Fostering practically based learning spaces through industry-engaged higher education models

The role of university staff in fostering cross-boundary learning

The continual dominance of employability within the higher education agenda has led to the expansion of roles within the university and the development of existing roles to include employability development or graduate prospects, and associated activities, within their remit. This has meant developing brand new roles at the university and departmental level solely dedicated to improving graduate outcomes, which include bridging the gap between industry and the academic world. These developments were highlighted through our interviews in both universities. Interviewees discussed the central careers team growing in numbers and prominence over the past few years, as well as the development of specific staff within subject departments, such as ‘employer engagement officers’. We spoke to one specialist who explained ‘I’m the lead in the school around sort of embedding employability in the curriculum, and therefore, I kind of was the main author of the School’s employability strategy’ (Middle leader, U1). These types of roles not only consist of engaging employers of all descriptions to work with the university for multiple purposes, such as contributing to curriculum development that has industry relevance or ultimately offering permanent graduate positions, but also of supporting incidents that might lead an undergraduate to find permanent work. Staff in these newly established, mainly non-academic job roles therefore become facilitators of relationships and a first point of contact between an employer and the university which begins to bridge the gap between industry and the academic. The importance of this role was highlighted by interviewees; one described themselves as speaking ‘fluent industry, but I can also engage with academics and be a bit of a translation between the two’ (Senior leader, U1). Such a mediator role between employer and university suggests that a particular know-how of dealing with two different types of organisations is vital in developing and nurturing cross-boundary relationships.

The second development that these institutions have experienced is the expansion of the remit of existing staff and job roles to include responsibilities related to the work-readiness of graduates, and to ensure that work-related provision is at the core of student experience. This can challenge existing entrenched identities relating to what the role of an academic is, as emerging discourses, interaction, negotiation and cultural exchange may lead to the formation of new or hybrid identities (Bhabha, 1994). Through these processes, the role of academic staff goes beyond what may be considered the traditional academic role (Macfarlane and Yeung, 2023) of acquiring (through research) and distributing (through teaching) knowledge. Instead, academic staff may now have a responsibility to bridge the gap between knowledge acquired at the university and its relevance in the outside world through the additional responsibility of engaging with employers, thus contributing to the co-construction of third spaces. This may be achieved by ensuring that the curriculum is relevant to the workplace, arranging projects and assessments that are based on real-world examples and enabling placements to take place. However, several challenges arise with this, which were discussed by participants. First, these additional roles bring an increase in workload for staff; academic staff are required to do more within their full-time job, whether that is taking on new official roles for a proportion of their time, such as one day a week as an academic executive, or the general expectation that academic staff must do more to make their provision ‘industry-ready’. Second, as alluded to above, the language of business is not the same as the language of academics, having different expectations, objectives and ways of operating, and therefore negotiating between the two parties may present problems. This highlights that the role of specific non-academic staff working as meditators or enablers is crucial in complementing the role that academic staff play in embedding ‘work-relatedness’ into the curriculum. The third challenge is that external organisations and employers may be approached by different staff members from different areas/disciplines of the university. As one lecturer (U2) explained: ‘we’d have three or four or even more academics getting in touch with [the same employer] asking the same questions and frustrating the people on the other side because “I just spoke to your colleague last week about it. Do you not talk to each other?”’

Academic staff may build a relationship based on a pre-existing personal link with an individual from an organisation. This can be nurtured and used for drawing the organisation into departmental activities, for example, for setting up placement opportunities or attendance at career fairs. However, this may lead to making requests and contacts from multiple channels of the university to the same employer, making the relationship difficult to manage and coordinate. This was referred to as ‘knocking on the same employer’s door’: ‘the danger is that we all have the potential to knock on the same employer’s door at the same time on a particular day. So, we don’t have, at the moment, oversight of everybody’s activity’ (Senior leader, U1).

Stakeholder communication and partnerships have been highlighted as key factors contributing to boundary crossing between academia and industry. Our interviews indicate that third space, fostering the integration of academic and practical knowledge, is constructed and co-constructed through collaboration among key actors: university staff, industry representatives and students. These complex processes contribute to the creation of third spaces, achieved through what has been referred to as mutually beneficial partnerships between universities and industry.

The configurations of third spaces, constructed through industry–university cooperation, may take different forms, for example, placements, joint projects and employer involvement in curriculum development. Both case studies have indicated that industry engagement is one of the key aspects of strategic development to enhance student employability. The ambition is to develop partnerships that are both sustainable and mutually beneficial, building trust between academics and industry, specifically small and medium-sized enterprises.

Challenges of working in third spaces

Sustainability emerged as a key issue and challenge through our interviews, and some successful partnerships represented one-off examples of good practice rather than long-term sustainable patterns of communication and collaboration: ‘We had lots of transactional engagements as a university where individual academics had built a relationship with a company around a specific project … but none were really strategic and didn’t engage outside of just either one academic or one school or one department’ (Senior leader, U1).

