Keynote talk from V2WORK Final Conference and 1st VEES-NET Annual Meeting, Nha Trang

1. A Skills Ecosystem for Sustained
Success: what, why, and how?
Dr Gary C Wood
Head of Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy
g.c.wood@sheffield.ac.uk | @GC_Wood
V2WORK Final Conference & 1st VEES-NET Annual Meeting
Nha Trang, 29 March 2021

2. Overview
● What is a skills ecosystem?
● Why is a skills ecosystem a useful concept
after V2WORK?
● How do you develop a skills ecosystem?
● Case study from Sheffield
○ Sheffield Engineering Leadership
Academy
○ Wider developments and the ecosystem
○ The value our University has seen from
being part of the ecosystem
● Q&A.

3. What is a skills ecosystem?
● ‘Skills ecosystem’ coined by Finegold (1999)
● Stakeholders in a region or industry sector
working to use, share and develop their skills
and knowledge in mutually beneficial ways,
and for the benefit of people external to the
network
● Include industry, organisations, community,
Government, local authorities and policy
makers, individuals, education and training
providers.

4. Why a skills ecosystem after V2WORK?
● V2WORK has created partnerships between
industry and education
● It has enabled you to begin enhancing students’
skills and workplace-readiness
● Using a skills ecosystem approach can help you to:
○ Build on your impact
○ Make the network self-sustainable
○ Bring new people into the network organically
○ Continue to ensure that your students are
work-ready as industry needs change over time.

5. Characteristics of a skills ecosystem
● Stakeholders are committed to a broad agenda, not (just) their own interests
● Self-sustaining networks, shaped by the stakeholders working together
● Have a genuine focus on improving business performance
● Address both demand for and supply of skills/knowledge, closing gap between
provision of skills and need for them
● Interdisciplinary, moving away from knowledge based learning to build competencies
● Often closely linked to economic development of the region/industry sector
● Aligned with adapting to rapid change, and driving innovation.
(See Clayton 2016; NSW Department of Education & Training 2008)

6. Formality of ecosystems
Formal Informal
Development Mechanism
Planned and structured approach
Created deliberately
Particular aims and objectives
Organic
Unplanned, emergent approach
More general aims and objectives
Characteristics

7. How does a skills ecosystem develop?
● Some stimulus required to get started
○ a specific ecosystem project (formal)
○ activities that will foster collaboration between stakeholders (informal)
● Bring stakeholders together around that stimulus
● Select stakeholders with different knowledge and skills, or need to develop them
● Identify and build on opportunities for mutual benefit
● Foster the generous sharing of knowledge and skills, and identify gaps
● Create a supportive environment where managed failure is positive
● Disseminate and share progress and outcomes widely, to bring others in
● Focus on the value and the need rather than the skills per se – aim to achieve
something together, and let the skills development follow that.

8. A Case Study of Sheffield’s Ecosystem
Sheffield City Region – consists of the Mayoral
Combined Authority (MCA), the Local Enterprise
Partnership (LEP) and the SCR Executive
Team. It has a remit to support economic growth
across South Yorkshire (Barnsley, Doncaster,
Rotherham and Sheffield). Priorities include
business growth, infrastructure, transport links
and skills & employment.

9. Context
Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy (SELA) –
develops selected engineering undergraduate students to
become leaders with the skills, confidence and aptitude to
make a positive difference
● 40 students per year, selected for leadership potential
● Working in close collaboration with industry and academia
● Students undertake real projects, to deliver value, not
achieve grades.

10. Broad themes as a stimulus
Stakeholders
Stimulus themes (examples)
Education
Industry
Government
etc
Industry 4.0 Sustainability Smart Places Healthcare etc

11. Examples of our projects
● Industry 4.0 adoption – addressing the decline in manufacturing by removing
barriers to digitalisation particularly for SMEs
● Smart Places – effecting attitudinal change through partnership with education and
working with local councils to explore the use of data, AI and machine learning
● Health and Social Care – tackling challenges in social care, mental health and
wellbeing through identifying barriers to adoption of digital, and prototyping solutions
● Food security and sustainability – building competitive local food systems and
exploring ways in which large scale agritech can be adapted for smaller local farms
● Education – inspiring young people to recognise their potential to succeed through
STEM, using outreach, engagement and structured learning opportunities.

12. Bringing together stakeholders

13. Entrepreneur in Residence
● Ceri Batchelder working in the region
● Became Royal Society Entrepreneur in
Residence in 2018
● One day per week in the University; half a
day working with SELA, helping to build
connections
● Focus on connecting STEM researchers
and students at the University of Sheffield
to digital entrepreneurship and innovation
● You could do this connecting role based
on your V2WORK networks!

14. Regional digital connections
Links with students and staff, leading to
student placements, digital projects and
research collaborations.
Co-creating the Sheffield IoT meetup to
bring people and practitioners together to
share knowledge (with Pitch-In).

15. Regional digital connections
Healthcare hackathons, bringing together
real end users with students to create
solutions.
Projects with regional businesses in a
range of different sectors.

16. Summer student placements
to develop Internet of Things
prototypes for regional
businesses, universities, the
NHS and local authorities.
Regional digital connections

17. MIT
REAP
SCR is
participating in the
MIT ‘Regional
Entrepreneurship
Acceleration
Program’

18. Learning together and sharing learning
● Students greatly value the experience (Habbershaw, Sharp & Wood 2019):
○ ‘Focus shifts from grades to output value’
○ ‘Connects learning to applications – so we can practise and recognise value’
○ Develop professional skills and recognise their agency in using knowledge and skills
● Value to industry:
○ ‘The students came from multiple disciplines … [they] bring new skillsets and help us
innovate, using new ways of thinking. … The business has changed. We look at
things in a new way. We’re looking at how we can actually introduce some of the
changes that the students have suggested.’

19. Dissemination and progress sharing
● Northern Crucible Network
○ Led to several students going on placement, and a start-up business
● SMART Sheffield
● Sheffield IoT Meetup
● Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology Conference
● UKCRIC Future Leaders Conference
● Student placements in industry
● Reports and publications
● Sheffield Digital Awards 2019
● Showcase event.

20. Value of ecosystem to the University
● Learnings applied to curriculum development
● Creating the conditions for entrepreneurship
● New projects and relationships, including knowledge exchange and research
● Student placements, internships, graduate roles, etc.
● Access to new funding
● Skills transfer/building capability in the region across enterprises of all sizes
● Promotes innovation by bringing together ideas and collaboratively developing
solutions
● Increased confidence for students and industry
● Demand based education vs. building capacity – not just graduates/education
leavers, but the right fit for industry.

21. References
Clayton, R. (2016). Building Innovation Ecosystems in Education to Reinvent School: A
Study of Innovation and System Change in the USA. London: Winston Churchill
Memorial trust.
Finegold, D. (1999). Creating Self-Sustaining, High-Skill Ecosystems. Oxford Review of
Economic Policy, 15(1), 60–81.
NSW Department of Education & Training. (2008). Skills in Context: A Guide to the Skill
Ecosystem Approach to Workforce Development. Sydney: NSW Department of
Education & Training.

22. A Skills Ecosystem for Sustained
Success: what, why, and how?
Dr Gary C Wood
Head of Sheffield Engineering Leadership Academy
g.c.wood@sheffield.ac.uk | @GC_Wood
V2WORK Final Conference & 1st VEES-NET Annual Meeting
Nha Trang, 29 March 2021