Through deep listening (Kasriel, 2023) to SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) graduates as they reflect on their lives and work, this project aims to enrich and develop understanding of their impact on and contribution to places, communities and economies. This paper reports on a pilot to develop accessible processes to engage graduates reflection on their life and work.

In addition to developing understanding of the impact of SHAPE gradautes in their work and communities, the project aims to

• develop a model to inform a tool kit to support SHAPE (under)graduates in articulating their professional identities and impacts on their professional spaces and communities.
• inform HE policy makers in the UK and beyond, where methods of graduate tracking are being developed (for example, the European Graduate Tracking Initiative, EGTI)

 Research Questions

1. How do SHAPE graduates understand and articulate the contributions they make and the impact they have in their workplaces and/or communities? And how might this inform development of the ways in which the impacts of SHAPE graduates are described?

2.  How might a SHAPE Toolkit, which identifies impacts of (under)graduates in multiple dimensions, enhance graduate experiences and support them to articulate their professional identities and various economic and social impacts?

Currently, the main way of measuring the ‘successes’ of graduates in England is through the annual Graduate Outcomes survey (OfS Office for Students, 2023). ‘Success’ as a graduate in this survey is indicated by the achievement of a ‘positive’ destination, identified through a series of employment indicators informed by the Standard Occupational Classification of economic activities (SOC) https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/graduates. At a time when both universities and graduates themselves are increasingly judged by these SOC based measures, it is clear that this classification system does not always fit well with SHAPE disciplines (Hedges et al, 2022), nonetheless SOC continues to inform the way that undergraduates are schooled in HEIs and taught to frame their activity beyond academia. The challenges of framing and articulating the particular impact of SHAPE graduates on their working and community contexts are well understood by those working in SHAPE discipline research in terms of the ‘effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia’ (The British Academy, 2022).As well as impacting on the ways SHAPE graduates are perceived both by graduates themselves and by others,  the OfS policy also influences the ways in which SHAPE disciplines and associated academic programmes are positioned and taught in universities and perceived in wider public discourse. This is happening in the context of a sharp decline in creative arts and SHAPE associated activity in primary and secondary schools, Further Education and now also in universities in England (Ashton & Ashton, 2022; Cultural Learning Alliance, 2024) and other European countries including Sweden (Lilliedahl, 2021).

When judged against the ‘standard industrial classifications’ of the Graduate Outcomes (GO) survey, SHAPE graduates may not considered 'successful'. However, the significant economic, social and cultural contributions of SHAPE disciplines and their graduates to nations are well documented (for example Hutter, 2015; Kabanda, 2018). When listening to SHAPE graduates speaking about their graduate lives, free of the constraints of responding to frameworks such as the GO survey, it is clear they believe they make rich, diverse, important contributions to public life.

This inclusive listening project, with the participation of graduates at all stages of the design and implementation, set out to develop more nuanced considerations of SHAPE graduates’ contributions to the creative, economic, social, environmental and cultural roles they play in the places they are part of.

We aimed to support the development of critical, research-informed practice, so this project was informed by inclusive research principles throughout, with graduates engaged as research assistants and operating ‘deep listening’ (Kasriel, 2023), a transformational approach to engaging with others. SHAPE graduates were invited to reflect on their lives and work following leaving University, via a series of open questions focussed on four dimensions; personal, work, community and future. The reflection exercise took the form of a short and accessible open questionnaire. Having agreed to take part, participants identified their undergraduate degree programme and shared their reflections, responding to a series of open prompts. How has your degree and wider university experience helped you to contribute in the community? How has your degree and wider university experience helped you to contribute in your workplace? How has your degree and wider university experience helped you to contribute in your personal life? How do you see yourself contributing in these three areas in the future? Give 3 words that best describe the contribution you feel you are making to your life/work/community The graduate reflections were gathered via an accessible secure online platform and used, together with a review of literature, to develop a multidimensional model of contributions SHAPE graduates might make to workplaces and communities. Invitations to take part in the online Graduate Reflections Exercise were sent to Arts, Humanities and Social Science graduates through informal social media networks associated with academic programmes. Invitees were sent a link to a landing page where they found information about the project and a link to the reflection space. There was an ‘opt-in’ policy, with informed (anonymous) agreement to take part in the research project confirmed at the log-in stage. The ‘survey’ was kept open for two weeks. Two waves of data were generated, to provide an opportunity for modifications to the questions and processes as required, after the first wave. To inform development of the platform a collection of three undergraduate academic programmes were selected for the first wave of data generation. Graduates from five different academic programmes contributed the second wave. Ethical considerations.The survey was completed as an entirely voluntary exercise. Any risk of recipients feeling obliged to complete the survey was managed through clear, consistent information about the project. No material incentives to take part were offered. As participants were self-selecting, data generated are likely to be skewed.

qualitative data. This involved processing the reflections written by the participants from the questionnaire into a spreadsheet and then through visualisation software. The collections of reflections were grouped into the four dimensions. Personal life, workplace, community and future contributions. We collected reflections data from graduates across eight different academic SHAPE undergraduate programmes (including Music, Creative Writing, Dance, Education and History) in one university. Communications with graduates through social media contacts proved to be an effective means of recruiting participants and the electronic platform proved easy to access for the participants. following first contact with the participants, the majority of responses were completed within five days. Our visualisation of the qualitative reflections data generated two sets of products; a series of individual profile ‘cards’, and a set of narratives associated with each of the four dimensions. The data generated by this study offers a more nuanced understanding of graduate outcomes, beyond the business informed models currently used in the assessment of ‘positive destinations’ of graduates. The data and its analysis have been used to develop a SHAPE graduate profiling model which is informing the development of a tool kit to use with undergraduate students and graduates, to support them when articulating their lives. We plan to develop the project further in association with university Careers and Employability advisors. The project has begun in one English university, but its accessible, cost-effective approach will form the basis for development with national and international partners.

Ashton, H., & Ashton, D. (2022). Creativity and the curriculum: educational apartheid in 21st Century England, a European outlier? International Journal of Cultural Policy, 29(4), 484–499. Cultural Learning Alliance, (2024) Cultural Learning Alliance Report Card 2024. https://www.culturallearningalliance.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CLA-2024-Annual-Report-Card.pdf Hedges, S., Meiskem D., Battiston, A., Conlon, G. (2019), Understanding the Career Paths of AHSS Graduates in the UK and Their Contribution to the Economy. London Economics and The British Academy. Hutter, M. (2015) The rise of the joyful economy: Artistic invention and economic growth. Routledge, London. Kabanda, P. (2018) The creative wealth of nations. Can the arts advance development? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Kasriel, E. (2023) Deep listening as an approach to tackle polarisation. Cultural Relations Collection. British Council. https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/202309-cultural-relations-collection-2023-deep_listening_as_an_approach_to_tackle_polarisation_edited.pdf Lilliedahl, J. (2021). Is there a transnational trend of “nudging” away from the arts? How the selection device works in the European–Swedish context. Arts Education Policy Review, 124(1), 27–36. Office for Students OFS (2023) Graduate Outcomes Survey. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/for-students/student-outcomes-and-employability/graduate-outcomes-survey/ The British Academy (2022) SHAPE Skills at Work: Case studies from graduates of the social sciences, humanities and arts. The British Academy. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/shape-skills-at-work/