Bushra Zalloom, a PhD researcher at Birmingham City University and the first female from Jordan to complete a PhD research course in Urban Landscape Architecture in the UK, will work with IE. The collaboration is part of her KED project, to assess the impact of IE's rebrand of University of Birmingham's Careers Network. Our work has seen a dramatic impact on the performance of the service and has been recently shortlisted for two awards for Best Visual ID and Best Use of Visual property at Europe’s Transform Awards – both IE and University of Birmingham are keen to investigate the areas in which the work has been most impactful.

The KED programme is funded through the Arts and Humanities Research Council with collaboration between the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University, Coventry University and Sheffield Hallam University and involves partnerships with a range of non-academic organisations. Knowledge exchange is achieved through pairing student researchers with individuals from the partner organisations to work on an agreed project for a short period. It provides PhD and Early Career Researchers with career development opportunities outside the academy. Jayne Sharples who runs the KED project said: “The project with IE Design Consultancy promises to provide us with an excellent case study demonstrating the value a researcher can add by taking their research expertise into a partner organisation.”

Bushra is creating a framework that helps in assessing the impacts of branding as part of her research studies, and will look to develop her experience on this project with IE: “there are many similarities in the objectives of this project and part of my PhD research at BCU. They both focus on assessing social impacts, understanding the target groups’ needs, early engagement for stakeholders, increasing awareness and branding aspects. I believe that IE and myself will exchange knowledge in a dynamic way, helping IE to achieve its goal and allowing me to benefit from their experience as experts.”

IE is always keen to offer something back to local businesses and enthusiastic individuals – Managing Director Ollie Leggett was recently among the first group ever to receive a Visiting Fellowship from Aston University for his work on the 10,000 Small Businesses Scheme developing ties between local businesses and Aston Business School. The KED project works in a similar nature, developing ties between students, local businesses and the KED representatives.

IE’s Managing Director who worked with Careers Network to deliver much of the rebrand recognises the importance of measuring and celebrating the impact of our work: “IE is obsessed by measuring the impact of our work. In an industry where style and creative flair can safely be taken for granted we differentiate IE through our values, our sector specific expertise and – critically – the ROI we can deliver to clients. The KED project promises to provide us with a robust, independent piece of research that will measure the impact of our work for a prestigious client – University of Birmingham – whose project has already generated substantial interest from many other UK universities and careers professionals across the world.”

Learn more about Bushra in her researcher profile available here.

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