Lever For Change Research Articles

Scaling up effective juvenile delinquency programs by focusing on change levers: Evidence from a large meta‐analysis

AbstractResearch summaryThe primary outcome desired for juvenile delinquency programs is the cessation of delinquent and related problematic behaviors. However, this outcome is almost always pursued by attempting to change intermediate outcomes, such as family functioning, improved mental health, or peer relations. We can conceptualize intermediate outcomes that are related to reduced delinquency as change levers for effective intervention. A large meta‐analysis identified several school‐related change levers, including school engagement (i.e., improved attendance and reduced truancy), nondelinquent problem behaviors, and attitudes about school and teachers. In addition, family functioning and reducing substance use were also effective change levers. In contrast, effects on youth getting/keeping a job, peer relationships, and academic achievement were not associated with reduced delinquency.Policy implicationsOnly a small percentage of rehabilitative programs provided to youth involved in the juvenile justice system have been established as evidence based. Moreover, there are constraints on what local policy makers and practitioners can do regarding the selection, adoption, and implementation of programs from the available lists of evidence‐based programs. Adopting programs that focus on effective change levers and avoiding those that concentrate on ineffective ones has the potential to increase the likelihood that a local agency is engaged in effective programming. Based on our data, programs known to improve family functioning, attachment to and involvement in schooling, and reducing substance use are justified by the change lever evidence, even if these programs’ effectiveness in reducing delinquency has not been directly proven. In contrast, programs focusing on vocational skills, academic achievement, and peer relations are less likely to be beneficial. Furthermore, a change lever perspective can help frontline staff select appropriate programs for different juvenile offenders and focus their quality control efforts on those aspects of a program that are likely to be essential to maintaining effectiveness.

Built for Advocacy.

Advocacy is a lever for positive change and is most effective and satisfying when used proactively. It is also one of nurses' superpowers and desperately needed outside health care settings, especially in the policy arenas of local, state, and federal government. Despite nurses' being the largest segment of the health care workforce, their voices are often missing from crucial conversations about access to care, health inequities, and upstream problems affecting people's health. Short of being the policy makers themselves, the best way for nurses to affect these decisions is to build and use influence with policy makers. There are concrete steps that nurses can take to grab a seat at the table.

Intra‐Asian Creativity in Hong Kong Education and Activism

ABSTRACTThis essay draws on empirical research from two studies examining creativity, activism, and education in Hong Kong. We use a decolonizing and deimperializing approach to centering creativity as a lever for social change, and demonstrate the ways in which the specifics of culture, region, time, and place uniquely produce forms of creativity, as has long been documented by creativity scholars. We build upon Kuan‐hsing Chen's Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization (2010), applying it to creativity and the ways in which we can better attend to cultural and regional differences rather than adhere to universalizing “creative industries” or developmental psychological discourses. Here we are not interested in documenting “non‐western” modes of creativity, in the ways this has sometimes been addressed as local craft or traditional cultural practices. Rather, we advance a theory of intra‐Asian creativity (including Australia) with its own onto‐epistemological legacies and innovations. We celebrate these formations as emergent from and imbricated with conceptual traditions such as Taoism and Western knowledge systems, rejecting binarized individualist “versus” collectivist approaches. The emerging field of critical creativity studies points to the ways in which decolonizing, deimperializing and collaborative research are reorienting our work toward benefit for all, rather than the (white) (western) few.

What Cities Want to Measure: Bottom-Up Selection of Indicators for Systemic Change toward Climate Neutrality Aligned with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 40 European Cities

Cities are taking action to respond to climate change by designing and implementing sustainable solutions which provide benefits and challenges to citizens. Measuring the progress and effects of such actions at the urban level, beyond mere greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions quantification, is still an emerging research area. Based on data from the 40 European cities belonging to 20 pilot city programmes within the EU-funded NetZeroCities (NZC) project, cities’ selections and preferences for indicators for assessing their climate actions are analysed in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study provides bottom-up evidence of cities’ selection of non-GHG indicators through different levers of change, including participatory governance and social innovation, for assessing progress and the co-benefits of actions toward climate neutrality taken at the urban level. The resulting list of indicators, classified according to the SDGs, provides evidence of cities’ priorities and can be utilised by cities’ climate transition teams and also by researchers, as it highlights gaps and opportunities compared to extant literature.

The transformative potential of experimentation as an environmental governance approach: The case of the Dutch peatlands

AbstractGovernance of societal transformations toward sustainability is needed to address the fundamental system failures responsible for environmental problems. Possible transformation pathways range from radical shifts to more incremental change. Experimentation is seen as a form of incremental change, but its actual transformative potential is debated. The transformative potential of experimentation is especially questionable for environmental problems characterizing a “creeping crisis” because this problem type is not particularly a lever for social change. Our empirical research contributes to this debate by systemically evaluating the significance (degree of change) and sufficiency (reach of change) of experiments relating to an environmental problem characterizing a creeping crisis that appears to be predominantly governed through experimentation: land subsidence in Dutch peatlands. We found that experiments have indeed proved to be significant for local regime actors because most have tested technical innovations that kept the overall land use system intact. However, experimentation was less significant in terms of reflecting the complexity of environmental problems; that would require a more diverse set of technical, social, legal, and planning experiments from which the strategy most suitable for specific landscape contexts could be determined. We also found signs of accumulation of outcomes, but whether this eventually initiates transformative change or creates a technological lock‐in can only be determined with longitudinal research. To enhance the transformative potential of experimentation, particularly as a governance approach for creeping crises, attention must be paid to actor and institutional features since they shape experiments. Hence, we conclude with design principles for transformative experimentation.

