Blazing a trail into the workplace
27 Jun 2016
Our Q Step programme is transforming how our social science students are taught – and seeing them work for the World Bank, Home Office and BBC
The University’s Q Step programme is transforming how our social science students are taught and blazing a trail into the workplace.
Workplaces such as the World Bank, the Home Office, the Department for International Development, YouGov, Santander, the BBC, The Times and Sunday Times, Age UK and Ipsos Mori.
Part of a five-year, £19.5 million national programme, it teaches them to crunch the data needed to answer research questions of academic and public-policy interest, and enables them to apply these skills to ‘real-world’ environments such as social and political research, consultancy, business and marketing.
The runaway success of Q-Step is the second-year, paid summer internships. There are 50 each year, paid for by the University and Q-Step.
Anna Kiel did so well in her internship at AudienceNet, she landed a job there after graduation.
And one of her first projects as an employee – data analysis on public perceptions of the Refugee Crisis in Europe, North America and Australasia – was presented at the United Nations: literally put into the hands of Kofi Annan, Queen Rania of Jordan, the Turkish Ambassador and President Obama's senior representative in relation to the Refugee Crisis.
Unsurprisingly, AudienceNet CEO and founder David Lewis describes Anna as “no better testimony to the programme” who has “more than surpassed all expectations”.
Anna explains: “Going out and using data and writing a whole report myself, with my name on it, was huge. It has given me so much confidence.”
Charlotte McCarthy not only got to meet key academics in her field during her internship, at the anti-poverty think tank Social Action and Research Foundation (SARF), she proved her mettle alongside them.
“Charlotte stood on the same stage as prominent sociologists – and wrote articles that had as many hits as theirs did,” recalls SARF co-Director Dan Silver of their ‘poverty porn’ event to discuss uncaring attitudes towards deprivation, which Charlotte played a vital role in.
Charlotte explains: “I realised I had learned skills in lectures that could be applied to the real world. That gave me a lot of confidence.”
Co-Director Dr Jackie Carter says: “The students get an amazing work experience that really hones their skills and builds their confidence; the University finds out what employers need; and the employers get a student who is paid for, administered by us, for the summer, and a great piece of work.”
The employers agree wholeheartedly.
Ed Cox, Director of IPPR North, whose intern Marcus Johns investigated the potential success of the Northern Powerhouse, recalls: “Marcus trawled many, many sets of data and pulled out one statistic, the ‘early years gap’. That had fantastic media coverage and a lot of political interest as well.”
Joe Twynam, head of political and social research at YouGov, described the student he took in 2014 as “one of the strongest, most talented and capable interns we have ever had”. He says: “This is not about coming here and doing the photocopying or making the coffee – this is about coming here as a fully functional member of our team.”
Such is the success of the programme, and the quality of our interns, we are now hoping to place interns at the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
Jackie says: “This programme is giving our students, whatever their backgrounds, access to the professions based on their talent – and they have done us proud.
“As a result, this programme is a real differentiator for The University of Manchester.”
You can watch a film about Q Step: