PLACINGS: Partnership for LAunching Careers in engineerING and Sciences

By establishing imaginative synergies between academia and industrial partners, this project will provide leadership in public engagement and social interaction to inspire society by enhancing public appreciation of engineering research, to attract young minds to a fulfilling career in engineering and physical sciences, and to help underrepresented categories access education in STEM subjects.

The scientific and technologic innovation coming from engineering and physical sciences is vital for boosting economic growth, improving quality of life and ensuring national security in the UK. To maintain and further enhance UK's international standing in the engineering sector requires higher education institutions to provide a pipeline of highly skilled professionals that can move between engineering disciplines with confidence and fluidity. Regrettably, schools and universities are not currently optimised to meet the demand of such high-skilled individuals, as the graduate-level shortfall is hitting the 20,000 people-per-year mark. A large untapped human capital is represented by women and minority ethnic groups.

If the UK is to address its massive skill shortage in engineering and physical sciences, many more young minds need to be enthused and attracted to a career in engineering, and vigorous actions must be planned to involve underrepresented groups. To address these issues, we will design activities to demonstrate the breadth and importance of engineering research, to attract underrepresented groups to careers in engineering and physical sciences, and to facilitate stronger connections between schools and industry. The project will initially bring together Loughborough University and industrial partners BIAS Ltd, DNV GL, and TFM Networks. Other partners will be actively recruited during the project.

This project will involve close engagement with schools and policymakers. The activities designed in the work packages will be tailored to support schools to achieve the relevant Gatsby Benchmarks. The Benchmarks were recently formulated by the Careers and Enterprise Company and define a framework of eight guidelines that schools should follow in order to offer top careers guidance to their students. We will make the project results accessible to policymakers in an engaging and influential way by writing a policy brief, which we will advertise on the project website and social media channels. The policy brief will enable Parliament to shape future policies to fill the engineering skills gap in the UK.

This project has the following impact goals:

* To increase the number of students in STEM subjects and to reduce the shortage of highly skilled engineers in the UK.
* To help schools meet the Gatsby Benchmarks and enable them to offer top careers guidance to their students.
* To provide policymakers with evidence of best practice in public engagement and outreach that could be used to shape future policies to fill the engineering skills gap.

The key stakeholder groups of this project are:

* Young people (6 - 18 years old). Projections from the Office of National Statistics show that there will be a substantial increase of the 12-to-16-year age group in the next five years in the UK. This represents a fundamental human capital that must be engaged in STEM subjects if the UK is to address its engineering skills shortage in the next decade. This project will deliver a variety of age-tailored activities to stimulate interest in STEM subjects at an early stage and to sustain young people's interest in engineering subjects and careers as they progress further in their education. A key priority will be to tackle diversity issues at all stages of the educational pipeline. The 2018 Engineering UK report shows strong evidence that girls and people from BAME communities are being lost at different points within the educational pipeline. For example, only 27% of girls' A level entries are in STEM subjects, compared with 46% of boys' entries. This leaky pipeline ultimately contributes to the current underrepresentation of women and BAME communities in the engineering profession. This project will deliver a set of activities tailored at interacting with young people from these underrepresented groups, with the objective of removing the barriers they face to pursue a career in engineering.

* Parents. In a recent Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) interview "many of the parents struggled to really understand what engineering is, or what an engineer does". The interview also showed that often parents do not think that science, engineering and technology can involve creativity and art, which are very popular subjects among girls. This project's activities will help parents understand more in depth the role of engineering in today's world, and the diversity of jobs involved. We will also engage parents in specific activities to interact with female and BAME role models in engineering. These activities will help parents to overcome dated stereotypes and to appreciate engineering research.

* Teachers. These are the next major influencers on children's career choices. The IET survey shows that primary teachers struggle mostly with finding good resources to introduce engineering topics in their lessons, whereas secondary teachers struggle to deliver engaging lessons on engineering careers because they "know nothing or very little about engineering". This project will deliver new engineering lesson resources and plans to help teachers build a stronger and more engaging curriculum. The PLACINGS partnership will also help teachers of local schools in the East Midlands to connect with a healthy ecosystem of employers and academics during engineering focussed showcasing events.

* Schools. This project will support schools to achieve the Gatsby Benchmarks relevant to the proposed activities.

* Policymakers. As reported in the latest Careers Strategy, the UK Government is committed to "learn more about what works so that children can develop positive attitudes about work from an early age and make sure that primary schools have access to the tools they need to understand how they can start to build activities with employers into their lessons". This project is very relevant to this pledge, as it will organise activities to attract children to careers in engineering and physical sciences and will establish new links between schools and employers.