An integrative model exploring normative, situational, attitudinal and self-related determinants of household food waste separation intention and habit and intention to deposit waste at disposal centres / Modelo integrador para explorar los determinantes normativos, situacionales, actitudinales y relacionados con el yo de la intención y el hábito de separar residuos alimentarios en el hogar, y de la intención de depositar

Faced with increasing waste production, authorities are seeking to encourage better household waste management and need to identify levers for change. We propose a model integrating the major determinants of pro-environmental behaviour assumed in prominent theoretical models. Based on meta-analytical evidence, we incorporated situational, normative, attitudinal and self-processes and tested this integrative model to predict intentions to perform two overlooked behaviours: food waste separation and deposit at waste disposal centres. To go beyond intention we also investigated habits to sort food waste. An online survey was administered to two samples ( Ntotal = 2,814) and data were analysed using structural equation modelling. The results showed a good fit of an integrative model ( CFIs > .917; TLIs > .910; RMSEAs < .043; SRMRs < .071). Waste management intentions and habits are directly predicted mainly by personal norms and perceived behavioural control. The latter is predicted by facilitating conditions and pro-environmental identity. Personal norms are predicted by social norms, pro-environmental identity and perceived behavioural control. Our results confirm the relevance of a model integrating situational, normative, attitudinal and self-processes to explain waste management intentions and provide a basis for the development of waste management interventions.

Theorising a spectrum of reasons for failure in knowledge brokering: a developmental evaluation

Background: Despite the growing interest in knowledge brokering as an approach to mobilising knowledge for societal benefit, research has only recently begun investigating the consequences of knowledge brokers’ actions. In particular, while it is known that failure can provide a valuable learning experience for individuals and organisations alike, very few studies have explored failure in knowledge brokering. Aims and objectives: With the aim of informing how knowledge brokers can navigate common professional challenges, this article discusses a spectrum of reasons for failure in the professional practice of knowledge brokering. Methods: Data for this article comes from a developmental evaluation of a network of knowledge brokers, focusing specifically on a set of semi-structured interviews (N = 20). Findings: The overarching themes identified in this study are organised according to the three constructs that knowledge brokers act upon in the i-PARIHS framework: innovation, recipients, and context. Knowledge brokers experienced different types of failure across these constructs, ranging from violations of prescribed practices and processes to exploratory testing. Discussion and conclusions: Failure is not a monolithic outcome, and future research could seek to identify levers for change regarding the failure experiences available to knowledge brokers. Additionally, it will not be enough to learn to fail; research and practice in knowledge brokering must learn to fail intelligently. Finally, failure cannot remain a private experience. Advancing the field of knowledge brokering will require researchers and practitioners to share when and how their efforts have failed.

Accreditation as a lever for change in the development of the collaborative practitioner in the Australian health system.

ObjectivePatient expectations in the Australian healthcare system are for coordinated, collaborative practice. There is a need for education institutions, health services, accreditation authorities, and consumers to work together to achieve this goal. As part of a larger body of work, we sought to understand how these stakeholders contribute to the development of collaborative healthcare practice.MethodNineteen focus groups were conducted in 2022 with 84 participants consisting of education providers (n=62), consumers (n=10), representatives from the Health Profession's Education Standing Group (n=8), and health service practitioners (n=4). Framework analysis was initially undertaken to understand facilitators of, and barriers to, collaborative practice and learning. In a secondary analysis, the themes were re-organised according to the Bolman and Deal domains of organisational practice, to make explicit the structural, human resource, political, and symbolic factors deemed useful for re-imaging a process for learning about and incentivising collaborative practice.ResultsThere are multiple factors across healthcare settings that both facilitate and challenge the development of collaborative practice. Co-location of professions and participation in formal interprofessional processes such as team meetings and handovers facilitated learning collaborative practice, although traditional cultures which perpetuate siloed models of healthcare, power differentials between the professions, funding structures, and information sharing limited opportunities. The 'value' of collaborative practice was facilitated through both consistent curriculum messages throughout health professional courses and positive role modelling.ConclusionsEducation institutions, health service practitioners, accreditation authorities, and consumers can work together to facilitate the development of collaborative practice through attention to policy and processes, curriculum activities, student participation, health service activities and practice, and resource allocation.

