Employability is a key strategy of the university and this project addresses this issue. The Department of Applied Sciences at UWE has indicated that it will support the provision of staff time to enable the continuation of the engagement in 2012-2013. The employer contacts will be sustained to enable this.

The format of the presentations and assessment task will remain essentially the same in future years.  The main modification to the engagement will be to make the presentations part of the students’ Graduate Development Programme (GDP) rather than integrated into the IAS course.  This will link the presentations directly with discussion of future employability and will remove their perception of the assessment as an extra assessment on the IAS course.

The project will be extended to include other areas of science, in particular DNA analysis, which would then provide links between employers and students taking genetics modules at level 2.  Incorporating the exercise in GDP removes timetabling constraints linked to a specific module and will allow more flexibility to timetable presentations at the most appropriate time for both students and employers. This would also enable resources to be prepared that could be easily adopted by other staff at UWE as part of the Graduate Development Programme in other subject areas (e.g. Environmental Science, Engineering and Maths). 

The Department of Applied Sciences at UWE has indicated that it is supportive of this extremely beneficial activity and intends to allocate a modest resource each year to enabling it to continue and develop.   This will help contribute to the future employability of the undergraduates and provide significant benefits to students and the university.  These changes and developments will ensure that the activity can be sustained, especially as relationships with employers are developed further. 

For more information please contact the project lead: