24 June 2025
By Kieron Chadwick
About a year ago, I, alongside fellow University of Staffordshire lecturer Dr. Karen Castle, began researching the ‘dissemination habits’ of our Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship (CMDA) apprentices. One of several apprenticeship programmes offered by Staffordshire Business School, CMDA sees individuals from a range of public and private sector employers complement learning on the job, complimented by university study for roughly 20% of their time. Towards the end of the programme, the apprentices produce a work-based project, the equivalent of an honours project on a full-time degree, which requires them to implement a significant change in the workplace.
By ‘dissemination habits,’ we mean the ways in which apprentices share the findings of their work-based projects with others both inside and outside their organisation. Karen and I were interested in this because we had seen apprentices do some amazing things with their projects, work that changed their organisations’ fortunes and, in some cases, even saved lives. Our research involved interviewing apprentices to find out how they shared these findings, and what we quickly noticed was that apprentices wanted to share them externally, but needed to find a ‘good home’ for them. From this, we identified a gap in the market: the opportunity for a journal that bridges the divide between academia and practice. Subsequently, the Journal of Vocational Research and Practice (JVRP) was born.
We don’t want JVRP to be just for apprentices. It’s a home for any work-based learner – whether that’s apprentices, full-time students on placements, or those employed full-time and studying qualifications in their own time at their own cost. We also don’t want it to be level-restrictive. It shouldn’t matter whether you’re studying at Level 2 or Level 8; if you have something new and innovative to offer, we want to hear about it.
To support this, we offer diverse submission formats. These include traditional 5,000–10,000-word peer-reviewed articles, but also shorter 1,500–2,000-word reflective pieces or accounts of practice, and even 10-minute poster presentations with accompanying MP3 audio, for those wanting a visual and auditory alternative. Our most exciting initiative, however, is our Hackathon Special Issues. These are themed calls where we, or a guest editor, present a pressing challenge and invite submissions on how to address it. We currently have one running on innovative support mechanisms in apprenticeships, with many more to come.
If there’s one thing we want to achieve with this journal, it’s empowering people and giving them a voice. We believe innovation can come from anyone, at any level, in any sector; and too often, that’s missed. JVRP is a space where practice meets research, and where ideas born in the workplace can find a wider audience and make a bigger impact. For our recent launch, we put together a special editorial issue written by our board, focused on how to craft these projects, package them up, and share them effectively. We call it our ‘dissemination toolkit’ – and we encourage you to take a look!