The Making the Most of Masters project ended in 2016. This website is no longer updated, but it is available here as an archive.

Learning to Work

The Making the Most of Masters (MMM) project began in 2010 as part of the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Learning to Work 2 (LTW2) scheme. It was a curriculum development project designed to test and embed the use of external Work Based Projects (WBPs) as an alternative to the traditional academic Masters dissertation.

 The project team also developed a deep understanding of the challenges and benefits of offering WBPs in a range of different Masters programmes, involving many different employers and economic sectors.  A comprehensive  has been developed.  These resources are free to use and available from the Making the Most of Masters website.

 An economic impact study of Making the Most of Masters estimated its total value at between £3.75M and £6.2M for academic years 2011/12 and 2012/13. MMM won the 2013 Times Higher Award for Outstanding Employer Engagement Initiative.

 

Times Higher Education Awards Logo

 

Making the Most of Masters focuses on bringing together strategic partners from across Scotland to work collaboratively to implement the MMM methodology supporting postgraduate students and enhancing university-business engagement.

MMM has grown from the initial pilot MMM programme to a collaborative partnership with a total of  across Scotland. By the end of academic year 2015/16, approximately 1500 WBPs had been completed across the partnership with a refresh of the toolkit and a new website launched. 

The Project has created a MMM Hub, hosted by the University of Stirling to promote the MMM methodology at a national level.

It aims to achieve this by:

  • continuing to build experience of rolling out the MMM initiative across institutions and into new and high-quality Work Based Project placements;
  • increasing the awareness of the  providing information and guides, in line with current legislation, guidelines and thinking surrounding WBPs;
  • developing best practice (UK QAA Guidelines) credit-bearing Work Based Projects and placements;
  • share experience of creative and strategic approaches to employer engagement and associated curriculum innovation through , workshops and  including successful networking events, links to business parks and networks, and employer and professional organisations.