BU Research Blog

This week Richard Wallis and Christa van Raalte attended the annual ‘Talking Shop’ conference of the National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image (NAHEMI) as key note speakers. We presented out paper, recently published in Media Practice and Education, in which we explore persistent barriers to effective partnership, identifying and deconstructing six myths that undermine progress in this area. These are that: ‘universities exist primarily to serve the needs of employers’; ‘the screen industries do not require a graduate workforce’; ‘media work specifically requires media graduates’; ‘the value of a media degree is determined by how well it prepares students for entry-level media jobs’; ‘practice-based and “practical” courses exist to produce “set-ready” graduates for specific industry roles’; and ‘universities are a barrier to industry diversity’.

The paper was met with an enthusiastic response and we were invited to propose a NAHEMI Forum later in the year to further debate the implications of moving past these myths to a better informed and more constructive conversation  built on mutual respect and understanding between HEIs and industry, recognizing their distinct roles and challenges.