Partnerships & Collaboration

The challenges facing society today include meeting increasing demands for energy, improving healthcare and advancing education. These real-world problems are too complex to be solved by a single person and require people to share and build knowledge and expertise across networks. Global digital networks are impacting the ways in which knowledge is created and work as we know it is changing as a result. At Caledonian Academy we understand the central role of learning in solving these major challenges.

Our goal is to lead research of international significance in technology-enhanced and professional learning. Our vision is to bring together top companies with leading-edge research to generate new ideas around how people learn.

Working in partnership with industry leaders 

We are already working with companies like Shell, BP International, Conoco Phillips and organisations such as the Energy Institute, The Higher Education Academy and the Joint Information Systems Committees. In our work with these, and other, commercial partners and research centres we are surfacing innovative solutions.

For example, we worked in partnership with Shell International to look at how to improve employees’ learning productivity during transition from university to the workplace. Our research focussed on sharing collective knowledge and using emerging technologies to improve knowledge flow between novices and experts within the organisation.

Recommendation for new approaches to learning helped Shell to make sure graduate employees learn quickly and effectively to give them a flying start as they move into the world of work. 

Other examples of our research include:

• investigating the role of networks in innovation and professional practice
• examining changes in professional practice associated with open knowledge
• researching how employees in high hazard environments can learn from incidents
• and exploring novel development of early career researchers.