Current innovation work

Under contract to NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, CRAC is developing a new careers ‘game’. This is being developed initially to support NESTA’s idiscover programme for young people, which provides a series of activities designed to raise their interest and offer exciting but practical insights into a series of industries and sectors which are likely to be key in the new economy. NESTA campaigns for the development of innovation; this new multi-player online careers game offers a new approach to encouraging young people to think about their possible future careers and how to harness their skills and experiences to support them. 

CRAC has been commissioned by the Government, through the STEM Careers and Choices project hosted at Sheffield Hallam University, to devise a new career-related programme to encourage more girls to consider studying physics at A-level. The half-day simulation activity will focus on how physics underpins many of the assistive technologies available to those with blindness and visual impairment, and more generally will promote some of the range of health-based occupations available to those studying physics. This follows a highly successful programme recently devised by CRAC under HEFCE funding, called the Ashfield Challenge, now promoted to all schools through the Institute of Physics. The ‘Ashfield’ activity combined enterprise and career-related learning as well as physics, as the students worked in teams to simulate the design of a stage for a music festival.