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Overview< /span>
\n \nThis workshop highlights research about high er education and employment that draws from large\ , secondary administrative data-sets. Speakers wil l share insights about research conducted in both the UK and Spain. Our two speakers will outline fi ndings from their diverse projects about\; 1) the wage premium associated with careers service usage in Spain\; 2) the ethnicity awarding gap in the U K\; and 3) the Graduate Voice questions from the UK Graduate Outcomes Survey. In addition\, issues of methodology and potential impact will be explo red.
\n \nSc hedule
\ n \n| \n 14.00 -14.10 \n | \n
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| \n 14.10 – 14.30 \n | \n \n
Rosario Scandurra: Do university career services create genu ine economic value or merely redistribute employme nt opportunities? This study addresses this questi on using 15 years of data from the Catalan Graduat e Follow-Up Survey\, covering over 14\,000 graduat es. To overcome selection bias\, we employ an inst rumental variable strategy exploiting peer exposur e to career services. We estimate a causal wage pr emium of approximately 8.5% for graduates who secu red employment through university career services. Heterogeneity analysis reveals substantially stro nger effects for women (15.7%) and graduates witho ut prior work experience (17%)\, suggesting these services may help reduce labour market inequalitie s. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework integ rating human capital theory\, signalling\, search theory\, and positional competition\, we argue tha t while career services deliver genuine individual returns—particularly for disadvantaged groups—pol icymakers should interpret aggregate employability metrics with considerable caution.< /span> \n \n
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| \n < span style="font-size:12pt">14.30 – 14.55 \n | \n
\n Sean Brophy: From Data to Debate: Using Administrative and Secondary Data to Drive Researc h Impact in Higher Education. This session uses tw o recent research projects to illustrate how rigor ous quantitative analysis of administrative and se condary data can generate both scholarly contribut ions and sustained policy engagement. The first\, published in Studies in Higher Education\, examine s the ethnicity degree awarding gap for a single c ohort of English graduates using HESA student reco rds. That article led directly to a Times Higher E ducation piece and a HEPI blog post\, and ultimate ly to this invitation. The session will report ear ly results from follow-up analysis extending this work to 775\,247 full-time\, UK-domiciled\, first- degree qualifiers across five cohorts (2018/19–202 2/23). Preliminary findings suggest the origins of the gap differ markedly by ethnic group: for Blac k students it appears to originate within higher e ducation or in unobserved factors\, whereas for Pa kistani and Bangladeshi students it appears rooted in inequality accumulated during compulsory educa tion. This body of work has also led to ONS Accred ited Researcher status and research using the Long itudinal Educational Outcomes dataset to examine c onnections between compulsory schooling\, higher e ducation\, and the labour market. \n \nThe sessio n reflects on what this pipeline looks like in pra ctice: how peer-reviewed research creates credibil ity\, how accessible writing builds audiences\, an d how sustained engagement with outlets like HEPI\ , Wonkhe\, and The Conversation compounds into a n ational profile and direct access to policymakers and media. \ n \nI ncluding Q&A \n | \n
| \n 14.55 – 15.30 \n | \n \n Break-out rooms for discussion and final plenary discussion \n | \n <
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Speaker bios
Rosar io Scandurra: I am a quantitative sociolo gist of education examining the nexus of inequalit y\, education\, skills formation and labour mark et transitions. My work contributes to education a nd public policy debates on educational opportunit ies\, youth transitions and education segregation. My research has examined educational and skills i nequalities and how these inequalities are accumul ated during the life course. Multiple questions em erged from this work concerning the complementary sequences of effects embedded in individual contex ts of skills formation. Currently\, I am Ramón y C ajal Senior Researcher at the Barcelona School of Management – University Pompeu Fabra\, a member of the Globalisation\, Education and Social Policies (GEPS) research centre\, a researcher in the inte r-university network Grupo de Investigación en Pol íticas Educativas (GIPE) and a member of the resea rch group in Global Studies of the Universidade Ab erta (Lisbon). I have been involved in more than 2 0 international projects. Pieces of my work have b een published in a range of high-ranking journals and they could be found here. Employability in Highe r Education - Conceptual Challenges\, Causal Evide nce\, and Policy Implications
\n \nSean B rophy is a Senior Le cturer at Manchester Metropolitan Business School and an applied microeconomist specializing in educ ation\, human capital\, and labour markets. His re search has been published in journals including th e Journal of Regional Science\, Studies in Higher Education\, and the British Educa tion Research Journal. Sean's work has been fe atured in The Times\, The Financial Time s\, The Conversation\, HEPI\, Wonkhe\, and Times Higher Education. Previously\, Sean held positions at the Wharton School\, University of P ennsylvania\, and managed the Greater Manchester A I Foundry\, an EU-funded initiative. He has also d esigned and delivered executive education programm es for global organizations including Google and K PMG. Sean is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical So ciety and the Royal Society of Arts. His funded re search uses national administrative data\, includi ng Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data\ , and he also works with the Department for Educat ion’s Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) data set to examine graduate outcomes\, migration\, and inequality across the educational lifecycle.
