National

The National HE STEM Programme

The National HE STEM Programme is a three-year initiative funded by the Higher Education Funding Councils for England and Wales that aims to increase and widen participation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and enhance the skills and knowledge base of the workforce in these areas.

Although focused around the STEM subjects, it will primarily concentrate its support on the disciplines of Chemistry, Engineering, Mathematics and Physics.  There will however be wider benefits to the STEM sector as a whole.

The national STEM landscape is complex, and so the National HE STEM Programme will need to occupy a unique position. Its focus will be on supporting Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and encouraging them to change the way they recruit students and deliver programmes of study within the STEM disciplines. It will facilitate the transfer of best practice across the Higher Education (HE) STEM sector and encourage innovation, but will not duplicate the activities of others. The Programme will not seek to fund short-term activities, but will focus upon sustainable activities with the potential to achieve long-term impact within the HE sector.

The Programme will take forward activities in three related strands:

1. Activities to widen participation within the STEM disciplines at HE level amongst students of traditional age;

2. HE curriculum developments focusing upon course delivery and design, student support, and knowledge and skills;

3. Activities to encourage those currently within the workforce without a Level 4 qualification to engage in further study to develop enhanced knowledge and skills.

The National HE STEM Programme will adopt a holistic approach to increasing and widening participation amongst school-age students, and so its core activities within this area will be the national roll-out of activities from four discipline-based projects developed independently by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Physics, Royal Academy of Engineering and a consortium of Mathematical bodies. It will adopt a unique approach for this roll-out involving the transfer and embedding of identified best practice into the core activities of HEIs. It will also initiate other select activities across the four disciplines as a whole that will add value to existing activities across the sector, and incorporate the expertise of those from within HEIs.

For further details about the programme please go to www.stemprogramme.com/.

The London Engineering Project

If you would like to know more about the Royal Academy of Engineering's work in this area please email HESTEM@raeng.org.uk.

Royal Academy of Engineerings Education Programmes

The Royal Academy of Engineering also runs programmes that work nationally in England and Wales, for further details of this activity please go to National Engineering Programme on the Royal Academy's website.