Careers initiative wins graduate employability award

Our initiative to embed the Leicester Award in first and second year modules has led to an award from the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS).

The Supporting Student/Graduate Employability Award is given to the University who can show effective development and implementation of an initiative with the ultimate aim of improving the student/graduate outcomes and learning gain. 

Our commitment to supporting graduate employability, as part of our Education Excellence programme, has taken the successful Leicester Award programme and embedded it as a credit-bearing part of first year core modules across all our undergraduate degrees.

The Leicester Award was set up to help students identify, develop, reflect upon and articulate their self-awareness and transferable skills. Embedding has taken the smaller scale success of the programme and allowed us to create accessible, engaging and discipline-specific provision and delivery. The focus on critical thinking involved in the award supports students to become better learners across academic, personal and professional contexts, and increases their likelihood of undertaking valuable professional experience.

The award was given at the AGCAS Awards for Excellence ceremony in September as part of their annual conference. AGCAS represents 98% of careers services within the UK HE sector, providing professional development and sharing best practice.

The AGCAS Final Judging Panel said:

“This project shows clear demonstration of impact, innovation, learning gain measures and evaluation of effectiveness. [The Leicester Award] is a long-term project that is still working and has robust evidence of impact’

Rich Wilcock, Deputy Director of Student at the University of Leicester, said:

“It is a great honour for the University to be recognised by the leading sector body for Higher Education Careers Advisory Services. As part of the Education Excellence Programme, colleagues across all areas of the institution have worked incredibly hard to create this accessible and discipline specific provision that every new undergraduate student will now benefit from.