Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT), a grant awarding body with the aim of enabling all ex-Service personnel and their families to have a successful and sustainable transition to civilian life, has just passed a significant milestone – their 100th grant award.

The award to Cranfield University, for £96,688, coincides with the celebration of 100 years of women serving in the UK Armed Forces. The focus of this work is to explore the transition that female Service leavers make from the Armed Forces to civilian employment.

The decision to commission this research came about as FiMT identified a lack of evidence about the employment outcomes for female Service leavers.  Cranfield School of Management, in partnership with the Institute for Employment Studies, were appointed to deliver this research following a competitive tender process.

The statistics suggest that after leaving Service, women are less likely than their male counterparts to gain paid employment and are more likely to be economically inactive. This research aims to shed light for the first time on this field to understand the reasons women leave, why their outcomes are different to their male counterparts, and how these different outcomes might be addressed.

The research will consist of a mixed approach and will also make comparisons between female Service leavers and women in the labour market in general, including employment, unemployment and inactivity rates.

Emma Parry, Professor of Human Resource Management and Head of the School’s Changing World of Work group, said: “There is a lack of evidence about the employment outcomes for female Armed Forces leavers, but what data is available seems to suggest that women struggle more to obtain paid employment in civilian life. Through our research, we will endeavour to find out if this is the case, why it might be happening and what the Government, business and society can do about it.

“We are delighted to have been commissioned by the Forces in Mind Trust to carry out this important piece of work, and are looking forward to getting started.”

Ray Lock, Chief Executive of Forces in Mind Trust said: “It’s fantastic that as we celebrate 100 years of women serving in the UK Armed Forces, our 100th grant award relates to gaining a better understanding of their outcomes post-service.

“We at Forces in Mind Trust have, over the past five years, funded several pieces of research relating to employment outcomes – which can be a critical component of successful transition.  In this case it is the outcomes of female Service leavers where we are focusing.”

-Ends-

Note to Editor:  Ray Lock is available for interview. To arrange please contact Tina McKay, Communications Officer at FiMT on co@fim-trust.org or on 07956 101132 or 0207 901 8916.

About the Forces in Mind Trust (FiMT):

FiMT came about from a partnership between the Big Lottery Fund (‘the Fund’), Cobseo (The Confederation of Service Charities) and other charities and organisations. FiMT continues the Fund’s long-standing legacy of support for veterans across the UK with an endowment of £35 million awarded in 2012. http://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/.

The mission of FiMT is to enable ex-Service personnel and their families make a successful and sustainable transition to civilian life, and it delivers this mission by generating an evidence base that influences and underpins policy making and service delivery.

FiMT awards grants (for both responsive and commissioned work) to support its change model around 6 outcomes in the following areas: Housing; Employment; Health and wellbeing; Finance; Criminal Justice System; and Relationships. All work is published in open access and hosted on the Forces in Mind Trust Research Centre’s Veterans and Families Research Hub. A high standard of reportage is demanded of all grant holders so as to provide a credible evidence base from which better informed decisions can be made.

Useful links

Website: www.fim-trust.org

Reports: www.fim-trust.org/reports/

Who we have helped: www.fim-trust.org/who-we-have-helped/

Twitter: @FiMTrust

For further information from Cranfield University please contact:

Media Relations, Cranfield University. T: +44 (0) 1234 75 4999

Email: mediarelations@cranfield.ac.uk

 About Cranfield University

Cranfield is an exclusively postgraduate university that is a global leader for education and transformational research in technology and management.

In November 2017, the University was granted Silver Employer Recognition by the Ministry of Defence. The award recognises organisations that pledge, demonstrate or advocate support to the Armed Forces community and share the values defined in the Armed Forces Covenant.

 Cranfield School of Management

Cranfield has been a world leader in management education and research for 50 years, helping individuals and organisations learn and succeed by transforming knowledge into action. We are dedicated to creating responsible management thinking, improving business performance and inspiring the next generation of business leaders. We work to change the lives of our students and executives by encouraging innovation and creative thinking, as well as the drive to succeed and make a real impact on their organisations.

Organisations as diverse as Jaguar Land Rover, BAE Systems, Royal Dutch Shell, L’Oréal, UNICEF and the African Development Bank have benefited from our work, which ranges from management research projects, through staff talent management development on our MBA courses, to customised executive programmes.

Cranfield is one of an elite group of Schools worldwide to hold the triple accreditation of: AACSB International (the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), EQUIS (European Quality Improvement System) and AMBA (the Association of MBAs).

It is in the Top 10 International Business Schools in the Forbes’ ranking.