North East Higher Skills Pathfinder

The North East is one of three Pathfinder regions chosen by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to test ways of promoting employer engagement in higher education.

Higher Skills North East encourages employers to invest in higher level skills in their workforces to improve business performance and competitiveness by developing staff and building staff resource. Businesses in the region, working with a higher education partner, can secure some financial support to develop new programmes or amend existing ones in response to an identified need or demand in their workforce.

The project's aims are to:

• Promote employer engagement in higher education
• Support the achievement of the country's future higher level skills needs (as described in the Leitch Review)
• Support all employers including public, private and voluntary sectors
• Examine the most innovative and effective ways of enabling higher education providers and employers to work together on workforce development
• Help support the delivery of an expanded, responsive and flexible range of educational programmes by the North East's higher education institutions
• Integrate business and higher education processes
• Develop higher education products

The North East project is managed by unis4ne and involves all the region's universities (Durham, Northumbria, Newcastle, Sunderland and Teesside plus the Open University) and the three mixed economy colleges (Cleveland College of Art and Design, New College Durham and Newcastle College).