GuildHE

As a long term supporter of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement and credit-based funding, we welcome the government's announcement today of their commitment to deliver the LLE. The new diversity of learning options created will be essential for a skilled workforce and a thriving society. GuildHE’s Director of Policy and Strategy Dr Kate Wicklow, FRSA has been co-chairing the Department for Education's Higher Education working group on the LLE, together with Universities UK. The higher education sector has a strong reputation for offering high-quality qualifications and GuildHE members in particular root their curriculum design and pedagogy on applied technical and vocational qualifications which meet the needs of their local regions and the specialist industries they serve. We now have the opportunity as a sector to offer our government ideas about how the LLE could be best utilised to support learner engagement, upskill society and innovate higher education delivery. The LLE launch is planned for academic year 2026/27 for learners studying courses starting on or after 1 January 2027. The statement can be read in full, with references to the LLE found on pages 83, 122 and 143, as part of the Autumn Budget Statement. https://lnkd.in/eA2b6xjZ Dr Brooke Storer-Church / Dana Gamble

🎉 We are delighted to announce that The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology has become the newest member of the GuildHE Research community! The Dyson Institute is pioneering a new way of educating future engineers with an innovative and integrated education and work-based learning approach. The Dyson Institute’s research focuses on machine learning, energy storage, product categories, electronic systems, battery packs, robotics, plus a Hyperdymium™ motors research team. We are thrilled to welcome the Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology to the GuildHE Research community. Dr Brooke Storer-Church / Rachel Persad / Peter Wilson / Beverley Gibbs PhD CEng FIET / Bob Tricklebank

Yesterday was one of those full circle moments. Here I am talking to researchers from Rose Bruford College, invited by the excellent research office team* to speak at their Research and Knowledge Exchange away day. These interactions really ground the work I do on policy to the real-life experiences of academics in specialist institutions. These researchers are juggling significant and demanding teaching responsibilities with research, whilst being fairly new to articulating how research fits in with their practice, supported by a research office team that is enthusiastic and experienced but small in number. Ambitions are - rightly - pitched high, but actions need to be pragmatic and carefully judged against resource constraints. It's a heady mix, and quite particular to this type of institution, and it often leads to an innovative and dynamic research environment. The last time I was in this building I was a junior staffer (to coin a phrase from Dr Brooke Storer-Church) at the Crafts Council as we were thrashing out a strategic vision for an organisation in the midst of change. What a lovely circularity - and a satisfying sense of a journey taken. I wish Professor Randall S Whittaker and his brilliant colleagues all the best in their endeavours - GuildHE and GuildHE Research are ever here to support you. * many thanks to the dream team 😉 Nicola Sainsbury Stephen Farrier Brian Lobel

Another example of how our GuildHE members connect us to others beyond our borders, build empathy and understanding, and support students to transition from study into their working lives. Great work at LAMDA (London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art)!

So honoured to now be in a position to support our GuildHE Head of Research Policy Rachel Persad to share her deep knowledge of the research landscape and innovative ideas about how we can further support our members to navigate the environment and build on their strengths. We at GuildHE are better when we support our members to shine!

GuildHE welcomes the Department for Education’s updated accountability measures which remove the metric for schools on how many of their students progress to Russell Group universities as part of each school’s student destinations data in England. This metric has long privileged those destinations as preferred amongst the much wider selection of excellent institutions providing high-quality educational opportunities for students across the UK. As champions of diverse, distinctive UK higher education institutions, we welcome this change. It recognises that valuable HE study takes place across a wide variety of delivery modes and institutions while ensuring students can be supported to make the best decisions for themselves, their circumstances and their ambitions. – Dr Brooke Storer-Church, Chief Executive Officer, GuildHE Nicholas Hillman / Michael Salmon / Richard Adams https://lnkd.in/eZdfc4bH

From robots and the Quad to furry creatures and Future Farm, I had a wonderful day getting to know Harper Adams University with the effervescent Professor Ken Sloan. What a tremendous university, showcasing the innovation, value and contributions specialist institutions can make to our sector and our world. As GuildHE’s new Chair, Ken and I will work together to lean into new opportunities to work with our community, showing the same courage our members demonstrate every day as they navigate through these challenging times. Both optimists, we share a desire to find the opportunities within those challenges and look forward to expanding the ways we support our GuildHE community into the future.

If anyone needed a reminder that arts education is also technical education, they need only spend some time exploring Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Watching the students build sets, measure parameters and consider how to solve challenges in the workshops was a pleasure, as were discussions with colleagues about how we can get RADA’s access efforts more centre-stage, alongside efforts to raise awareness of their historical and present contributions to our society and economy. As I said yesterday, we need to carefully articulate those benefits to underpin our arguments about why specialist funding for small institutions like RADA should be an essential component of our funding system. Thanks so much to Martin Prendergast and Principal Niahm Dowling for an excellent visit that is certainly just the beginning as we consider how we at GuildHE can support our dramatic arts members. #technicaleducation #creativeeducarion Department for Education, Jacqui Smith Dr Kate Wicklow, FRSA

🎉 We are delighted to announce that the University of Suffolk has become the newest member of our GuildHE Research community!   Home to a thriving multi-disciplinary Doctoral College, University of Suffolk research delivers significant contributions to scientific, medical and technological innovation and solutions, evidences and informs key policy debates and developments, plus actively challenges social injustice and inequality. We very much look forward to collaborating and supporting the University of Suffolk in driving forward their ambitions. Dr Brooke Storer-Church / Rachel Persad / University of Suffolk Research Institutes