VIRTUAL MADRID FOCUS ON PEDAGOGY

Abstract

University of the Arts London is the largest specialist art and design institution in Europe. It is composed of six colleges across the city, with Camberwell, Chelsea, and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts, Design and Performance working collectively under the CCW umbrella. As pressures increase across the higher education sector, student survey results and the integration of B3 metrics into the Teaching Excellence Framework, have sharpened attention on improving graduate outcomes for all learners. While industry continues to seek technically skilled workers, there is also demand for diverse, creative, reflective, and community-minded problem-solvers—qualities that arts graduates are particularly well equipped to offer. UAL has long supported curriculum development through the implementation of institutional frameworks. A challenge is the limited ability frameworks offer to ensure consistent implementation across all programmes, making it difficult to report an institutional narrative. CCW has introduced an action-based strategy through a newly validated Professional Futures unit. Developed collaboratively with a broad group of stakeholders, the unit embeds staff and student voice. Its development model and implementation plan place emphasis on the distinctive skills and attributes cultivated within art and design education. Rather than relying on the vague notion of “transferable skills,” the unit enables students to earn academic credit for explicit engagement with, and reflection on, their professional knowledge and capabilities. Echoing Rachel Moseley’s recent call to strengthen SHAPE (social sciences, humanities, and arts for people and the economy) alongside STEM, this work creates dedicated curricular space to generate tangible, credit-bearing evidence of students’ competencies, supporting clearer and more meaningful reporting.