Lorna Unwin

We have learned, with sadness, of the recent passing of Professor Lorna Unwin, who was Director of the Centre for Labour Market Studies in the 2000s.

On leaving school, Lorna (born in 1953) worked as a journalist in Lancashire before studying American Studies and then completing a PGCE at the University of Manchester. She taught English and general studies at Barnsley College of Technology, alongside which she completed an MPhil at the University of Sheffield on the author Nathaniel Hawthorne. She would later complete a PhD at Warwick on the role of employers in vocational education and training.

Lorna went on to work with various public and private sector organisations to develop their workplace training, including working for Sainsbury’s as a Youth Training Scheme tutor and trainer of other workplace supervisors. She was also a tutor for the Workers Educational Association. Lorna then moved to the higher education sector, first at the Open University (1987-91), then the University of Sheffield (1992-2003). She came to Leicester in 2003 as Head of the Centre for Labour Market Studies, a post she held until 2006, when she moved to the Institute of Education, part of UCL. (The CLMS was subsequently absorbed into the School of Business.)

Lorna’s research variously examined the history of British vocational and further education; technical training; how people develop occupational expertise; workplaces as learning environments; and apprenticeship as a model of learning. She drew on insights from the sociology of work, social theories of learning, political economy, economic geography, and industrial and educational history.

Lorna was regularly invited to contribute to national agencies and taskforces. Examples include as expert panel member for the UK Commission for Education and Skills; advisor to the Commission on Adult Vocational Education and Training; and chair of the Commission of Inquiry into Group Training Associations. She served as advisor to the then House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee, and as a member of the Skills Commission All-Party Parliamentary Group.

She was an honorary visiting fellow at the University of Cologne, honorary fellow of NISER, honorary member and fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute, and an elected member of the University Association for Continuing Education research sub-committee. She served as a board member of the Group Training Associations England, NIESR, and Oldham College. She advised the Brathay Trust, which works with vulnerable and ‘hard-to-reach’ young people. In 2014 she received an OBE for services to vocational education.

Lorna passed away in late December 2024, and is much missed by former colleagues across the sector.

John Goodwin writes:

"I am deeply saddened to hear about the passing of our former colleague and Head of the Centre for Labour Market Studies (CLMS). Lorna joined the University with a world-leading reputation for teaching and research in vocational education and training. Her term as Head of CLMS marked a transition phase in the Centre’s work, but Lorna skilfully led the team to ensure we continued to meet our training and research obligations. Beyond this, it is also important that we acknowledge her academic contribution, as Lorna was central in championing the communities of practice work of Lave and Wenger. Through her writings and research in this area, Lorna demonstrated how others could apply these ideas to various research and differing research contexts. Lorna always supported me personally and mentored me when I became a Head of Department for the first time. I also knew she loved her home in Matlock, in my native Derbyshire, and we had many conversations about why Derbyshire is one of the best places to live."

Audrey Osler writes:

"Lorna was widely respected among scholars and policymakers and always ready to engage with the latter and to make explicit the policy implications of her research. I recall how she went out of her way to make me welcome at Leicester when I took up my post as Professor in the School of Education in 1999 in an all-male led department. She was a very modest person, with a great sense of humour, whose research on workplace learning has been very influential."