Industry and Higher Education

This special issue of Industry and Higher Education is devoted to a selection of papers, revised for publication, from the Sixth International Conference on ‘New Horizons in Industry, Business and Education’ held on the island of Santorini, Greece, in August 2009. In this introductory paper the author provides an overview of the conference, summarizes the most important presentations, and offers some reflections on the conference outcomes. The key objective of the NHIBE 2009 was to identify the impact of new technologies on education, business and industry. Special attention was drawn to the innovative approaches and experiences developed in education in an effort to adapt teaching methods to the new technological era. Furthermore, business strategies and worldwide educational strategies were emphasized. The major topics were: educational strategies; career counseling; new educational methods; industry and education; entrepreneurship; corporate finance and governance; and business strategies.

There is an increasing marketization of commodity services and, the authors argue, higher education is suffering heavily from this trend. Higher education institutions (HEIs) are currently subject to quality assurance and other externally imposed procedures that have been successfully applied in the private sector. This article analyses the threats of such assurance methods, which systematically ignore the notion of HEIs as sites of knowledge production, especially in less developed, emerging and developing countries with a small tertiary education sector. In such countries, public institutions cannot afford high investment without sacrificing other social and economic objectives, such as widening access, institutional diversity, community partnerships, cross-institutional collaboration and resource sharing, and knowledge transfer. The criticism in this article is directed mainly at the imposed external evaluation that is designed to compare and classify institutions, with the ultimate aim of reducing the number of HEIs receiving public funding, or at least of reducing the funding of one or more of the missions (teaching, research) in which HEIs excel. The authors conclude by suggesting that such governmental strategies simply reflect another attempt to control, and to shift the focus away from government policies that have led to the massification of higher education without the necessary injection of resources.

Science and technology constitute very important parameters in social evolution. The unprecedented rapidity of their development since the last century, in combination with the absence of a philosophical approach and the presence in some cases of criminal usage, poses a danger for humanity and for the planet. In contrast to the classical integration of philosophical approaches in education, the modern educational and technological scientific community has not realized the handicap of one-dimensional educational development and the consequent need to introduce a philosophical dimension into technological study programmes in the interests of promoting self-control, a balanced perspective and the protection of our natural and social environments.

Using a generalized production function approach and insights from empirical research on the determinants of growth, this paper assesses the relative importance of specific factors in explaining differences in the levels of per capita GDP. Emphasis is placed on education, physical capital accumulation, the share of the public sector in economic activity and the outward orientation of economies. Education, among other things, is connected with the ability of countries to take advantage of technology transfer channels. Panel data estimation techniques are used to obtain empirical results for the EU-15 countries, and economic policy recommendations are evaluated accordingly.

A survey of business people, Victoria University business studies alumni and business academics revealed a strong preference for curricula, learning activities and assessments that develop professional skills and personal attributes, adding value to the student learning experience and developing graduate capabilities beyond discipline and technical knowledge. This research underscores evidence on the importance of both the cognitive and dispositional dimensions of critical thinking and the skills and attributes of effective problem solvers. Employers are increasingly looking for balanced graduates: capable, motivated, self-aware, effective communicators with a sense of a future in which work and business will be dynamic and ever-changing.

The authors examine the Greek public tourism education and training system and its structure in order to identify whether there is a need for restructuring and development. To this end, they assess the relationship between the knowledge and skills provided and the requirements of the labour market and the needs of tourism enterprises with regard to specialized personnel. First, they outline the current situation in the Greek public tourism education and training system. They then describe a primary research project carried out (a) among graduates of tourism studies from all educational levels and (b) among tourism executives (directors and personnel managers). The data analysis suggests that the present level of tourism education in Greece is considered satisfactory. However, there is a perceived need for more practice-oriented elements in the curriculum and it is suggested that tourism education departments should restructure their curricula with a view to introducing more practical work, more educational visits to firms and industrial placements of longer duration. The tourism education system in general also needs to be better articulated, preferably with just one overseeing authority. Finally, collaboration between educational institutions and tourism-related bodies, both state-owned and private-sector, is to be encouraged as it will bring benefits to curriculum content and the matching of tourism qualifications with current industry needs.

This paper reports on strategic developments to enhance student learner autonomy skills through the use of enquiry-based learning (EBL) in the design of higher education programmes. The UK's Sheffield Hallam University is a recognized Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) in the field of developing learner autonomy. Central to the university's learning, teaching and assessment strategy is the conviction that students must become autonomous learners to acquire the skills and knowledge needed for employment, research and continuing professional development. In this context it is imperative that students are increasingly able to manage their own learning, formulate their own lines of enquiry and develop flexible approaches to their studies – the essence of acquiring learner autonomy. It is also important that they can work across discipline boundaries, often in teams, tackling problems that are essentially multidisciplinary. The central theme of this paper is the strategic use of EBL in areas that involve students working together in small groups.

Creativity can be described as the ability to generate new ideas and combine existing ideas in new ways to find novel solutions to problems. Creativity is enhanced by a free flow of knowledge and through social contact. On this basis, the authors argue that knowledge sharing is central to creativity in design and present preliminary evidence to support that view. Design education should therefore include learning and teaching approaches that encourage knowledge sharing. The authors suggest that these approaches should be based on the patterns of knowledge sharing of designers from the creative industries so that students are appropriately prepared for future employment. The paper presents an analysis of the practices of designers in the creative industries in Scotland. The data were gathered through a structured questionnaire distributed to a wide range of companies and from final-year students in design programmes, and the two data sets compared. In practice, employees in the creative industries consume and create knowledge by making use of a variety of distributed resources. Creativity is an important aspect of their practice and all the respondents believed that creativity was enhanced by knowledge sharing collaborative practices. Differences in the practices of students and employees are identified, and the findings are now being used to inform the development of innovative approaches to learning and teaching at Glasgow Caledonian University.

The authors report the results of a European project, Lifelearn, and discuss how lifeplace learning (LPL) can be used to effect appropriate learning opportunities for all. The project tested the concept of valuing and accrediting learning from life experiences in higher education in Europe, and its conclusions suggest that LPL is valuable for both students and tutors. While the results indicate various successful elements, including high pass rates, increased student motivation, response to student needs and flexible assessment, issues such as national barriers, the understanding of LPL and academics' ingrained negative attitudes still need to be overcome. The authors also discuss the potential benefits of LPL in providing learning opportunities for future careers in industry or business or for personal and professional development. In this current environment of rapid change, competition and global economic downturn, industry and businesses require skilled workers, critical thinkers and innovative and entrepreneurial movers who can make a difference to an organization's development. The LPL concept can encourage such traits, the authors argue, by using past, current or future life experiences within discipline-based or stand-alone courses to enable independent learning and to encourage advanced life and business skills, which are then easily transferable as benefits to the business world.