Evidence report. Coventry: University of Warwick.

• Bimrose, J., and Brown, A. (2019) Professional identity transformation: supporting career and employment practitioners at a distance, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 47, 6, pp. 757-769.

• Bimrose,J. , Brown. A., Mulvey, R., Kieslinger, B. and Dewanti, R.T. (2019) Transforming identities and co-constructing careers of career counselors, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Volume 111, April, pp 7-23.

• McMahon, M. Bimrose, J., Watson, M., & Abkhezr, P. (2019). Integrating storytelling and quantitative career assessment. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance.DOI 10.1007/s10775-019-09415-1.

• Bimrose, J. (2019). Guidance for girls and women. In J.A. Athanasou & H.N. Perera (eds). International Handbook of Career Guidance. 2nd Edition. Springer Nation Switzerland AG: Switzerland. pp. 385-413. ISBN 978-3-030-25152-9 ISBN 978-3-030-25153-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25153-6

• Bimrose, J., McMahon, M., & Watson, M. (2019). Women and social justice. Does career guidance have a role? In Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G., & Thomsen, R. (eds). Career guidance for emancipation. Reclaiming justice for the multitude. New York & Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. pp. 17-32.

• Bimrose, J., & Frigerio, G. (2019). Piloting innovation: Integrating the career adapt-abilities scale-UK into practice. In J.G. Maree (Ed.) Handbook of Innovative Career Counselling. Switzerland: Springer Nature, pp. 471-484.

• Newman, A., Bimrose, J., Nielsen, I., & Zacher, H. (2018). Vocational Behavior of Refugees: How do Refugees Seek Employment, Overcome Work-related Challenges, and Navigate Their Careers? Guest Editorial. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 105, 1–5. Doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2018.01.007

• Bimrose, J., McMahon, M. & Watson, M. (2015). Women's career development through the lifespan: An international perspective, London: Routledge