Editorial

Citation

Heyler, R. (2015), "Editorial", Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Vol. 5 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/HESWBL-05-2015-0033

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning, Volume 5, Issue 3.

Welcome to the third issue of the fifth volume of Higher Education Skills and Work-Based Learning (HESWBL), the official journal of UVAC (the University Vocational Awards Council). It is my great pleasure to present you with an impressive variety of research, from different institutions and different countries but all representing new work from the areas where HE and the workplace intersect.

The issue opens with a paper from Hilary M. Jones and Lorna J. Warnock, “When a PhD is not enough – a case study of a UK internship programme to enhance the employability of doctoral researchers”, outlining a doctoral internship programme; part of a collaboration between the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York, UK. The paper examines best practice in the planning and management of doctoral internships and discusses the challenges that arise. Increased awareness of their leadership, project management, organisational and team working capabilities are amongst the students’ responses.

Our second paper, “An evaluation of the link between subjects studied in hospitality courses in Cyprus and career success: perceptions of industry professionals” by Stelios Maneros and Paul Gibbs also investigates career opportunities, and more specifically whether the programmes available are suitable to prepare graduates for working in the hospitality industry. General education, languages, professional modules and business modules are all included with some interesting responses analysed. The findings of the study are offered as assistance in re-structuring the hospitality management curriculum, as realistic and pedagogically sound whilst reflecting the modern realities of the profession.

In paper three Bethany Alden Rivers, Alejandro Armellini and Ming Nie discuss social innovation and social impact in, “Embedding social innovation and social impact across the disciplines: identifying ‘Changemaker’ attributes”. This represents work that the University of Northampton have been undertaking since 2010, work that has earned the University the status of AshokaU “Changemaker Campus”; an achievement only some 30 university campuses have reached, mostly in the USA. This is on-going work and here the authors explore the skills and behaviours associated with social innovation and social impact in order to develop a working definition of “Changemaker attributes”, which will be useful in the design, approval and review of innovative academic courses, across disciplines.

Continuing with the theme of developing effective curricula, Donald Ropes, in “Management competencies anno 2025: consequences for higher education”, presents the results of a collaborative research project, aimed to improve and promote the development of undergraduate business programmes. The research focuses on a large international airport and its cohort of graduate managers – some 700 employees from a total of 2,000. The paper demonstrates how research can be vitally important to both the employer and also the education provider. The airport in the Netherlands was grateful to gain such insight into their lower management, and the curricula developers at the business school of the local technical university were aided in their aims to design new curricula in tune with business expectations and future planning.

Finally, in this section, Caroline Norman and Robert Jerrard offer us, “Design managers, their organisations and work-based learning”, a fascinating paper which illustrates how designers’ careers can be compromised if they do not fully understand the business context in which they operate and furthermore struggle to communicate effectively across other disciplines. Like other papers in this issue we are shown the value of management skills, no matter what the sector. The authors suggest that such skills can be usefully developed via work-based learning, and offer a case study demonstrating this.

The issue finishes with two papers focused on higher-level vocational skills in colleges, and introduced by our recent special issue Guest Editors Leesa Wheelahan and Gavin Moodie.

We are always keen to recruit suitable reviewers for the journal, if you would like to get involved please send me some details of your profile and areas of expertise.

Ruth Helyer