Roehampton Sociologist undertaking study on essential skills for workforces of the future
- Wednesday, June 23, 2021
As part of The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), Professor Bryony Hoskins will work to identify employment skills gaps
Bryony Hoskins, Professor of Comparative Social Science at the University of Roehampton, is joining The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to undertake The Skills Imperative 2035: Essential Skills for Tomorrow’s Workforce.
The ambitious five year project, which has been awarded £2.5m in funding by the Nuffield Foundation, will see NFER and its co-investigators work with employers, policy makers, and education leaders to provide practical insights and evidence to inform long-term planning for how future demands for essential employment skills can be met.
Without action to help young people and workers develop the right skills that will be needed in future, there may be widespread under-employment and enduring social and economic problems. This may be one of the great strategic challenges facing our country in the next 10 to 15 years.
As an integral part of the research team, Professor Hoskins will work on building measures to assess the life skills that young people need for employment and life more broadly in 2035. .
NFER is part of a strong multi-disciplinary team which will work collaboratively to address the substantial research questions that this programme seeks to address. The Principal Investigator for the study will be Jude Hillary, Director of Quantitative Research at NFER, working in collaboration with Professor Andy Dickerson and Professor Steven McIntosh from the University of Sheffield, Professor Rob Wilson from the Institute for Employment Research at Warwick University, Cambridge Econometrics, Kantar Public, the Learning and Work Institute and Professor Bryony Hoskins at the University of Roehampton.
Commenting on the research project, Professor Bryony Hoskins said:
“We are thrilled to have received funding from the Nuffield Foundation to undertake this ambitious, long-term research project, which will have a real impact on how we identify and develop essential employment skills in the future.
I look forward to working with NFER and distinguished colleagues to build a long-term, strategic plan that will narrow the employment skills gap and support the development of essential skills throughout our education system.”