The purpose of the project is to support stronger partnerships and knowledge exchange between Royal Holloway, University of London and local organisations and industries with a view to address regional skills gaps and support employment opportunities for young people in the area. A key objective is to inspire new thinking and evidence-led approaches to develop local career progression.

The project is divided into three key areas; firstly, a roundtable conference at educational charity Cumberland Lodge, to facilitate discussion between local skills providers, educators and employers. Following the conference, this report of initial recommendations was developed through consolidating current research into local skill development programmes and the recommendations from the conference discussions to produce practical recommendations for use across and between sectors. The third stage of the project involves developing and evaluating two innovation pilots to test new approaches to building skills and supporting career progression. 

The publication of the report is an important milestone in the progress of this project, which is supported by a steering group of academics drawn from across the university. For more information, see the project webpage, or the report-specific page, linked below.

Following the publication of this report, the project now moves to Phase III, which is two ambitious pilot projects aiming to create frameworks for embedding employability programmes into Further and Higher Education settings.