Student Employability and Academic Success staff win national innovation award

Josie Turner and Ian Osborne, of the Student Employability and Academic Success team, were awarded a Management Prize in the VINCI 2015 Innovation Awards for the UK and Ireland region. Recognised alongside them, at a ceremony held in London on Tuesday 8^th September, was their Taylor Woodrow VINCI (TWV) business partner, Alan Blunden. Ali Gardner, a Penryn Campus graduate (Biosciences and Geography) who was one of the first two Green Consultant interns—and is currently a TWV employee—was also on hand to celebrate.

Green Consultants is an innovative program open to all students at the University of Exeter who have an interest in working in the Environmental and Sustainability Sector. With a focus on impacting a business’s bottom line, the students (trainee consultants) are taken through an intensive three day-training program on how to work with a client; write a project brief; conduct carbon, waste, water and energy audits; instigate behavioural and organisational change; and effectively present their results recommendations.

The trainees get to cut their teeth and apply their training by undertaking an on-campus project working with a live client delivering real business outputs. This is then followed by the final part of the programme, where the trainees are placed in industry in a paid internship where they can fully utilise and apply their training and client-facing experiences.

Ian Osborne said: “TWV is the civil engineering division of VINCI Construction UK, a part of the VINCI Group of companies. From the very beginning of the Green Consultants project, TWV were willing to take a chance and engage with the programme because of its ability to provide many additional soft skills that normal engineering-focused interns tend to lack. Indeed, TWV have been able to build and mould job roles around our students’ degree specialisms, allowing them to enter an industry they might have never ordinarily considered.

“It's great that the Green Consultants has got some industry recognition from TWV, as it has really put us on the map in terms of working closely with industry and developing programs to deliver skills sets that are in demand."

Josie Turner added: "We were nominated in a category that included a variety of projects from across the portfolio of companies that make up the VINCI group. Our success highlights the benefits that an organisation such as VINCI receives by engaging with our students, and our institution as a whole, through the Green Consultants scheme. We are thrilled to have been recognised at the highest level in the organization along with our high-calibre graduates who are ready to jump into professional careers straight out of their University of Exeter degrees. As an added bonus, winning here in the UK puts us through to the next round in the international category, where we will be put up against the wider global TWV group."

Osborne and Turner report that both the nomination and the receipt of the award have justified their belief in the Green Consultants scheme. Although the University has long been aware of the quality of the Green Consultants project, the team appreciates the external mark of approval, which they view as making their hard work all the more worthwhile.