New toolkit published to advance ethical and sustainable employability in Welsh higher education

Pan-Wales collaboration across six universities produces a practical resource for educators and careers professionals.

Pan-Wales collaboration across six universities produces a practical resource for educators and careers professionals

A new practical toolkit designed to help higher education institutions embed ethical and sustainable employability into their teaching, careers provision and institutional practice has been published, funded by Medr and edited by Advance HE.

The Ethical and Sustainable Employability (ESE) Toolkit is the result of a pan-Wales collaboration involving Swansea University, Aberystwyth University, Cardiff University, the Open University, Bangor University and Wrexham University. Developed over 18 months through the Wales Employability Community of Practice, the toolkit draws on case studies and expertise from across the Welsh higher education sector and is designed to be of practical use to anyone working in tertiary education with responsibility for, or an interest in, employability provision.

Case studies included in the toolkit illustrate how ethical and sustainable employability is already being realised in practice across Welsh universities. These include Swansea University’s Marketing for Good initiative, in which students apply digital marketing skills to live projects for organisations such as Wales Air Ambulance; the Open University’s ‘Sustainathon’, a week-long challenge addressing real sustainability problems; and Bangor University’s Places of Climate Change programme, combining seminars, workshops and internships focused on climate action.

Emma Mock, Head of Skills and Employability at Medr, welcomed the publication:

“This toolkit is a significant step forward for employability in Welsh higher education. It reflects Medr’s commitment to supporting the tertiary education sector to equip graduates with the skills and values needed for a rapidly changing world of work, and we hope it will be taken up widely by institutions across Wales and beyond.”

Stuart Norton, Head of Educational Excellence at Advance HE, who led the development of the toolkit, said:

“This is a genuinely practical resource, built directly on the expertise and experience of colleagues across six Welsh universities, and I am grateful to all of them for their contributions. Graduates are increasingly seeking work that aligns with their values, and institutions need tools to respond to that shift. The ESE Toolkit gives educators and careers professionals a structured, adaptable framework to do exactly that and we hope it will continue to grow as more institutions add their own examples of practice.”

Ethical and Sustainable Employability Toolkit

Notes

The Ethical and Sustainable Employability Toolkit is available now. Institutions wishing to contribute further case studies or examples of practice are invited to contact [email protected].

The toolkit offers a clear five-stage framework – Audit, Identify and Establish, Scale, Implement and Evaluate, and Contribute – to help institutions assess their current ESE provision and develop it further. It is grounded in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, reflecting Wales’s distinctive legislative commitment to long-term thinking about people, communities and the planet.

The case studies are drawn from Welsh institutions, but toolkit is intended to be relevant across the United Kingdom and internationally, spanning teaching and learning, research, careers services and enterprise.