Sustaining and building on existing and emerging patterns of collaboration were recognised as important aspects of the employability strategy in both universities. Interviewees spoke of the need for a strategic oversight of the various employer relationships, yet neither of the universities believed that this has been successfully achieved yet. Despite these challenges, interviewees stressed the importance of academic staff aligning themselves with industry, and the benefits this in turn had for bridging the gap between the curriculum, the border student experience and the world of work.

To overcome some of these challenges, academic and non-academic staff with industry experience were sought after. Drawing on academic staff from industry alleviated, at least in part, the issue of language, as staff are already attuned to the workings of industry and its expectations and needs. Furthermore, staff who already have industry experience may more naturally be able to embed work-related learning into the curriculum and delivery without much additional workload. However, it is also important to ensure that this industry relevance keeps abreast with changes. Both case study universities discussed that many staff continued to practice professionally while in their academic role with the university. It is argued that this retains the currency of their industry knowledge. One lecturer explained a common employment set-up across the university:

I have been at [U2] in the capacity at first as more like a freelance academic tutor since roughly 2009. And then, in 2020, I was doing various amounts of, like, part-time equivalents with regular work … So I’ve gotten between point six and point eight as lecturing … And I run two businesses, social enterprises, and that’s been my primary focus anyway.

(Lecturer, U2)

For both academic staff and other staff specifically enrolled to focus on employability of students, an important role has become the management of ‘third spaces’, bridging the gap between academic and professional, or the theoretical and the practical learning. These third spaces also include work placements or simulation environments that emulate the workplace. The role of these third spaces will be explored in the following section.

Bridging the classroom and the work environment: creating third spaces in the university?

The importance of bridging the classroom and the work environment was highlighted by all the stakeholders in the research. Employers place high value on skills and behaviour developed in the workplace. However, there are issues concerning the availability and reach of meaningful work experience for all students. These are discussed below. Instead, universities try to emulate workspace environments and create spaces for employer engagement and interaction in other ways in an attempt to reach similar goals of work placements. Examples of these will be explored in this section.

The need for these third spaces is explained by the fact that for the case study universities, the acquisition of knowledge is not the end point of the degree, but an ongoing activation of knowledge and disciplinary skills in a real-world setting. One informant gave the analogy of moving away from the concept of knowledge as being central to a degree and instead placing the student at the centre of a wheel, explaining that ‘at the centre of the wheel are those attributes, behaviours, attitudes and skill sets delivered through the prism of disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledges’ (Senior leader, U1).

Alongside this, students are facing uncertain futures. The world of work is rapidly changing, as is the world beyond the workplace, due to major disruptors such as digital technologies and AI, and environmental and demographic changes. Therefore, the case study universities discussed having the responsibility to prepare students for uncertainty, arguing that it is not easy to prepare them for the unknown. To ease the transition from university to the workplace, third spaces, representing the space between the classroom and the workplace, can bring in elements of the outside world to help support students to develop resilience and the skills for dealing with the unexpected, and to give them the opportunity to solve issues in a safe environment. This illustrates how third spaces can motivate and generate new understandings and enhanced practices (Martin et al., 2011). For example, one interviewee discussed a departmental law clinic where students engage directly with the community and provide pro bono legal advice about unique real-world challenges that clients from the community face. The practice gives students exposure to authentic examples from the real world, while still being supported by the university staff or external qualified solicitors. Shadowing within the university is another approach to provide students with opportunities to engage in practical activities in a safe and familiar environment, which has been transformed into intermediary third spaces, bridging academic knowledge and work-related activities: ‘if there’s any chance that students can shadow people who are already working in the university, that in-house process makes it so much easier because you don’t have to worry about the external documents and paperwork’ (Senior leader, U2).

A number of practices were described which sit outside the traditional curriculum, or, as one participant described, ‘these spaces that are super curricular but work through curricula’ (Head of department, U2), meaning that they are closely entwined with the content and act to enhance the experience of the curriculum. These include a community radio station run by media students, which is also Ofcom regulated, ensuring that students are introduced to professional expectations but within the university and student community. It also allows opportunity to practice the skills and knowledge acquired through the core curriculum in a live environment. Similarly, art and design students access a professional commissioning studio used by wider regional creative industries. Students engage in live briefs commissioned from the public and private sectors. The space gives students opportunities to pitch and create pieces of work for real clients, and it opens access to potential jobs. In such real working spaces, students are supported with advice from both academic staff and professionals to deliver high-quality professional work. There are expectations of professionalism that are expected in working with real external environments, yet they are still supported by elements of a safety net. The students’ road to professionalism was described as a ‘continuum of safe danger’, whereby:

at Level 3 [and] 4 it’s relatively safe, and students will get exposure to employers or exposure to the landscape, but we should always allow students the right to fail productively, fail forward – it’s the safe end of the spectrum. As they progress in the levels, the stakes get higher and higher, to the point where now on that path to professional, the nurses are, you know, out in practice. And perhaps some courses do it earlier, some courses do it later, but they’ll be increasingly exposed to live briefs, then off on placement.

