In for the long haul – models of sustained graduate support and education

This paper seeks to articulate the problem of lack of timeliness in the provision of support for graduating students. The authors demonstrate how drawing together employability and enterprise support in the period after graduation can address that problem and present a narrative of a knowledge exchange (KE), showing how KE has the potential to enhance the delivery of enterprise education. Two distinct areas of literature provide the theoretical basis for the paper: the extensive enterprise education literature and the much less extensive work on KE and knowledge transfer (KT). The authors explain their KE process and draw on external and internal evaluation evidence from graduate support programmes to highlight the importance of links between theory and practice in delivery settings. They envisage a model that does not treat entrepreneurship and employment as necessarily separate career choices, recognizes the need to align funding for both streams of support, reinforces the value of engaging with employers to develop graduate career options, and emphasizes the importance of a focus on the years after graduation. The paper contributes to the debate about models of enterprise education and provides insight into KE in this context.