The Future of Higher Education

Written evidence from ESRI (UK) Ltd

Summary of response

· Esri UK welcomes proposals and recommendations to improve the quality, accessibility and sustainability of Higher Education.

· Esri UK believes strongly that support for and investment in, geography teaching in Higher Education will have benefits for government, business and society as a whole.

· Esri UK presents evidence to show the generic skills acquired through the study of geography in Higher Education are highly valued by employers.

· Esri UK makes the case that location is becoming an increasingly important factor in the majority of public and private sector business decisions and it is thus vital that the Higher Education sector provides graduates capable of working within this new geographically enabled world.

1. Background information and expertise - ESRI (UK) Ltd is a provider of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology and related services to over 4,000 UK organisations across the following key sectors: Central and Local Government, Commercial, Defence, National Security, Education, Public Safety, Utilities and Telecommunications. We provide GIS technology, services and advice to our customers to help them geographic make better decisions based on geographic information. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, Esri UK is a privately owned UK company employing 300 people many of whom are geography graduates. Esri UK is part of the Esri Global Network which supports more than 300,000 customers in 150 countries worldwide.

2. Many of our employees hold degrees in geography, GIS or directly related subjects. As a company we therefore place a high value on the teaching of geography in Higher Education. But whilst our employment requirements are perhaps atypical, there is evidence that the generic skills acquired through the study of geography are in high demand right across the business sector.

3. We conducted a survey [1] in November 2010 of 200 business leaders across the public and private sectors to understand the skills they are looking for as employers. The survey identified the following key skills that business leaders look for in future employees:

· critical thinking (nominated by 78 per cent of businesses leaders as key for graduates);

· advanced analytical skills (76 per cent);

· understanding and interpreting complex data (71 per cent);

· advanced technology skills (57 per cent); and

· understanding of socio-economic environments (54 per cent).

These are all skills gained from studying geography.

4. It is perhaps telling that the unemployment rate amongst geography graduates is just 7 per cent compared with 15 per cent for Media Studies graduates and 16 per cent for IT graduates [2] .

5. Incidentally, nearly one in five (18 per cent) of the business leaders surveyed held a geography degree or equivalent. A further two thirds (67 per cent) would recommend a geography-based qualification to their children.

6. But if business needs geographers now, this will be even more true in the future. Location is becoming increasingly recognised as an important factor in decision making. To illustrate this, a snapshot [3] of Esri UK’s customer base, shows the following:

· More than 70% of UK Local Authorities use GIS to deliver front and back office services.

· A very significant proportion of central government departments and agencies are heavily dependent on GIS to meet their policy making and service delivery responsibilities.

· Esri UK is a major supplier to the defence and national security sectors which are increasingly dependent on geography and GIS to conduct many aspects of their business, not least in support of operations in Afghanistan and in counter-terrorism.

· The majority of the emergency services are reliant on GIS technology to support resource analysis and to underpin their command and control systems.

· Demand for geography and GIS knowledge is increasing from all gas, water and electricity utility companies.

· GIS take-up is also strong in the insurance, oil, petroleum and retail sectors.

7. These customers need geographers to collect and manage complex geographic data, undertake spatial analysis and interpret the results. This wide range of organisations thus needs geography graduates to apply the geographic skills they have acquire through studying geography in the Higher Education sector.

8. We therefore argue that there is a strong and growing demand from both the public and private sectors for both the generic skills and the specific geographic skills acquired through the study of geography. Business, in its widest sense, needs geographers and it is incumbent upon the Higher Education sector to provide a supply of these highly valued graduates.

10 March 2011