£2.3m available to help address digital skills gap
Melanie May | 3 September 2018 | News
£2.3 million is now available for groups working to reduce the digital skills gap, the Institute of Coding has announced.
The Future Projects Fund is inviting proposals and is looking to allocate the funding to up to a maximum of ten successful bidding groups with clear plans to improve access to digital skills education for learners at undergraduate and postgraduate level, enhance graduate employability and employment outcomes, and address identified skills needs.
Areas of focus include encouraging more women into the digital sector and addressing the challenges experienced by students from ethnic minority groups and mature students, and increasing work experience opportunities so that graduates can learn to apply subject-specific skills to current industry challenges.
The Institute is funded by the Office for Students (OfS) which regulates English higher education providers, which means that the funding is only available for English Higher Education provision.
The funding is available to groups including at least one OfS-funded higher education institution (HEI) with existing course provision in computer science or information technology, and at least one industry partner. Bids may include multiple HEIs and multiple industry partners, other higher education providers of all kinds, other employers, outreach partners, professional bodies and/or other stakeholders.
Available from 31 January 2019 to 31 January 2020.50% of the awards will go to projects that involve at least one new partner (that has not received funding in the initial IoC Consortium). New funded partners must be approved by the OfS and must join the IoC Consortium.
Proposals must also include matched funding, and the deadline is noon on Monday 26 November.
Full information is available on the Institute of Coding site.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.