THE VIEW FROM HIGHER EDUCATION

Professor Mark Power Vice-Chancellor, LJMU

Much has changed since Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) was founded over 200 years ago but what remains unaltered is our commitment to playing a leading role in the life and economy of Liverpool and our city region.

We remain true to our founding principles of providing opportunity through education, developing the skilled workforce and entrepreneurs of the future, and making a positive difference in our society.

During these uncertain economic times, that focus is perhaps more important than it has ever been. It is vital that we are preparing our students for the world of work with the skills, behaviours and experience needed by employers.

I’m pleased and proud to say that our approach is working.

Today, LJMU supplies more graduate employees into the Liverpool City Region economy than any other university, with 28% of the overall graduate intake. Ninety-five per cent of our students are in employment or further study 15 months after graduating. These are also high-quality jobs. The proportion of LJMU undergraduates gaining high-skilled roles has grown by 7% over the last four years – that’s four times faster than the UK’s higher education sector overall. This hasn’t happened by accident. It is the result of our longstanding commitment to placing careers, employability and enterprise development at the centre of our students’ university experience.

At LJMU, all of our undergraduate students engage in work-based learning as a core feature of their course, together with a wide range of extracurricular opportunities, including funded internships, volunteering and working abroad.

We make sure our students are properly prepared for employment and that they graduate with a compelling, tailored onward plan to support them to thrive in their early career.

The university can’t do this alone. We work closely with employers across the city region and beyond to understand what they need from the next generation workforce and ensure our programmes are meeting those requirements.

The results speak for themselves, with LJMU graduates thriving in roles across the public, private and third sectors.

Each year, thousands of key workers are trained for their careers by LJMU.

We are one of the nation’s largest providers of registered nurses across adult, child and mental health care and are the regional provider for health visiting and specialist community practice. Other NHS workers educated at LJMU include paramedics, midwives, counsellors and psychotherapists, health psychologists, clinical endoscopists and social workers.

We actively work with more than 400 schools in the Liverpool City Region and have trainee teachers directly located in more than 200 schools and multi-academy trust settings at any one time. We train around 600 teachers in primary and secondary education every year, along with 500 police officers and criminal justice professionals.

Our support for business creates routes into employment for our students and reflects our commitment as an anchor institution within the city region to supporting and driving inclusive economic growth.

As well as strengthening the regional skills base, we work with businesses and public sector organisations to use our research and industry expertise to develop innovative solutions and products to increase efficiency and sustainability. The resulting economic growth creates a virtuous circle with more opportunities for our students and graduates.

Our support for business creates routes into employment for our students and reflects our commitment as an anchor institution within the city region to supporting and driving inclusive economic growth.

The relationships we have developed with employers over many years open doors and create invaluable opportunities for our students. For example, we have partners across a broad range of sectors helping us to deliver our acclaimed degree apprenticeship programmes: routes into work-based learning that enable apprentices to achieve a full degree while developing practical skills in the workplace.

We have been delivering degree apprenticeships for a decade and currently have more than 1,200 apprentices working in areas such as policing, healthcare, civil engineering, chartered surveying and business management.

Meanwhile, the university encourages and supports entrepreneurship, and I’m proud that there are more than 250 LJMU graduate start-up firms in the Liverpool City Region. Our Start-up Hub launched in 2004 and is estimated to contribute over £20m in income to the LCR economy each year.

Our whole-university approach to careers, skills and enterprise development is creating pathways to prosperity through education and employment. We have a comprehensive strategy to build on this further in the coming years, working with our partners to strengthen the regional skills base and grow the city region economy for the benefit of our communities.