business skills
“Further education colleges work with businesses to identify skills gaps and ensure future workforce’s skills fit”
Top: The University of Nottingham. Above: Nottingham Trent University. Main: Castle College’s Highfields Automotive and Engineering Training Centre.
based learning opportunities. Other examples of how Nottingham’s academic sector builds connections with commercial sectors are jointly run projects such as Nottingham Creative Network, Nottingham Creative Business Awards, and the Ingenuity programme, a three-year emda-funded project managed by NTU and the universities of Derby and Nottingham, to hold showcasing events, workshops and knowledge transfer programmes with small and medium-sized enterprises in the region. The University of Nottingham, which has 30,000 students across four UK campuses and a further 5,000 at overseas campuses in Malaysia and China, also has a strong reputation for enterprise. Its students have won the Students in Free Enterprise competition four years in succession – from 2005 to 2008 inclusive – and was named entrepreneurial university of the year in the 2008 Times Higher Education awards. Soon to play a key role in the symbiosis between enterprise and the university is the extension to its Jubilee campus expansion project, an 18-acre research and innovation park. While scientific research breakthroughs and innovative start-ups attract attention, of equal importance to a city’s long-term growth and sustainability is a pool of skilled workers. Further education at New College Nottingham (NCN) and Castle College play a crucial role in ensuring this. As part of the Greater Nottingham Partnership, they work with city planners, businesses and employers to identify skills gaps and ensure the future workforce’s skills match the city’s needs. From eight campuses across the city, NCN delivers workplace learning, sandwich degrees, and full-time and part-time courses. Businesses contribute to curriculum design and development to ensure relevance, and provide guest speakers and lecturers. Castle College’s courses are developed to meet employment needs in the East Midlands. Through its consultancy wing, the college develops links and supports businesses with their training and development needs. In today’s economy, universities’ and colleges’ capital programmes are welcomed. The government has asked universities to bring forward capital programmes scheduled for the next three years, where possible. Castle College has an ambitious programme to redevelop its campuses. Highfields Automotive and Engineering Training Centre, a joint venture between Castle College and Toyota, was opened in 2008. Phase II of the £8.7 million redevelopment of the Beeston Campus was recently completed. Future Castle College projects include
rescoping the People’s Campus on Maid Marian Way. The University of Nottingham’s Jubilee Campus expansion (see panel right) cost £29 million and is anticipated to have long-term benefits for the local economy by encouraging innovators and entrepreneurs to mix with academics. A major capital scheme due to be completed this year will transform NTU’s Newton and Arkwright buildings in a sympathetic refurbishment of the city-centre premises to provide learning areas, with lecture theatres, IT resources and student support facilities. This £70 million scheme to create a new heart for the city campus is the flagship scheme of an ambitious regeneration strategy that will see £130 million invested over a six-year period. Nottingham Regeneration Limited and Blueprint are working towards establishing a medical science park on the 3.5 hectare site next to Queen’s Medical Centre. The proposed MediPark, which will sit beside Nottingham University Hospital, will provide incubator space for SMEs. Such investments in the city’s academic future are a confident report card for Nottingham, which bodes well for its continued future as one of the UK’s major centres of learning. ❑