(Senior leader, U1)

Activities such as job fairs and guest employer lecturers were also mentioned as opportunities for employer engagement and developing professionalism, which would act as these first levels of exposure to build students’ confidence before scaffolding the student towards more challenging environments, where the stakes of failure are higher. These activities can act as third space where students use what they have studied while still applying skills needed in a professional environment.

Challenges to the success of third space environments between the classroom and work

A significant issue that was discussed in terms of these extra-curricular activities, which support students on the path to professionalism, is that for the most part they sit outside the curricula, which means that they are non-compulsory elements for students. This raises the question of how equal access and equal opportunity can be ensured, in particular for disadvantaged students. The benefits of all these activities, particularly work placements, were highly revered in terms of the personal and professional development of the students who participate in them, and subsequently for the positive effect that this has on their graduate outcomes. One interviewee explained:

when [a tech company] have a placement for, say, six weeks, that’s really where they recruit from. It’s their main source of recruitment because obviously they understand the student. They can see the personal values of the student but also their professional attributes. That really is the pipeline that they’d like to see and they value the most.

(Middle leader, U1)

Despite the clear benefits, staff stressed that inevitably there are students who are difficult to engage, and therefore they do not take advantage of the full campus experience, perhaps because they commute, have caring responsibilities or work part-time. These students are likely to be more disadvantaged, and they are further disadvantaged from not engaging with experiences which would support their professional development. Increasing numbers of students are taking part-time work because of the cost of living and high university expenses, hence they engage minimally with anything beyond their timetabled delivery and anything that is not linked to the assessment. As one participant noted, ‘If students can’t see a clear link between whatever this is A and their assessment B, they are extremely unlikely to engage in that’ (Head of department, U1). Often, this part-time work is unrelated to their studies, nevertheless, as third spaces, this could support the development of employability. Some interviewees explained that this particularly affected the take-up of work placements, as students could not afford to forfeit part-time work, which in some instances even paid more than prospective placements that were more meaningfully linked to their courses. The debate therefore arises as to whether to make some of these activities compulsory elements of the curriculum. Some participants argued that students can be reluctant to take part in placements because of their special circumstances and their lack of confidence. Requiring students to participate ensures that all students access the benefits of their industry, and it ‘can be the key to unlock their confidence in so many cases’ (Middle leader, U1). However, the principal argument against making placements mandatory was that it would force those who cannot participate for good reasons, because of caring responsibilities and part-time work, to leave the programme, as it would not be viable for them to complete such elements.

Another challenge is that there are not sufficient relevant and high-quality placement opportunities, meaning that there is not enough capacity in the industry within the universities’ region. Staff members additionally highlighted that their cohort of students is not particularly mobile, and they face significant barriers in seeking placements in wider regions. The solution for most was to ensure ‘industryness’ was always closely entwined in the core curriculum, rather than being extra-curricular, so as to bring the realities of the workplace into the classroom and assessment. For example, involving employers to set briefs for projects based on real industry issues and then support students through these live projects, and involving employers in the assessment of these projects. Some described going beyond employer assessment and involving the wider public and other stakeholders as assessors: ‘For instance, in our sports rehab, and our podiatry, those are open to the public, and the public are involved in the assessments. So, the public will give feedback to the tutor on how the student has managed their pain’ (Senior leader, U1). Other methods of integration of industry relevance discussed included incorporating a career event into a module, as well as assessing mock interviews which have been practised in the classroom with peers along with employer input.

The strategic direction of the case study universities was to ensure that all degrees incorporate the development of transferable skills as well as broader professional development. However, how these are interpreted and practised need to be tailored to the individual sector that is relevant to individual students. In other words, all courses should be developing students’ pathway to professionalism, yet this is manifested differently for different disciplines to ensure that it is relevant and closely links the theory to practice. For instance, in the business school, students must establish a LinkedIn profile and begin to form professional networks through it while at university. In contrast, the professional landscape exists very differently in arts and media, and professional networks are not established in the same way. Students in arts are taught the skill of networking in person, and conversational skills. Third space activities in this discipline have included practice dinner parties, with the aim of collecting others’ business cards. The activities in these two examples are vastly different, but both help build the social capital of the student which has the most currency for their industry.

Third space environments include the spaces that have been discussed so far, such as a student radio station, public-facing law clinics and simulation environments that emulate a professional workplace, such as a medical facility for the training of nurses. In these instances, the physical environment supports the experiential learning of the students. These are safe environments in which students can practise what they have learnt in the classroom in an active and collaborative manner. Staff are also an essential component in supporting students to bridge this gap between their studies and employment through the management of these third spaces, and through their development of employer relationships.

Finally, interviewees discussed the role that virtual reality and digital experiences now can offer in creating new and innovative third spaces. One example given included a virtual reality software system where students can practise employer interviews or a customer service environment. The software can play back the experience to students and staff, allowing students to self-assess their performance, which helps to build individual confidence, as well as to develop other key transferable skills and attributes. These types of spaces also tackle some of the issues around equality of access. If universities can provide these tools to their students, they overcome issues of not having sufficient employer contacts to meaningfully engage with all students.