Industry has long bemoaned the fact that many courses in academia lack market focus and industry relevance; even the good ones generally aren't accessible by work-based learners for CPD and employee upskilling purposes. We look here at an innovative new CPD project being developed by the Motorsport Knowledge Exchange, which will address some of these issues.

Engaging industry with academia - an overview of the problems
One of the perennial complaints of industry is that academia doesn't provide graduates equipped with the skills required, in the vernacular, 'to hit the ground running' when they are first employed. Academia ripostes acidly to state that invariably industry is very poor at communicating its needs in any meaningful way to academic institutions. Both arguments have merit. It is perhaps unfortunate that the very people within a company equipped to provide desirable help reside usually either in senior management positions or on the board: this seriously limits their availability to provide advisory and other services to academia. Within academia, staff are concerned primarily with teaching and/or research pursuits: the timely response to industry overtures is likely low on most academic staff radars.

The solution to this problem proves to be met by a combination of responses, including: the tenacity of senior members within academia, as this relates to pursuing industry for commitment and help; providing timely response to any communications from industry; a willingness and