LJM and UCLan universities praised by CBI

LIVERPOOL John Moores University and the University of Central Lancashire have been cited by the CBI as universities that are engaging with business.

It says collaboration between business and universities could help the UK to maintain its competitive edge, in a report out today.

The Stepping Higher report looks at how universities can become more accessible to business and improve the skills of the workforce. Of the £33bn spent on training annually, around £5bn could be provided by universities, it said.

The report calls Liverpool John Moores University a “business engaged university”.

It is the North West’s largest provider of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, which place recent graduates within businesses to work on specific projects while covering some of the salary costs.

And each academic department has an enterprise manager to handle commercial relationships and contracts. Its business development centre acts as a broker between business and the university departments.

Liverpool John Moores’ vice-chancellor Michael Brown said: “Enterprise is the bedrock underpinning everything the university does.”
 
The report also singles out the University of Central Lancashire for creating programmes that cater to the specialists needs of the nuclear decommissioning sector.
 
It is working with Sellafield Ltd, which employs more than 11,000 people and has sites at Sellafield itself and Capenhurst in Cheshire, to up skill its existing workforce in niche areas.

Mark Richards, head of safety and technical training at Sellafield, said he found foundation degrees the “perfect way” to influence curricula.

“In the past we have tried to shoehorn people onto open courses but if these do not have the right nuclear element, it is not an effective approach,” he said.

Richard Lambert, CBI director general, said CBI surveys have shown that employers are not confident that there will be sufficient skilled people available to them in the future to meet their needs.

“The economic downturn makes it even more important for employers to strengthen workforce skills as competitive pressures intensify,” he said.
 
“By failing to harness the knowledge and expertise of universities, businesses could be missing out on the chance to get high quality tailor-made training that will help their companies prosper in the longer term.”