We are pleased to announce that Phoebe Miles (from the School of Education and English) and Yue Zhao (from the School of International Communications) were the runners-up at the U21/PwC Innovation Challenge Competition 2021.

The competition attracted 28 entries from different universities in the U21 network; all runners-up will be awarded online career training and mentoring from PwC.

This year's challenge invited graduate students from across the network to submit a three-minute video to suggest initiatives that could be undertaken by governments, businesses, or education providers to help improve and maintain collective sustainable prosperity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the global economy and further exposed the inadequacies of our current economic structures, highlighting a growing imbalance between people's current skills and the needs of the workplace. Using the Upskilling for Shared Prosperity report by the World Economic Forum and PwC as a starting point, students were asked to address how to narrow the widening skills gap.