BU Research Blog

Today Associate Professor Chris Shiel is speaking at an Inside Government Conference – Internationalising Higher Education in the UK: Globalising Knowledge and Skills. This event brings together several central government departments, key actors from the private sector, senior academics and others to consider how to develop strategies to recruit students from our increasingly globalised world. The event will also help delegates to learn more about how to attract funding and to work with international partners to support the development of global employability skills. Specifically, Chris will speak on ‘The Cultural Value of an Internationally Mobile Student Population’.

The report discussed at this event stems from Think Global, of which Chris is Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees. This builds on the earlier contributions that Chris has made in developing the evidence base around this key topic, notably giving evidence to a House of Lords roundtable discussion chaired by Baroness Jolly and hosted by the British Council and Think Global. This session was joined by Dr Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business and Skills, which considered questions around how students can be prepare for the global labour market, identified core skills  for young people in a globalised world and the challenges that need to be addressed to develop internationalisation.

Many people associate public engagement activities with engaging a very general public, but this illustrates how targeting a select group of individuals can ensure that your research findings reach the most appropriate individuals that are able to use the evidence created by research. Crucially, this is a two-way process; by engaging with policy makers in this way, this helps to inform future research by identifying prospective policy issues. Chris’ involvement also places Bournemouth University at the centre of the debate on this key issue facing the HE sector.  

For further details of the conference taking place today, please click here. For more information about the submissions that Chris made at the House of Lords round table can be found here and here. Alternatively, please contact Chris directly to learn more about her work on cshiel@bournemouth.ac.uk or if you would like to explore how your research can be used to inform government policy, please contact Becca on redwards@bournemouth.ac.uk.