Students' Engagement with Industry Projects at the University of the Arts London

This report shows that enterprise and employability are developed in industry projects in a dynamic process of student engagement. Tutors and students are often negotiating a series of tensions that come to the fore in the setting up and running of industry projects. The first revolved around the possibility of conflict between optimum conditions for formative assessment and the imperatives of high-risk competition between students. The second tension is that which tutors face between promoting their course through its association with a high-profile brand on the one hand, and negotiating an involvement from the industry partner which takes into account the students’ educational needs. The third tension is one that students sometime experience as they seek to balance the development of their own artistic endeavour or signature style with the demands of industry-led briefs. A survey instrument has been designed which addresses the issues raised with a view to informing tutors’ development of live industry projects that optimise students’ learning.