Shaping students as world citizens

How the universities of York, Durham and Manchester are equipping students with critical thinking and transferable skills 

- POOJA THAKAR

HOW TO develop AI that does what you want it to do in a safe manner? How can data science be harnessed to tackle air pollution, study psychology or archaeology? Universities in the UK are doing research and offering courses that straddle different disciplines and are looking to equip students with critical thinking and transferable skills.

At the University of York, for instance, the Institute for Safe Autonomy looks at application of autonomous systems, robotics and AI, and their ethical, social and regulatory implications. This interdisciplinary approach, with schools for business & society, and creative arts & technology, "enables you to produce outcomes for students that are very pertinent to the modern labour market,"vice-chancellor & president Charlie Jeffery told FE.

Universities find that more and more employers in the UK are not looking at the subject of study, but at analytical skills a graduate has picked up while earning degree.

Durham University has seen psychology and behavioural sciences students being recruited by auditing firms like Deloitte and EY. A significant portion of biosciences students at the University of Manchester take up non-science, analytical roles at pharma companies or auditors like PricewaterhouseCoopers. Besides, some emerging fields and technologies of the future', such as nanomaterials, are by their nature interdisciplinary.