Levelling-Up with Live Projects in University Teaching

This blog article outlines a proposed 'Hierarchy of Live Briefs' to act as a guide for lecturers to consider how to best present such opportunities to students. Live Briefs are frequently used in Higher Education and this article explores the various ways they can be used to enhance employability and equity for the students. This hierarchy is proposed following 10 years of teaching experience, 4 years of running live paid brief projects with external organisations and many conversations with other staff members. The aim of this article is to spark conversation, in an attempt to change practices against the use unpaid live briefs that are not embedded in the curriculum as this is muted as a practice that disadvantaged the already disadvantaged students. As a result of this work being published there have been many conversations with other practitioners, and it has resulted in people being more considerate about practice.