In 1989, Charles Handy predicted a future in which workers had more, shorter ‘careers’ trading on a portfolio of individual knowledge and skills. He suggested that fewer people would work inside organisations and that we would not be able to “use people as human resources, as if they were forklift trucks with brains, to move around at our disposal. These new workers have minds of their own and have to be persuaded rather than told what to do. They have to be led rather than managed, and that's very difficult and very different.” The future is here.
GETM3 – Global Entrepreneurial Talent Management 3 - focused on young talent as a key driver of future development, developed through cooperation of 3 stakeholders: employers (inc MNC & SME’s), universities and students/graduates. Despite a widely recognized importance of young talent (e.g. Europe 2020), its potential remains largely untapped. They are educated and entrepreneurial and yet experience instability in employment. At the same time, employers report skills mismatch and difficulties with attracting, managing and retaining young talent. To tackle this paradoxical situation, an innovative, multi-perspective approach was needed, reinforced by our 16 partner consortium; comprising of a transnational, inter-disciplinary, inter-generational, gender balanced and inter-sectorial research team. The main objective of GETM3 was to improve employability and future global talent management to support economic development by capitalizing on entrepreneurialism as a key characteristic of the young. To achieve this objective, the project was divided into seven work packages. Three WPs focused on in-depth research of specific issues from each of the stakeholder perspectives. The Integration and Innovation WP, essential for impact, aimed to integrate research outputs and develop GETM3 across dimensions: generations, genders, disciplines, countries, sectors and stakeholders. These were supported by a project management & administration WP and by the Researcher development, knowledge transfer & dissemination WP. In total, 292 mobility months were planned, 232 of those were for EU partners. Matched funding specially dedicated to H2020 was received from the Korean Research Foundation. The overall design of the project built impact through researcher mobility in two ways: researchers gained first hand and in-depth insights on specific issues from various perspectives, and developed their skills through networking and training incorporated into mobility with sandpit events. The final deliverable was a ‘legacy’ project to build upon experience and partnerships built during the project: GETM4 (started 2023).
Research Aims
1. Research deliverables to impact 3 stakeholder groups through knowledge transfer at national, European and global levels.
2. University researcher development through excellent, multi-discipline, international, innovative research, international exposure, mentoring, networking, training, dissemination.
3. Academic impact and esteem through high-ranking publication and dissemination on national, European and global levels.
4. Partnership development with Northumbria’s peers and industry companies and organisations through the project partners and beyond.