Funding boost for project helping to address skills gap

Teesside University is one of seven higher education institutions to secure new funding for projects which are building on work to address a national skills shortage.

Last year, Teesside was among universities awarded funding to develop a new range of artificial and data science courses to boost the number of graduates in artificial intelligent (AI) and data science technologies.

Teesside offers inclusive masters’ level courses in applied artificial intelligence and data science for recent graduates and professionals from academic backgrounds such as health and business as part of the postgraduate conversion programme, with the aim of helping to address the digital skills gaps in the Tees Valley.

And now, Teesside is one of seven universities within that programme to be awarded a share of £294,000 from the Office for Students (OfS), in partnership with the government Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The seven institutions will use the funding to test methods of teaching in existing provision of foundational data skills to undergraduates whose subject does not contain significant data science elements. Teesside’s project will be led by the University’s School of Computing, Engineering & Digital Technologies, with support from the School of Health & Life Sciences.

Chrisina Jayne, Dean of the School of Computing, Engineering & Digital Technologies, said: “A skills shortage has been reported in Tees Valley’s digital sector and it is predicted that over the next two decades, up to ninety percent of all jobs will require some element of digital skills.

“Our Future Facing Learning framework seeks to empower our students to deliver impact on a global scale, by providing them with the knowledge, skills, and tools to achieve sustainable success in a connected global workplace.

“This new funding will enable us to carry out research to evaluate the effectiveness of providing students with foundational data level skills and identify areas where further interventions and changes are needed and to look at how the job market is evolving in this area.”

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