FDTL Projects
The Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning (FDTL) is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and the Department for Higher and Further Education and Employment. Project bids were invited from higher education institutions that demonstrated high quality in their educational provision, as judged by the teaching quality assessment exercise.

This Project

'Inter-Professional Collaboration: Simulating Partnership Working in the Built Environment' is an FDTL (phase 3) project, funded from November 2000 to 2003. It is more commonly known as the 'Better Together' project.

A key recommendation of the Urban Task Force Report (1999) was the establishment of:
"joint working between professional institutions, education providers and employers to develop a plan of action for improving the skills-base in urban development over the next five to seven years".

In response to this, the project aims to explore how inter-professional collaboration in the built environment can be fostered and reflected in the built environment curriculum. Our working definition of inter-professional education is 'a learning process in which different professionals learn from and about each other in order to develop collaborative practice'.

Who's involved ?
Sheffield Hallam University, Kingston University and Oxford Brookes University are working collaboratively on this project, and the RICS, RTPI, CIH, CIOB and RIBA are represented on the project's steering group.

• identify the specific educational implications of inter-professionality
• collect and disseminate successful working curricular examples
• clarify the needs and priorities of stakeholders (employers, students, communities)
• try and resolve issues of embeddedness
• explore the implications with the professional institutes.

Project activities:

• workshops (to develop wider thought and action)
• seminars (to discuss effective practice and share information)
• academic papers
• a response to whatever else emerges as a key issue and can be addressed by the project.

Who will benefit?
All built environment schools and their students, the professional institutes, employers and wider community groups.