UON bridges the gap between academia and industry 

Students from the University of Northampton will benefit from industry alignment as the Events, Tourism, and Hospitality programme unveils eight industry partners.

The eight industry partners, which national and international profiles include, Silverstone Circuit, Marriot International, Whittlebury Hall Something Borrowed Event Hire, The Canal & River Trust, Sheer Edge Events, CJS Events, and Markshall Estate.

Each industry partner will bring their unique industry insights to the classroom on campus, supporting the academic experience to be highly relevant and responsive to the demands of the events, tourism, and hospitality industries.

The partnerships will align the academic focus of the programmes with practical, project-based, hands-on volunteering, work, and placement experiences with the partners to support students to transition into the workforce. The industry partners will also immerse themselves in future course development, to ensure the academic learning across the programme is industry-relevant and reflects the needs of employers.

Claire Eason-Bassett, Programme leader for Events Management said “Our Industry partners are at the core of how we work and are all existing members of our Industry Forum, which enables us to keep our courses at the cutting edge of industry practice, supporting our graduates to hit the ground running. This partnership approach gives our students added knowledge and skills that are in line with industry expectations.

“As our sector begins to recover, this kind of engagement is essential to not only enable our students to succeed after they graduate but also play our part in engaging businesses to access fresh ideas, creative solutions to problems based in academic research, as well as giving the industry partners access to a pool of highly skilled graduates.”

Jamie Shipp, Senior Manager, Talent Acquisition Programmes, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Marriott International, said “Our industry partnership with the University of Northampton has led to fruitful joint venture projects and collaborations. The most recent and successful was a pilot virtual assessment centre, with a mixture of Hospitality students. We successfully piloted an event that allowed us to model our assessment centre and based on the suggestions and feedback of the participants, we are now rolling this out across 16 different markets across the EMEA region as we search for 122 graduates to join the company. Having a University partner close to one of our hotels will also allow us to move this relationship forward and continue to work closely now that Covid-19 restrictions are being eased. We look forward to strengthening and developing our relationship with UON going forward.”

Richard Owen, from the Canal & River Trust, said: “The Canal & River Trust is delighted to be partnering with the University of Northampton and becoming an industry partner. The partnership is a fantastic opportunity to support the Trust and development of University students through a number of exciting opportunities.”

The first event of the academic year, marking the new partnership, was a networking evening, where students, staff and industry contacts met at Waterside to form firm friendships and debate the hot trends across the Events, Tourism, and Hospitality sector.