DESCRIPTION:SRHE Members must log-in to access member registra tion rates \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Facilitated an d chaired by: Dr Fiona Christie who is the co-conv enor of the Employability\, Enterprise and Work-ba sed Learning network. For more details about the n etwork and its activities\, please click here.\n \ n \n \n Overview\n \n \n \n This workshop highligh ts research about higher education and employment that draws from large\, secondary administrative d ata-sets. Speakers will share insights about resea rch conducted in both the UK and Spain. Our two sp eakers will outline findings from their diverse pr ojects about\; 1) the wage premium associated with careers service usage in Spain\; 2) the ethnicity awarding gap in the UK\; and 3) the Graduate Voi ce questions from the UK Graduate Outcomes Survey. In addition\, issues of methodology and potentia l impact will be explored. \n \n \n \n Schedule\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 14.00 -14.10\n \n \n \n \n Welcome\, housekeeping and overvie w of the session\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 14.10 – 14.30\n \n \n \n \n Rosario Sc andurra: Do university career services create genu ine economic value or merely redistribute employme nt opportunities? This study addresses this questi on using 15 years of data from the Catalan Graduat e Follow-Up Survey\, covering over 14\,000 graduat es. To overcome selection bias\, we employ an inst rumental variable strategy exploiting peer exposur e to career services. We estimate a causal wage pr emium of approximately 8.5% for graduates who secu red employment through university career services. Heterogeneity analysis reveals substantially stro nger effects for women (15.7%) and graduates witho ut prior work experience (17%)\, suggesting these services may help reduce labour market inequalitie s. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework integ rating human capital theory\, signalling\, search theory\, and positional competition\, we argue tha t while career services deliver genuine individual returns—particularly for disadvantaged groups—pol icymakers should interpret aggregate employability metrics with considerable caution.\n \n \n \n Including Q&A\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 14.30 – 14.55\n \n \n \n \n Sean Brophy: From Data to Debate: Using Administrative and Seco ndary Data to Drive Research Impact in Higher Educ ation. This session uses two recent research proje cts to illustrate how rigorous quantitative analys is of administrative and secondary data can genera te both scholarly contributions and sustained poli cy engagement. The first\, published in Studies in Higher Education\, examines the ethnicity degree awarding gap for a single cohort of English gradua tes using HESA student records. That article led d irectly to a Times Higher Education piece and a HE PI blog post\, and ultimately to this invitation. The session will report early results from follow- up analysis extending this work to 775\,247 full-t ime\, UK-domiciled\, first-degree qualifiers acros s five cohorts (2018/19–2022/23). Preliminary find ings suggest the origins of the gap differ markedl y by ethnic group: for Black students it appears t o originate within higher education or in unobserv ed factors\, whereas for Pakistani and Bangladeshi students it appears rooted in inequality accumula ted during compulsory education. This body of work has also led to ONS Accredited Researcher status and research using the Longitudinal Educational Ou tcomes dataset to examine connections between comp ulsory schooling\, higher education\, and the labo ur market.\n \n \n \n The second project\, also in Studies in Higher Education\, examined graduat e job quality for the 2018/19 cohort using Graduat e Outcomes data. Commentary appeared in Wonkhe and The Conversation\, the latter attracting over 20\ ,000 reads in its first week\, leading to a Times Higher Education conference invitation\, a BBC Rad io 5 interview request\, and a direct editorial re lationship enabling future pieces to bypass open s ubmission.\n \n \n \n The session reflects on w hat this pipeline looks like in practice: how peer -reviewed research creates credibility\, how acces sible writing builds audiences\, and how sustained engagement with outlets like HEPI\, Wonkhe\, and The Conversation compounds into a national profile and direct access to policymakers and media.\n \n \n \n Including Q&A\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n 14.55 – 15.30\n \n \n \n \n Bre ak-out rooms for discussion and final plenary disc ussion\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n Speaker bio s\n \n \n \n Rosario Scandurra: I am a quantitativ e sociologist of education examining the nexus of inequality\, education\, skills formation and la bour market transitions. My work contributes to ed ucation and public policy debates on educational o pportunities\, youth transitions and education seg regation. My research has examined educational and skills inequalities and how these inequalities ar e accumulated during the life course. Multiple que stions emerged from this work concerning the compl ementary sequences of effects embedded in individu al contexts of skills formation. Currently\, I am Ramón y Cajal Senior Researcher at the Barcelona S chool of Management – University Pompeu Fabra\, a member of the Globalisation\, Education and Social Policies (GEPS) research centre\, a researcher in the inter-university network Grupo de Investigaci ón en Políticas Educativas (GIPE) and a member of the research group in Global Studies of the Univer sidade Aberta (Lisbon). I have been involved in mo re than 20 international projects. Pieces of my wo rk have been published in a range of high-ranking journals and they could be found here. Employabili ty in Higher Education - Conceptual Challenges\, C ausal Evidence\, and Policy Implications \n \n \n \n Sean Brophy is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan Business School and an applied microe conomist specializing in education\, human capital \, and labour markets. His research has been publi shed in journals including the Journal of Regional Science\, Studies in Higher Education\, and the B ritish Education Research Journal. Sean's work has been featured in The Times\, The Financial Times\ , The Conversation\, HEPI\, Wonkhe\, and Times Hig her Education. Previously\, Sean held positions at the Wharton School\, University of Pennsylvania\, and managed the Greater Manchester AI Foundry\, a n EU-funded initiative. He has also designed and d elivered executive education programmes for global organizations including Google and KPMG. Sean is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Arts. His funded research uses n ational administrative data\, including Higher Edu cation Statistics Agency (HESA) data\, and he also works with the Department for Education’s Longitu dinal Educational Outcomes (LEO) dataset to examin e graduate outcomes\, migration\, and inequality a cross the educational lifecycle.\n \n CATEGORIES:Conference CALSCALE:GREGORIAN DTSTAMP;TZID=Europe/London:20260528T140000 DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260528T140000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260528T153000 LOCATION:Online event\, link will be provided\n United King dom\n URL:https://srhe.ac.uk/civicrm/event/info/?reset=1&id=796 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR