Bath to lead the new Institute of Coding

University of Bath

Author Mitchoicecream
Licence Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic
Source Wikipedia Commons

Jane Lambert

The Higher Education Funding Council for England has awarded £20 million to a consortium of universities, businesses and professional bodies to establish a new Institute of Coding.  "Coding" in this context means very much the same as "programming". In other words, writing instructions to a computer in a way that those instructions can be converted into electronic impulses.  Such instructions can be a valuable intellectual asset the reproduction, use and adaptation of which are restricted by copyright.

The Director of the new Institute is to be Dr Rachid Hourizi of the University of Bath which is to be the lead university (see the Institute of Coding page on the the HEFCE website).  Other universities,  businesses and organizations participating in the project are listed in a joint press release dated 25 Jan 2018 by the Department of Education and the Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation.

According to that press release, the Institute is centred around the following themes:

"1. University learners (led by the Open University) – To boost graduate employability through a new industry standard targeted at degree level qualifications. IoC programmes will incorporate learning which solves real-world business problems and develops business, technical and interpersonal skills in equal measure.

2. The digital workforce (led by Aston University) – To develop specialist skills training in areas of strategic importance.

3, Digitalising the professions (led by Coventry University) – To transform professions undergoing digital transformation (e.g. helping learners retrain via new digital training programmes provided through online and face-to-face learning).

4. Widening participation (led by Queen Mary University of London) – To boost equality and diversity in technology-related education and careers (e.g. tailored workshops, bootcamps, innovative learning facilities and other outreach activities). In 2017, female programmers and software developers made up just 3.9 per cent of tech and telco professionals in the UK.

5 Knowledge sharing and sustainability (led by the University of Bath) – To share outcomes and good practice, ensuring long-term sustainability of the IoC. This will include building up an evidence base of research, analysis and intelligence to anticipate future skills gaps."

According to the Institute of Coding competition: Invitation to submit applications for funding to enhance higher-level digital skills provision the money is to be spent between  1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019. The purpose is to develop and grow digital skills to meet the current and future needs of industry as it appears from several reports that there is a shortage of the right skills.

I shall be monitoring the Institute to see what happens and will report back from time to time.  In the meantime if anyone wants to discuss this article or the project generally, he or she should call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 or send me a message on my contact form.