Government

Leeds University Business School’s Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change (CERIC) has been awarded funding from the Worldwide Universities Network to assess the challenges and possible consequences of the global recession and evaluate possible responses to redundancy.

In an unusual move, the Institute of Directors’ Chief Economist, Graeme Leach, said Gordon Brown should launch a huge surge in public spending.

Speaking at a meeting of the Association of Universities in the East of England at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire today (14 January), Mr Leach said there was a 50-50 chance of having a weak recession or plunging in a deep downturn of up to six percent of Gross National Product.

Sharon Dixon’s outstanding performance in the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) exam placed her first in Wales and 32nd in the world. Her achievement won her the £1000 ACCA Sir Julian Hodge bank award prize.

"When I left University last year as a qualified accountant, the satisfaction and feeling of self-fulfilment was, and still is, indescribable," said Sharon, who has since been promoted in her local government job.

The study follows on from the Ashridge Management Index 2008, published earlier this year, which sought the views of managers in the private sector on a similar range of organisational and personal issues. ‘Challenging and Interesting work’ was ranked as the number 1 motivating factor by both public sector managers and their private sector counterparts. Other motivating factors in the ‘top 5’ for both the public and private sectors were a ‘high basic salary’ and the ‘opportunity to continually learn and develop’.

The UK Business Barometer, an internet survey run by The University of Nottingham Institute for Enterprise and Innovation (UNIEI) found that 49 per cent of companies surveyed had had a business contact with a university in the previous 12 months.