Introduction

The programme, ‘British Council Researcher Links’ provides opportunities for early career researchers from the UK and internationally to interact, learn from each other and explore opportunities for building long-lasting research collaborations around particular themes.

As part of this programme, we are now recruiting early career researchers and practitioners to participate in a three day-workshop (and a one-month preparatory online engagement phase).  For more information please have a look at the page ‘application process‘ and workshop programme. During the workshops early career researchers will have the opportunity to present their research concerns and develop possible solutions with established researchers from the UK and South Africa. There will be a focus on building up links for future projects and collaborations and participants selected on the basis of their research potential and ability to build longer term links. The workshop will provide a unique opportunity for tackling ‘wicked problems‘, sharing research expertise and networking.

The British Council and the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) will cover the costs related to the participation to the workshop, including: travel (both international and local), accommodation and meals. Although this cost will not be covered by the British Council, participants are encouraged to ensure they have adequate travel and medical insurance. The British Council accepts no responsibility for any problems which may occur when the participants are in-country. Only participants from non-commercial institutions can be funded.

Background / Workshop Themes

UK and SA Higher Education (HE) sectors face comparable concerns about access, participation, success and employability  in HE by disadvantaged communities. Questions on widening access, supporting an increasingly diverse student population and promoting internationalised or decolonised practices are high on the agenda of government, university management, staff and students. South African HE institutions were deeply shaken in 2015 and 2016 by student protests (#RMF & #FMF), revealing a highly unequal and unjust education system still suffering from the legacy of Apartheid.

WISH brings together researchers, educators, students, practitioners and policymakers from the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa (SA), to address practical and implementable means of widening access, participation and success and employability of diverse students, in and beyond the creative industries. Both countries and both institutions are working to address these issues among underrepresented and/or disadvantaged groups in the Higher Education (HE) and labour market. Low participation in HE, underachievement during studies and low success rates, lead to poor employment opportunities and adversely affect social and economic development in both countries, especially in the creative sector.

WISH will explore three overlapping themes aimed at addressing these challenges:

• Increasing Access (access): widening participation in HE by ensuring access to programmes and providing support to ensure student success
• Meeting Needs (needs): adapting content, learning, teaching and assessment (LTA) approaches for diverse populations, promoting decolonising pedagogies and internationalising the curriculum
• Realising Ambition (success): enhancing social and economic success by unleashing talent, and embedding employability skills into LTA.

Examples of wicked problems within these themes could be:

1. The traditional route to access to a university rests on traditional measures of achievement – mainly high school results. We know that there is little evidence that good high school results predict university success, although poor high school results may predict failure. What OTHER measurements could we use to predict success. I am interested in elements such as “Grit” (Angela Duckworth) and motivation. But how does one measure that before students arrive? (-> increasing access)
2. The traditional way of measuring student success is by measuring the achievement of goals that are set by external entities such as lecturers, universities or professional bodies. How do we allow students to formulate their own goals and achieve those? (-> meeting needs)
3. How does allow multiple exit points in a curriculum so that students don’t “Drop Out” but “Exit early” and still have something to show? (-> realising ambition)

Workshop programme

Participants who want to take part in this programme will

• participate in an online discussion phase (September 2017) to share project ideas, wicked problems and start a collaboration among early career researchers and practitioners across continents. In this online phase participants will be grouped by workshop theme.  Participants are expected to share current research and formulate possible collaborative research areas.
• participate in a 3-day workshop in Cape Town (11th-13th of October 2017), where we will focus on establishing collaborations on similar challenges/wicked problems or research areas. Facilitated by experienced design thinkers this will provide a creative and open space to continue to develop and concretise collaborative project ideas identified during the online phase.
• continue collaboration after the workshop to support the development of relevant ideas into realisable projects and initiatives that can be taken forward collaboratively after the workshop across the UK and SA.

More details on the programme of the online phase and the workshop will follow soon. For more information please email WISHresearcherlinks@uel.ac.uk

Funding partners