Leeds academics win impact award to help careers professionals support working students

Professor Kim Allen has won a Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) award to develop training and resources for careers professionals supporting working students.

Professor Allen has received this award for a new project that will enhance impact from the ESRC-funded project 'L-earning: Rethinking Young Women's Working Lives'. This is the second impact funding award won by Professor Allen and the project team, following their funding success with the ‘Impact Accelerator Award’ scheme which funded the recent Earning + Learning campaign.

Co-produced with student workers and backed by the National Union of Students, Trades Union Congress and Young Women’s Trust, the Earning + Learning campaign aims to raise awareness of students’ rights at work. Launched in September, the campaign website provides resources, advice and support for students about their rights in the workplace – from minimum wage and holiday entitlements to how to join a union.

This new funding award, entitled ‘Supporting Working Students: CPD for Critical Careers Practice’ , will extend impact of the Earning + Learning campaign by engaging an entirely new group of stakeholders: careers professionals. 

The project will involve partnering with national careers organisations and learned societies representing thousands of practitioners in schools, colleges and universities, including the Graduate Futures Institute.

Through consultation meetings and workshops, the project will develop and deliver new CPD training and resources that will equip career practitioners with knowledge and resources for supporting students' rights at work.

The project will start in February 2027 and will run for six months.