The government has signalled that any support for the higher education sector as a result of the ongoing financial and COVID-19 crisis will depend on demonstrable progress in working with further education, developing new routes through higher education and creating opportunity through a commitment to meeting local and regional knowledge transfer.

“The University Challenge” by Ed Byrne, President of Kings College London, and Rt Hon Charles Clarke, former Education Secretary, sets out the challenge for universities to develop new relationships to meet these challenges – a debate galvanised by responding to COVID-19.

London South Bank University and other universities have already developed new kinds of partnerships and group working addressing an agenda that has been on the policy table since the 2011 Willetts’ White Paper and brought into sharp focus by the 2019 Augar report and recommendations. How do they do it and what can they deliver?

This online conference will take delegates through the lessons of these first movers demonstrating:

• how they have approached the challenge
• how they have defined their objectives to work with FE and reach into schools
• how they researched the local economies and built responses to need
• the way they connect long before admission to widen participation and create opportunity
• new ways of working with business
• what can be done with level 4 and 5 in HE to improve engagement in HE for those in work
• how knowledge transfer can be made to work in business clusters

This agenda has been made more urgent by the current financial crisis and the conditional terms of government support for future funding set out in their response to the UUK appeal for a stability package for universities.

Speakers include:

• Rt Hon Charles Clarke, former Education Secretary; co-author, The University Challenge
• Professor Liz Barnes CBE, Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, Staffordshire University
• Professor David Phoenix OBE, Vice Chancellor, London South Bank University
• Fiona Morey, Executive Principal, Lambeth College
• Mark Hilton, Executive Director, People, London First
• Rebecca Mameli, Head of Higher Education Research and Qualifications, Pearsons
• Stephen Isherwood, Chief Executive, Institute of Student Employment
• Dr Greg Walker, Chief Executive Officer, Million Plus
• David Hughes, Chief Executive, Association of Colleges

Programme:

09.45 Chair’s introduction
Rt Hon Charles Clarke, former Education Secretary; co-author, The University Challenge

10.00: Why form an FE partnership?
Professor David Phoenix OBE, Vice Chancellor, London South Bank University 

• Models and choices
• Creating opportunity
• Learning at work
• Lifelong learning

10.20: Bridging the binary divide
David Hughes, Chief Executive, Association of Colleges

• Linking to schools
• Creating ambition – widening participation

10.40: Panel discussion and questions from online audience

11.00: Comfort break

11.10: Working with business
Stephen Isherwood, Chief Executive, Institute of Student Employment

• Knowledge transfer
• Meeting skill needs
• Surveying the economic needs

11.45: Teaching models
Fiona Morey, Executive Principal, Lambeth College

• Building skills
• Blended and part time learning
• Progress from school to HE

12.15: Panel discussion and questions from online audience

12.30: Lunch break

14.00: Connected Higher Education: Connected to FE , Schools and Work
Greg Walker,  CEO  Million Plus
Joined on a panel by:
Elizabeth Barnes, VC Staffordshire
Rebecca Mameli, Head of Higher Education Research and Qualifications, Pearsons

15.00: Skills for Growth
Mark Hilton, London First

15.45: Close of conference

Delegate fees:

• Individual registration: £80 + VAT
• Team registrations ticket (up to 10 registrations): £240 + VAT

Fee includes access to the lives stream and on demand video boxset.

Specialist professional and management programmes online enable delegates to take part at a time of lockdown, save on hotels and travel, but they cost the same in research and production as other information and business intelligence programmes.

They have the advantage of providing a full recording as insurance if you can’t attend. So, Book with Confidence and make sure you have the information and strategic intelligence to tackle the most difficult period for UK universities since 1945.