The impact of industrial sponsorship on students, academia and industry

This thesis reports a research study to measure the impact of industrial sponsorship on student, academia, and industry. The thesis provides a review of the literature in the field of engineering education, university-industry collaboration and student sponsorship. It describes the design of the study and methods of data collection and data analysis. It then presents a discussion of the impact of sponsorship. The research project was conducted at Loughborough University from 2006-2009. It has captured existing practice across sponsored and non-sponsored programmes within the Engineering Faculty at Loughborough University together with a small number of national and international sponsorship schemes. Data were collected from the undergraduate engineering students, graduates, sponsoring/non sponsoring companies, and the academic staff of engineering departments using questionnaires, interviews and documentary analysis. This study highlights the values and issues of the relationship between employers and students during their undergraduate study from the perspective of students, employers and academic staff. It takes a mixed-method approach to assess the attitudes and perception of individuals from these parties and identify the barriers which limit further engagement in order to propose guidelines for further improvements. The results show that the majority of the stakeholders valued industrial sponsorship as a way of developing the quality of undergraduate degrees and generating enough of the high quality engineers that the industry needs. There was close agreement on these matters between the parties involved. Overall the findings of the research showed that the parties main expectations of sponsorship schemes were largely met by the reality of sponsorship. Greater awareness of the details of sponsorship schemes, including how they work and what is involved, would make employers more likely to offer sponsorship and encourage more students to apply for sponsorship. Conclusions are drawn on the benefits that sponsorship offers, the incentives for these stakeholders, the role of sponsorship in building a relationship between students and their future employers, its contribution to the attainment of learning outcomes, the degree of sponsorship attractiveness to the investigated companies, the obstructions which limit partnership and recommendations for further developments.