Born Global: Implications for Higher Education

Born Global was a British Academy project (2014-2016) on language skills for employability, trade and business.

The British Academy set out to develop a deeper understanding of the language needs for employment, employer attitudes to languages and how languages are used in the workplace for different purposes, by employees of different levels of skill and accountability. Alongside analysis of existing British Cohort Study data, the British Academy commissioned a range of new research, both quantitative and qualitative, including a nationally representative survey of SMEs, and a survey of the Education and Employers Taskforce’s Inspiring the Future Network members.

This report, Born Global: Implications for Higher Education, considers the current state of language learning in England and discusses how findings from the Born Global project could help to bring about both a reversal of some of the more alarming trends facing these subjects in higher education and a realisation of the potential of language learning to enhance careers, intellects, the economy and the cultural life of the nation.