The third in our 2021 Recruitment & Admissions Forum Series with a deep dive into lifelong learning. How can we realise a vision for lifelong learning? What can we do differently to maximise the impact of policy change?

Introduced by Martin Eason, University of Wolverhampton, who will outline provocative ideas about what we could do differently to promote lifelong learning for discussion by our lively panel of experts and our audience:

• Prof Bev Gibbs, Chief Academic Officer, New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE)
• Dr Jon Gill, Assistant Principal [Head of Faculty (Technology Studies), Head of Apprenticeships & Director of County Training], Herefordshire, Ludlow & North Shropshire College
• Jessica Leigh Jones MBE, Co-Founder and CEO, iungo Solutions
• Prof Gareth Neighbour, Head of School - Engineering & Innovation, The Open University

We close the series with the launch of the EPC Engineering Enrolments Survey results, including the opportunity for questions.

The session will be chaired by Rich Morgan, Chair of the EPC Recruitment and Admissions Committee.

Doing it differently – Getting in: Entry requirements, 24 November 2021

Doing it differently – Getting out there: International students and postgrads, 1 December 2021

BIOGRAPHIES

Martin Eason

Martin is at Wolverhampton where he has taught in Engineering and Built Environment. His current Professional Doctorate is around “Experiential Capital”.

After an Engineering degree, Martin started his career at Herbert Machine Tools as a Senior Development Engineering on CNC Machine Tools, undertaking research at UMIST in Tribology. After a brief spell developing a project for young people in Manchester for Manpower Services and the Scout Association, he undertook a PGCE in Tertiary Education before joining Manchester Polytechnic in Engineering.

Martin's research on trans- national engineering education has taken him to Papua New Guinea, Ecuador and a range of UK schools from reception to 6th form. At East London he was involved with the development of the National GNVQs and work based learning with the Ford programme and continued his on engineering education with a number of joint European projects.

Martin is an experienced governor, with five years in HE governance, eight in schools and sixteen on Academic boards.

Prof Bev Gibbs

After 20 years in manufacturing, mining and metrology sectors, in engineering, research and commercial leadership roles, I came into Higher Education to better understand the role of engineering in society and communities, and along the way fell in love with the exciting process of teaching engineers. NMITE is a new greenfield HEI in Hereford, focused on widening access to engineering and technology careers through challenge-based learning and integrated skills support. I joined NMITE from the University of Sheffield, where I taught innovation management and risk management. I was Director of Learning & Teaching (Strategy) in mechanical engineering and a Board Member of the Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy, and I was proud to receive the 2019 Senate Award for Leadership in Learning and Teaching for the curriculum change project I led.

Dr Jon Gill

Jon qualified as a Civil and Structural Engineer from Plymouth University in 1991 and followed this with a PhD in Materials Science at Dundee University. Following a short stint as a design / maintenance engineer in the rail industry, Jon re-trained as a teacher and taught Maths, Science and Design Technology subjects in secondary schools in Southampton and Oxfordshire before seeing the light and discovering that his real home was in the Further Education sector

Joining Gloucestershire College (then GLOSCAT) in 1999 as a lecturer in Instrumentation and Control, he quickly moved through the ranks and became head of the Engineering and Motor Vehicle Department at the college. In 2003 he joined Bridgwater College in Somerset as the head of the Automotive Section before moving on to head up the Engineering and ICT Section at the college. During this time, Jon grew the Full Time and Engineering Apprenticeship programme at the college and successfully bid to deliver the Rolls Royce Apprenticeship programme in 2009. In 2011, Bridgwater College opened a brand new £8M Engineering Training Facility with state of the art workshops, labs and classrooms.

Later on that same year, Jon joined Herefordshire College of Technology as the Assistant Principal for the Faculty of Technology, responsible for all Engineering, Motor Vehicle, Construction, Building Services and ICT provision. He also manages the college’s apprenticeship provision and is on the board of the Marches Skills Provider Network.

Jon has been an active member of the National Forum of Engineering Centres (NFEC) for over 12 years and acted as regional NFEC co-ordinator for the South West for a couple of years before being appointed to the Board of Directors of NFEC in 2012 and subsequently being appointed as Chair of NFEC, a post which he continues to hold.

Jon dabbles in pantomime, music and the dark arts in his spare time and is married with two children.

Jessica Leigh Jones

The former UK Young Engineer of the Year kickstarted her engineering career with the development of a series of patented novel fibre optic sensing technologies for pregnancy monitoring. In a typically unorthdox manner, she trained as an Installation Electrician before receving a BSc in Astrophysics from Cardiff University.

Jessica entered the manufacturing industry, initially managing technology developments associated with the Industry 4.0 movement and later managing large operational teams. She studied Human Resources Management and became involved in Organisational Design and Learning & Development strategy.

An unconventional career journey sparked Jessica's involvement with the UK Skills Agenda. She has built an extensive non-executive portfolio in the education space including board positions at the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, WJEC and the Engineering Education Scheme Wales. Jessica is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Wales Trinity St David.

Jessica co-founded iungo solutions to respond to the future skills requirements of emerging and evolving industries in Wales. "iungo" meaning "to connect" aims to create the connective tissue between policy makers, employers and training providers.Apprenticeships are positioned at the heart of iungo's strategy to create a resillient, highly skilled and prosperous workforce to future-proof the Welsh economy.

Jessica received an MBE for services to women in engineering in Wales in the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours.

Prof Gareth Neighbour joined the Open University in 2019. Previously he joined BCU as Head of School of Engineering and the Built Environment in October 2016 from Oxford Brookes where he was the Head of Mechanical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. He joined Brookes in 2011 from Hull where he had formed the Materials and Process Performance Group and was Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Science responsible for Learning and Teaching. Previously he led the internationally recognised Bath Nuclear Materials Group. He is currently the Senior Editor of Carbon and a past Chair of the British Carbon Group.