Innovation has become an increasingly important concept for Australian businesses in enabling them to continue to compete in an international market, but where does vocational education and training (VET) sit in this? To date, VET has been largely overlooked by the National Innovation and Science Agenda as a potential contributor in this field.…

The Young Adults Learning Partnership Awards were launched to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the NIACE/NYA Young Adults Learning Partnership. Throughout the last 10 years the partnership has undertaken a diverse range of research and development projects. These projects have brought YALP into contact with young adult learners from a variety of…

In common with the United States, Europe is currently experiencing a serious economic recession. The crisis, which started in the financial sector, is now rippling out and affecting heavily other economic sectors: construction, property, retailing, manufacturing, etc. The arguable cause of the crisis was a failure of management in financial…

This paper looks at what the value of a doctorate is, both to employers in particular and to society and the economy at large. Given the emphasis many universities and funding agencies/governments are putting upon the development of PhD programmes, this is an issue deserving attention. The paper tries to show how two separate but interrelated…

"Higher Ambitions: The future of universities in a knowledge economy" has its own higher ambitions. It is a broad-ranging document, covering access to HE; research and innovation; student expectations and experience; university-business links; and community engagement. It is billed as a framework document, one which should structure…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to present a knowledge transfer method that capitalizes on both research and teaching dimensions of academic work. It also aims to propose a framework for evaluating the impact of such a method on the involved stakeholders. Design/methodology/approach: The case study outlines and evaluates the six-stage…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on a Forum for HRD initiative to proactively engage with HRD practitioners to develop "new commons" in the research-practice nexus. Researchers joined a community of UK university HRD practitioners, negotiated a research project mapping the terrain of HRD practice, explored how research…

Research and development on formative assessment has paid little attention to part-time adult basic education in informal community-based settings. A three-year project funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the National Research Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy, and the Quality Improvement Agency addresses that gap in vocational and…

This article highlights a five-year project known as Enhancing "Skills for Life": Adult Basic Skills and Workplace Learning which focuses on what workplace basic skills programmes "do" work, when and by what means. A research team headed by Alison Wolf will assess the impact of workplace basic skills programmes on employers and…

There are many funding schemes in existence for small projects in educational development, but fewer equivalent research schemes. Data from an evaluation of two schemes at one institution are used as the catalyst for considering such schemes in wider contextual and theoretical perspectives. The evaluation analysed success rate data, project…

This is a report of the "European Educational Research Journal" (EERJ) Roundtable that sought to describe what national educational research programmes are doing, how they are working together, and how they might contribute to the developing European Educational Research Space. The Roundtable was an opportunity for one large consortium…

The aim of this account of practice is to share my specific experience of action learning as an approach to effective working in a networking organisation. The context is delivery of public health at a regional level as part of a national organisation, The Health Development Agency. The action learning set took place with a consistent group over a…

Pharma Development has used action learning to help participants in their 360[degrees] feedback programme develop their leadership competencies. The article describes how the programme was designed, supported and run across four sites over a period of 2 years. The programme was systematically evaluated and found to be successful in meeting its…