Home / Activity / ‘Moving Closer’ – towards resolution of relationships between employers, Professional Bodies, industry, students and HE

‘Moving closer’ – maximising benefits to University courses, students and employers through undergraduate civil engineering placements

Lead name:
Crina Oltean-Dumbrava
Discipline:
Engineering
Collaborating Institutions:
United Kingdom Contractors Group University Task Force (UTF), ConstructionSkills/Built Environment Skills Alliance, Higher Education Strategy Delivery Group members
Region:
North East
Funding call:
RAEng - £8,945
Programme contact:
Royal Academy of Engineering
Abstract
The project will bring together what employers want, Professional Bodies require, industry needs, student needs and higher education provides to produce unique, up to date guidelines on best civil engineering placement practices which, when included in courses and adopted by employers will make placements more likely to consistently benefit students, increasing their employability. Universities adopting these principles will have higher employability rates; can state this in information to prospective students, thus attracting good applicants to relevant courses in an increasingly competitive environment. Employers will be keener to provide/remain involved in placements, as they will be getting better work prepared graduates.
Project Aims

To increase understanding of expectations on location of and support to placements, closing existing gap between perceptions of and responding to skills needs.

Project Objectives

Objectives include:

  • Review relevant research, link to relevant activity, communicate project
  • Clarify existing expectations of employers, Professional Bodies, industry, students and courses
  • By qualitative research, clarify the engagement processes from employer and university perspectives, including how SMEs may be encouraged to participate, structure and assessment of placements
  • Form best practice guidelines from findings reflected in short case studies that suggest expectations are clear and met
  • Evaluate best practice guidelines including by pilot implementation (within University of Bradford) for impact and benefits derived from different approaches to placements; implications for curricula and/or staff CPD; correlation with Professional Body requirements
  • Confirm with employer senior tier
  • Recommend how improvements in understanding are shared/disseminated among employer groups/Universities
  • Seminar on findings to include participating employers, other engineering disciplines, participating Institutions, STEM Ambassadors
  • Report, disseminate outcomes
Project Outcomes

If followed, these guidelines would enable consistent benefit for students and increased likelihood of ongoing provision of good placements by employers, despite difficult economic times.

 

Guidelines to the employer (including ‘household name’ senior tier) and universities affirmed, hence will be enhancing HEI graduate employability claims, so attracting good students and therefore benefiting the HE STEM sector. Good placements also increase the quality of the graduates for their employers; therefore there will be real benefits to students and the industry once the guidelines are implemented.  The project and its findings will be communicated to the SSC STEM Cluster (see annex) to connect with this Group’s work programme so extending benefits to HEIs, employers and others in the engineering community including and beyond its Built Environment elements.

 

If you wish to know more about this project, please contact the Programme's Engineering team at HESTEM@raeng.org.uk with Reference Number: FP019 OCT2010.

Latest updates

This project is now complete; please download the case study from the right hand side menu.

Sapna Somani 01.05.2012

Contact Crina Oltean-Dumbrava