LLAKES Centre Mid-Term Review Proposal

The LLAKES Centre conducts research into the role of lifelong learning in promoting economic competitiveness and social cohesion. In particular, it seeks to identify learning policies and practices which help to reconcile different policy objectives and which deliver both social and economic benefits. The current global and national context, characterised by continuing economic turbulence and uncertainty, throws up major economic and social challenges and contradictions. The recessionary effects of public and private debt reduction make it imperative to find new sources of investment and growth. Growing gaps in incomes and barriers to social mobility, exacerbated by the economic crisis, can undermine social cohesion, especially in the United Kingdom where beliefs in individual opportunities and fair rewards have traditionally played such an important part in uniting society. For young people, whose opportunities have been disproportionately affected by the crisis, the situation is particularly critical. Education and training policies can help to mitigate these tensions through the substantial contributions that enhanced skills can make to innovation and productivity and through ensuring equitable access to opportunities for different groups in society. The LLAKES Centre will conduct interdisciplinary and mixed-method research in a number of areas which are at the heart of today's economic and social challenges. Thirteen inter-linked research projects have been developed which are grouped around three broad themes. Theme One, on 'Young People, Intergenerational Mobility and Civic Values', investigates: the changing opportunities available to young people, how these affect their civic values, the new ways they find to 'get on' and get into work, and the effects of student debt on participation in different forms of higher education. Theme Two, on 'Learning, Work and the Economy', explores: the role of skills in innovation and growth, inter-professional learning in the creative industries, employee-driven innovation in the health sector, employee perspectives on skills and job quality, and the factors affecting access to good quality jobs. Theme Three, on 'Education, Inequality and Social Cohesion', investigates: why some countries have more unequal distributions of skills amongst children and adults, the effects of different phases of lifelong learning on civic values and social cohesion in different countries, and how different types of independent school affect public education in their surrounding areas. In addition to its research programme, the Centre aims to build future research capacity in interdisciplinary, mixed-method research applied across the social and economic fields, and to promote and support policy-making which draws on evidence from this kind of research. Over 20 doctoral students and post-doctoral research officers will be attached to the Centre. They will undergo research training through the doctoral programmes in the different partner institutions, as well as benefitting from participation in LLAKES Centre training workshops and public seminars, and through working with senior academics in conducting and writing-up research and developing research bids. External workshops will also be organised for and with policy-makers, practitioners, and others for whom the research has relevance. The research will enable the better design of policies for different phases of education and training so as to: enhance the skills available for innovation and growth in the economy, narrow the gaps in the distribution of skills and opportunities in society, and mitigate the adverse effects on social cohesion of rising inequality and declining social mobility.