Research library

This online library provides a comprehensive repository of the different and effective approaches to employer engagement and careers education. Developed over the last decade it brings together the latest thinking with selected research published over the past 40 years for the benefit of researchers, academics and policy makers.

Free to access and searchable by keyword, it features summaries of a wide range of studies with abstracts and links to the full reports. With research articles and reports from leading figures and education bodies, you can examine issues such as employer-led learning, youth employment, career related learning in primary schools, and social mobility, as well as information on gender, ethnicity, and specific subject study such as STEM.

The main library is complemented by an extensive online video collection and a physical library. The video collection comprises over 150 videos of researchers discussing their work and its implications for policy and practice, together with conference presentations and seminars.

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Students’ Perceptions of Work Experience by the National Support Group for Work Experience: Report of Impact Measures

June 22, 2008

A report by the National Support Group for Work Experience and the National Education Business Partnership Network (NEBPN), commissioned by the Institute for Education Business Excellence (IEBE) and the Department for Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education) This report charts the development of a framework for measuring the impact of work experience […]

Career Academies: Long-Term Impacts on Labor Market Outcomes, Educational Attainment and Transitions to Adulthood

June 22, 2008

A report by MDRC (James J. Kemple and Cynthia J. Willner) The US Career Academy programme, delivered within some 2,500 high schools across the country, works in active partnership with employers, tailors curricula around career themes and teaches in smaller student groups. Public policy research agency MDRC has been evaluating nine high schools since 1993. […]

The Involvement of Business in Education: A Rapid Evidence Assessment of the Measurable Impacts

June 22, 2008

A report by research agency AIR UK, commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education) This review of “the most robust evidence on the impact of education links with employers” in the UK and USA focuses on “evidence of a measurable improvement in grades, or other measures of students’ […]

The School Governance Study

June 19, 2008

A report by the University of Bath, commissioned and summarised by Business in the Community The University of Bath were commissioned by Business in the Community to undertake research examining the effectiveness of school governance. Their findings were published in a report entitled The School Governance Study and used to inform the production of a […]

The Work Experience Placements of Secondary School Students: Widening Horizons or Reproducing Social Inequality?

January 21, 2008

A report by Hatcher, R. and Le Gallais, T., Birmingham City University This report examines whether the distribution of work experience (WEX) placements among secondary school age students is differentiated by class and gender, the processes by which this may occur and whether this therefore impacts on the widening of students’ horizons and future employment […]

The Young Apprenticeships Programme, 2004-07: An Evaluation

December 22, 2007

A report by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) This report was the conclusion of a three-year evaluation of the Young Apprenticeships (YA) programme. The YA programme allows schools to offer young people aged 14 to 16 (Key Stage Four) a course of study that is heavily reliant on work-related […]

Informal Mentoring and Young Adult Employment

June 21, 2007

A report by McDonald, S, Erikson, L.D, Kirkpatrick Johnson, M. and Elder, G.H. Social Science Research 36: 1328-47 This article gives findings from a study of the effect of informal mentoring on the educational attainment of adolescents and relates this to inequalities in socio-economic background and personal, interactional and environmental resources upon which young people […]

Raising the Bar and Removing the Barriers: What Employers Can Offer Education

June 21, 2007

A report by FreshMinds Research Agency and commissioned by Business in the Community (BiTC), Edge and NEBPN, now the Institute for Education Business Excellence (IEBE) This report examines several themes: employer awareness of opportunities for engaging with schools; ways in which this awareness can be improved; factors of key importance in current relationships; the popularity […]

Business in Schools Research Findings – Weighted Data

June 18, 2007

A report by EdComs, commissioned by Business in the Community (BITC). These are the results of a 2007 employer engagement survey in which 400 school leaders took part. Data was equally split between secondary and primary schools with a good balance across the English regions. Findings include high levels of engagement with employers across the […]

A Follow-Up Randomised Controlled Trial Evaluation of the Effects of Business in the Community’s Time To Read Mentoring Programme

January 22, 2007

A report by Sarah Miller, Paul Connolly and Lisa Maguire, commissioned by the Centre for Effective Education, Queen’s University Belfast The research reported here follows from the 2009 Ten Year Review of ‘Time to Read’, a programme involving employee volunteers going on a regular basis into Northern Ireland primary schools to hear children read. That […]