Coventry Godiva Festival is billed as the UK’s biggest free family music festival and is now in its 19th year. Based in the city’s historic War Memorial Park, the three-day event offers great live music, family entertainment, international food and drink, craft village and children’s fun fair!
Organised by Coventry City Council with the support of partners, the festival prides itself on offering the best of Coventry and Warwickshire backed up by top national artists and performers.
Visit to the Imagineer Productions
On Tuesday 21st March Professor Ziarati and his assistant, Maria Veligrantaki, visited the Imagineer Productions workplace based in Coventry to find out more about what they are doing and their plans for the future. Jane Hytch gave us a good summary of their work and showed us some of the projects they were working as well as talking to us about some their past projects. While the visit lasted only an hour it was very informative about their work and plans.
The engineering gap – BBC report
A recent BBC report has highlighted the need for creating awareness among children at the very earlier stage which is inline with INSPIRE project idea about Introducing STEM in schools to encourage children to study STEM in their high studies. BBC has reported that women make up around just 8% of engineers in the UK. To read…
INSPIRE Group member to boost study of sustainable manufacturing at Coventry Uni
Coventry University has appointed INSPIRE Group Member, Professor Bob Shanks, a new visiting professor to enhance student engagement in sustainable manufacturing. To learn more about this news, please click here.
The Department of Education’s response
The Inspire Group are seeking the views of the key players in the STEM developments, the following response from the Department of Education.
The IMechE correspondence with INSPIRE Group
Professor Ziarati is meeting Dr Colin Brown, IMechE Director of Engineering, on 23rd September 2016 to see how the Group could support IMechE’s STEM initiatives.
The IET Response to Inspire Group initiatives
A meeting took place between Professor Ziarati, the Inspire Group Coordinator and Derrick Willer, IET Coventry & Warwickshire Network and Honorary Secretary and Schools Liaison Officer, and arrangements are being made for further meetings to discuss how the Group and IET could work together.
FabLab Coventry
A fab lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop offering (personal) digital fabrication. New to Coventry, opened July 2016. FabLab Coventry is a not-for-profit partnership between Coventry University, Coventry City Council, the University of Warwick, and numerous other partners from both the private and charity sectors. FabLab Coventry is financed through a combination of donations,…
Protected: Practical Work in Primary Science
INtroducing Science in PrImary schools through Learning by DiscovEry (INSPIRE)
1.1. Concept and approach, quality of the coordination and support measures
1.3.1. Concept & Motivation It is an acknowledged fact that Europe has an aging population and while Eurostat analysis shows the numbers of students graduating university with STEM qualification has remained stable across the EU in recent years (22.3% of all graduates in 2006 and 22.8% of graduates in 2012) this has not been sufficient to overcome expected shortfalls in industry in the medium to long term. The Eurostat analysis shows that in Germany for example in 2012 (arguably the leading country in terms of STEM graduates in the EU) despite nearly 30% of all graduates having a STEM qualification there was a shortage of 200,000 STEM graduates (mainly engineers) costing the economy 20 billion Euros a year. It is interesting to note that this trend is the same for the US with the added worry that the number of students who enter engineering programmes is actually projected to drop; a projection that many believe will have a negative impact on the U.S. workforce in the future (Christian D. Schunn, 2009). Indeed research by the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) found that despite the recession and high unemployment across the EU since 2008 that demand for Science and Engineering Professionals in the EU has remained resilient with employment is the sector 12% higher in 2013 than in 2000 with 6.6 million Science and Engineering professional employed in the EU28 in 2013. This employment growth is forecast to continue until at least 2025 with an increase of 6.5% forecast between 2013 and 2025.
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