Prof Averil Macdonald: "The European universities are not focused on providing skills for the professional world"

Prof. Averil Macdonald
Professor of Science Engagement
University of Reading

Speaker at PolyTalk 2014

In your opinion, are European universities providing the necessary skills to young generations to be qualified for the professional world?

Unfortunately European universities are not focused on providing skills for the professional world. Academics seem to believe that ALL their students (particularly graduate students) want to be just like them and go into an academic career. This is clearly both untrue and impossible. But academics seem unable to see that students could possibly want to do anything other than what they, themselves, do.

Add to this the fact that most academics have never worked outside of the academic world and it’s obvious why they have no concept of what could attract a student to work in business or what skills they may need.

So not only do European universities fail to provide the necessary skills for students to be qualified for the professional world, but academics are not the right people to be providing those skills. Responsibility for providing the so-called employability skills should lie with employers working with (and within) universities, and not the academics alone. Only then will businesses get the skill set they seek.  

What are the future trends in the European labour market?

The future European labour market will become increasingly feminised. By this I mean that more women will be employed, particularly in the highly skills areas – Science and Engineering for example, and in management roles. Research has already shown that women are gaining higher level skills at a greater rate than men, and are out performing men at all qualification levels in all subjects. Businesses that continue to recruit mainly men will find themselves missing out on the top talent and having to trawl greater depths of mediocrity to staff their businesses. Businesses that embrace diversity will reap benefits. Research shows that homogeneous teams may be able to communicate better than diverse teams but that this leads to ‘group think’ where no one challenges the way things are done, and things stagnate. Conversely this tendency to challenge, seen in diverse teams, leads to more productive and more creative teams.

Women will also be more involved in management as it becomes increasingly evident that the female approach to management – that of collaborative or consensual leadership – is more effective in enhancing motivation and productivity than the ‘alpha male’ approach of heroic leadership that has resulted in a number of companies underperforming in recent years.

Why are there so few women interested in STEM fields?

It’s a myth that women are not interested in STEM fields. If we take STEM as a whole, women outnumber men studying STEM subjects at university  level. However women are still under-represented in physics and engineering and average 15% of the engineering workforce across Europe. We could assume that young women are simply too dumb to see the advantages of working in STEM. However the evidence is that they are making entirely sensible choices and are currently not convinced that STEM careers offer what they are looking for, and so we can conclude that they are too smart to overlook the disadvantages that they can see. If STEM employers want to increase the number of women in the workforce, then the ‘offer’ has to improve, with better work conditions, better maternity leave and support on return, better opportunities to work flexibly (e.g. part time or working from home) and the possibility of continuing to climb the career ladder while working flexibly. 

Why should Europe invest in science, research & development (R&D)?

If Europe wants to improve productivity and increase economic growth then R&D is essential. The benefits of newly developed materials and  processes lead to increased efficiency and productivity and, therefore, business performance and growth.

What are the challenges Europe will have to overcome in order to maintain its economic lead?

Europe’s greatest challenge is inefficiency. This includes inefficiency in use of energy for everything from heating and lighting to use in manufacturing but also inefficiencies in the generation, transmission and distribution of energy. It also includes inefficiencies in the way people are managed resulting in the highest skilled and paid individuals wasting time on low level activity such as filling in monitoring forms or providing data in multiple ways. The mantra that ‘if it doesn’t get measured then it doesn’t get done’ has been invented by low level managers to justify their existence. However all that happens is that people spend far too much time ‘being measured’ and not actually doing what they are paid for.

How can the European plastics industry contribute to innovation? How will this affect Europe’s growth?

The European plastics industry can contribute to innovation by ensuring that real research is fully supported. There has been a trend in Europe recently only to focus on funding developments that are close to market. The fear of failing to make a profit in the short term has led to investment only being directed at short term gain. This leads to ‘stepwise’ progress rather than ‘step change’ innovation. Giving those with the skills to be genuinely innovative the support they need will reap rewards – but it has to be accepted that this is a long game, and not instant gratification.