Industry and Business Engagement
At The Knowledge Partnership we have seen a dramatic rise in the amount of effort our clients put into employer and business engagement.
Universities and sector bodies recognise the vital role effective industry engagement strategies have to:
- Transform the learning experience of their students and equip them to secure graduate level careers in a fiercely competitive job market.
- Revitalise their research, innovation and knowledge transfer programs through greater industry support, when both public and private funding is becoming harder to secure.
- Grow their workforce development portfolios and increase CPD income.
- Demonstrate their commitment to regional development and economic growth
Our strategic development advice for industry engagement is based on wide experience of working with HE institutions, professional bodies and business. Our industry engagement consultant has worked at director level across a range of industry sectors as well as in higher education.
For a structured industry and third sector audit using best practice performance measures, developed with a group of leading universities, please contact us regarding our Business Engagement Tool (BET).
Our work with higher education institutions has included;
- Auditing industry engagement plans and processes to create new, effective and measurable strategies. We establish whether the right activities and structures are in place and provide clear practical recommendations that deliver results.
- Evaluating econometric data and published sources to understand the graduate skills needs and employment outlook for a region and nationally.
- Researching current and future needs of industry for graduate skills, roles and course content. We undertake in-depth interviews and online surveys with industry leaders and managers. This might be for a particular subject area, department, faculty or the university as whole.
- Providing clear and actionable recommendations based on hard evidence to guide course portfolio development.