Skillset and what it means to Media students
Falmouth is now a member of the Skillset Media Academy Network – a UK-wide group of institutions identified as centres of excellence in creative media education and training – bringing with it an incredible new range of opportunities for our students.
“The industry support behind the Skillset Media Academy Network is a who’s who of leading and innovative media organisations,” says Clive Jones CBE, Skillset chair, and chairman of both GMTV and Two Way TV. A national footprint of 17 colleges and universities working with key media businesses, the Skillset network sees the world’s foremost academics, content creators, computer games developers, software programmers and creative artists working with the industry to develop talent, creativity and business ideas to exploit new technologies and opportunities in the media. The style concepts and media content of the future – tomorrow’s Facebook, YouTube and Bebo – are likely to be created by the new wave of talent emerging through Skillset.
Cornwall Skillset Media Academy (a partnership between University College Falmouth, Cornwall College and Truro College as members of the Combined Universities in Cornwall) has been established as a centre of excellence in the design and delivery of practice-based media education and training. It celebrates innovation and creativity through close collaboration between education and business, building on strong partnerships that the College already has with broadcasters, training organisations and media production companies.
Falmouth is now fully positioned to make the most of opportunities within markets, networks and communities, which, in turn, will re-shape the fabric of the media industries in Cornwall and the South West.
Furthermore, this initiative has substantial European Union support, which will enable high value media research, innovation and enterprise activity to be drawn into the region from around the world and place Cornwall on an international stage. Exciting times indeed.
“Media organisations are looking for people who do things very differently,” says Greg Dyke, former Director General of the BBC, Skillset patron and Chair of the Media Academy approvals panel. “You go into a college or university in the Skillset Media Academy Network and you find people who are working with industry and doing remarkable things that aren’t predictable – and that’s what we’re looking for all the time.” Clare Pickering, Director of Production at Endemol UK, agrees: “Innovation in content creation is the life blood of our industry. Skillset’s network of centres of excellence will greatly benefit us all. We look forward to developing opportunities for students to work on real-life projects with our company.”
Being part of the Skillset Media Academy Network – with its unrivalled reputation and clout within the industry – provides the ideal environment to develop leading-edge creativity, innovation and talent. We can’t wait to see the results.
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