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HM Treasury ‘Lambert Review’ of Business-University Collaboration

September 2003

This Association (MeCCSA) represents departments and scholars in its fields in UK universities. Our fields extend across both social science and humanities disciplines, and the Association’s members engage in education and research embracing a diversity of approaches, from the intensely vocational to the substantially theoretical.

We welcome this opportunity to comment on the issues raised by the Review, and in particular those that we feel are of particular salience in our field. This reflects the following notable characteristics of departments and graduates in cultural, communications and media studies:

1. An unusually high proportion of gradates are in employment, as shown by annual surveys by the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services. Our graduates are exceptionally employable and display a variety of skills, both specific and generic, that are attractive to employers. At the same time a relatively low proportion stay in Higher Education to undertake higher degrees.

2. The field is extremely popular among university applicants, not least because it reflects areas of activity and employment which are among the fastest growing in the economy, and which, broadly conceived of as in the cultural and information sectors, represent areas of significance to future growth and national policy.

Against that background we hope the following notes may be of interest to the Review Team.

1. It is important to recognise that a caricature of complete distinction between ivory tower theory driven research on the one hand, and wholly applied and vocational work on the other is both damaging and inaccurate. In our experience, and that of most employers, a flourishing academic sector helps industry both by training of directly relevant skills, but also by providing the advanced generic education and knowledge base which graduates can take into employment. Unduly focused training imparts skills which may rapidly date in a work environment marked by dynamism, rapid technological change, and flexibility. This is a view shared by both graduates in Media Studies and their employers, as recent HEFCE funded research by the Media Employability Project demonstrates. Employers, it found, ‘wanted graduates who have developed a range of generic skills, both “higher order” academic skills, such as the ability to research, and to be ultimately “trainable” but also to bring transferable, work-related skills …to the work place.’ (Report into Perceptions of the Media Studies Curriculum and Employability May 2002 p.99). Graduates ‘agreed on the need for a balance between theory and practice’ (ibid. p.100).

2. The academy provides a steady stream of both basic and applied research that informs and complements commercial and industrial work. Like research in so many areas the most effective and constructive research may often be recognised as such only gradually. The independence and autonomy of such research are the best guarantors of originality and inventiveness.

3. The UK probably has a less advanced and extensive tradition of industry/university collaboration in these fields than in either the USA or Europe. A great deal of funding from the media and communication industries finds its way into sponsorship of studentships, research, and other activities in many countries in ways that are rare (though not absent) in this country. The growth of such collaboration would be warmly welcomed from within Higher Education.

4. Such collaboration works best where there is good understanding on both sides of the need for independence, autonomy, respect for intellectual copyright, and a focus on education rather than training as the central teaching mission of universities. For these reasons we would invite the Team to consider with caution any proposals for ‘accreditation’ or ‘signposting’ of university programmes or departments by industry or commercial bodies. This would not serve the interest of ‘the industry’; nor is it what employers want, as the summary of employers’ responses in the Media Employability project quoted above demonstrates. It would require the establishment of an additional layer of quality assurance bureaucracy added to the many that already exist; diminish the range of qualifications and programmes on offer; stultify curricula and course contents in fields that desperately need flexibility and renewal; and risk artificially separating the pragmatic and vocational from the contextual and theoretical, when the combination of these has recurrently been recognised (by for example the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education) as essential for both good education and for employable graduates. ‘Signposting’ of the precise nature of particular courses already exists in the form of the QAA requirement for programme specification documents.

5. We urge rejection of the establishment of sector centres of excellence as a way of fostering industry/university collaboration in our field. This would lead to the formation of a narrow range of educationally restricted units, geographically limited to a few locations, and with programmes narrowly defined in relation to current industry practice in very few areas. ‘The industry’ relevant to our field is extremely diverse, and certainly not represented in any one skills council or employer body. We wish to maintain and extend the range of opportunity available to our graduates. This will ensure the best flow of skilled young people into the labour market, and avoid the risk of excluding those living in parts of the country not having a centre of excellence, or whose skills and interests extend beyond those matching those that happen to be endorsed by such Centres.

6. There exists already a great deal of industry involvement in the teaching of students in our fields. It is common practice to involve professionals from within the media and creative industries in teaching programmes on either a sessional or casual basis, or more substantially. This works extremely well, and is highly valued, as the Media Employability Report indicates ibid. (p.103). It reflects a more effective interchange than a more rigid structure in which permanent ‘vocational’ centres were established, separately from other work in the university sector. This might have the added disadvantage of excluding students at such centres from teaching by researchers or teachers significantly involved in advanced and innovative research in their fields.

7. We have urged, through our responses to the ‘Roberts view’ of research assessment, a proper and further attention to the role of ‘practice work’ in external assessment of university research. We are satisfied that this is being properly addressed within the remit of the RAE review. It is normal practice for the research councils to require research applicants to nominate external ‘research users’ as referees, and we welcome this involvement of the user community.

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