Work on 'Higher Skills Development' is part of a joint initiative of the Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), managed by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Institute for Employment Research (IER) at the University of Warwick. [TLRP is the UK's national educational research programme and has involved over 700 researchers in the last ten years.] This is one of the key TLRP activities for 2009 and it draws together findings from across TLRP workplace learning projects and situates these in a broader context of research, policy and practice in relation to 'Higher Skills Development', which is a national (post-Leitch Review) priority, looking at how businesses and universities can work together more effectively to develop higher level skills in the workforce (CBI, UUK and HEFCE 2008). A strong relationship between the business and university sectors is seen as critical to improving the UK's competitiveness in global markets with a drive towards higher value-added products and services requiring the right underpinning of knowledge and skills. However, relevant TLRP research by Phil Brown, Hugh Lauder, and David Ashton on the strategies of other global players, both companies and countries, raises the question for the UK 'Are we witnessing the rise of a high skilled, low waged workforce?' and is the overarching concern with higher skills development misplaced? As the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) was the major funder of TLRP, and now that all the mainstream TLRP projects have been completed, it has been agreed that the findings of research undertaken by TLRP (and IER) can be re-represented in ways that can provide an evidence-based underpinning to how HE and employers can work together in support of lifelong learning and workforce development. This approach includes the development of a portal on IER's GLACIER website that allows the lessons learned from 13 projects (mentioned in the following section) to be drawn upon in an attempt to create knowledge sharing and development in an examination of the issues around learning and knowledge maturation in different education, training and employment contexts. This contribution, together with the accompanying exhibition, will therefore represent a final opportunity (the main phase of TLRP ends in September 2009) to showcase the findings of the TLRP workplace learning and related projects.

This paper is a synthesis paper, drawing together the findings of 11 major TLRP projects plus two studies undertaken at IER. Lessons from the following TLRP projects will all be drawn upon to examine issues around high skills learning in different contexts: Education, globalisation and the knowledge economy Putting Knowledge to Work New teachers' early professional development Improving Working as Learning Vicarious learning and case based teaching Learning in and for Multi-agency Working Learning and teaching for diversity and difference in higher education Collaborative inter-agency working The social and organisational mediation of university learning Early career learning at work Policy, Learning and Inclusion in the Learning and Skills Sector The two IER studies involved longitudinal tracking of adults following careers guidance interventions and the implications of individual career development for continuing vocational education, training and learning.

Lessons from the 13 projects mentioned above will all be drawn upon in order to examine issues around learning and knowledge maturation in different education, training and employment contexts. The approach to knowledge sharing and maturation will also be highlighted. The main TLRP website (effectively a knowledge repository) will be actively managed until September 2009, while the GLACIER site (that allows more effective knowledge re-representation) will continue to operate until at least 2012. Work has been undertaken to facilitate a more interactive engagement with material and ideas coming from the work of both TLRP and IER, particulalrly in the area of guidance, learning and careers, through the development of a complementary GLACIER WordPress site that has allowed the discussion of key themes, with the first theme being Higher Skills Development. We are investigating whether following this mixed-economy of different approaches to knowledge maturation is worth pursuing in the future.