Director of the Morson Maker Space at the University of Salford, Dr Maria Stukoff has written an article for We Are Tech Women highlighting the importance of partnerships like Morson’s STEM programme with the University of Salford for tackling skills shortages and improving the STEM gender gap.

The article ‘The Power To Make And Disrupt The Status Quo In High Tech Engineering Sectors’ discusses:

• The link between skills shortages and underrepresentation of women in tech
• The ways that academic institutions can partner with businesses to benefit both students and employers
• The relationship between Morson Group and the University of Salford

Education and business partnerships

Technology is transforming the 4th industrial revolution and educational institutions often struggle to keep up with integrating new technologies. There has been a boom in maker spaces at universities recently. Stukoff believes that this demonstrates that they are seeking new approaches to ensure students acquire industry-relevant skills.

Stukoff emphasises the importance of partnerships between universities and businesses in developing the skills employers are looking for.

“Morson has provided the core funding for the University of Salford’s state-of-the-art maker space, with a STEM programme that provides students with opportunities to acquire future-fit skills with equipment they will use in the workplace once they graduate. The maker space supports everything from additive manufacturing, metal printing and CNC machining, through to delicate microscopic instrumentation and electronics, folding or laser cutting paper and farm robotics.”

The partnership encourages interdisciplinary collaboration and is helping the university to break down stereotypes and barriers to entry. Stukoff attributes this to Morson’s knowledge of ED&I recruitment best practise. This has informed the industry talks, workshops, career sessions and placement opportunities we have provided to the university. She also discusses our contribution to the university’s Women in Engineering- Go Beyond mentoring programme and the IntoUniversity new learning centre.

It’s an honour to be featured and have the work we are doing recognised, but more importantly, it is wonderful to know that our partnership with the University of Salford is truly making a difference to its students.

You can read the full article on wearetechwomen.com to learn more about the difference partnerships like ours are making in overcoming barriers to STEM. You can also read about the launch of our STEM foundation and the Gerry Mason Engineering Scholarship.