BEYOND THE COURTROOM: THE EVOLUTION OF RIGHTS-BASED CLIMATE LITIGATION FROM URGENDA TO HELD AND ITS POLICY IMPACT

This paper examines the growing trend of employing international and human rights law in domestic climate change lawsuits as a strategic tool for legal action. Using a qualitative and comparative analysis of seminal case law, such as Urgenda Foundation v the Netherlands and R (Friends of the Earth and others) v Heathrow Airport Ltd and Held v State, this paper aims to explain the juridical trajectories and methodologies employed in rights-based climate litigation. The primary objective is to critically evaluate the potential regulatory impact of this emergent jurisprudential paradigm on both domestic legislation and international climate change treaties. The study posits that when traditional enforcement mechanisms enshrined in international environmental law treaties prove ineffective, domestic litigation grounded in human rights claims serve as a catalyst for transformative jurisprudence. This, in turn, can exert substantial pressure on state and non-state actors, compelling them to adopt more strict regulatory measures to mitigate the effects of climate change. The aim of this paper is twofold: first, to elucidate the effectiveness and development of rights-based jurisprudence in climate litigation, and second, to assess its potential for influencing the creation of stronger regulatory mechanisms at both state and international levels. The paper argues that when international treaties fail to take adequate climate change action, domestic lawsuits based on human rights claims start to serve as a lever of change, pressuring both state and non-state actors into adopting more ambitious measures. The study underscores the importance of this rights-based approach not merely as a legal strategy but as a multifaceted tool for effectuating systemic regulatory advancements and fostering climate justice.

Sex Workers in Canada Face Unequal Access to Healthcare: A Systems Thinking Approach.

Despite Canada's universal health system, sex workers across the country face an alarmingly high number of barriers when they seek to healthcare services. This has resulted in unmet healthcare needs and substantially poorer health outcomes than the general Canadian population. The objective of this study was to use a systems thinking approach to gain an in-depth understanding of the barriers sex workers face and how access could be improved. The analysis was conducted using a systems thinking methodology, which incorporates systems tools and inquiry processes. The methodology comprised 2 domains of inquiry: (1) Problem Landscape, (2) Solutions Landscape. Systems tools and methods, such as causal loop diagrams, iceberg diagram, and systems mapping, investigated the problem landscape for understanding the interconnected nature of the issue, alongside review of both published and gray literature. An environmental scan explored the current solutions landscape. These methods connected through systemic inquiry processes, including ongoing review and application of diverse perspectives, boundary judgments, interrelationships; enabled gaps and levers of change to be determined. The main barriers sex workers face are stigma, criminalization, accessibility, and cost of healthcare. The stigma of sex work stems from otherization, paternalism, and moralistic, faith-based beliefs. The barriers unique to sex work are stigma and criminalization; both of which surface as avoidance, dislike, and/or fear of medical professionals. Five gaps each with a lever of change to improve access were identified: (1) Stigma - Collectivization and external collaboration, (2) Criminal status of sex work - Decriminalization, (3) Lack of adequate education - Improved healthcare professional training and anti-discriminatory health policies, (4) Lack of support - Increased community-based healthcare services, (5) Cost of healthcare - Universal coverage of "secondary" healthcare components. Through reducing the stigma surrounding sex work, making changes that improve the healthcare services that sex workers receive, and collaboration between involved parties, sex workers can be prevented from falling through the cracks of the Canadian healthcare system; lessening the health inequities sex workers face and improving their health outcomes.

Driving improvements in the quality, safety, consistency and coordination of care and support for children using health and social care services, through the collaborative development of national standards. 

Background: Ireland has national strategies and policies setting out the importance of integrated care and coordination of care and support between health and social care services, to enable children to get timely and appropriate care and support. Despite Government commitment to a coordinated approach, delivery of care and support to children continues to be inconsistent and fragmented. While children with complex needs are more likely to experience significant gaps and delays in the care and support they need, evidence shows that any child in need of care and support from a health or social care service is at risk of gaps and delays.
 The Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and the Mental Health Commission (MHC) are the regulatory bodies for health and social care services, and mental health services, in Ireland. To promote and support greater integration and collaboration between health and social care services, HIQA and the MHC worked together to develop national standards for all health and social care services working with children. Throughout the standards development process, we collaborated with children and families with lived experience, and advocates and staff working in health and social care services.
 Methods: These evidence-based standards cover all health and social care services working with children, including healthcare, disability, mental health and children’s social services. They provide a shared framework for all services and aim to support them to work together in a coordinated and collaborative way to improve the experience and outcomes of children and families.
 The standards were informed by a literature review, and extensive stakeholder involvement including focus groups with 217 children, young people and families with lived experience, advocates, staff, inspectors, and policy-makers; and 130 responses to two public consultations. An Advisory Group representing key stakeholders and a Children’s Reference Group informed the standards. The Children’s Reference Group comprised of young people and family members with experience of health and social care to ensure active people involvement and engagement in design and implementation of the standards. Their input helped ensure the standards authentically reflected what children should expect from a health and social care service committed to child-centred care. 
 
 Initiative: This is the first time a set of Irish national standards has been developed focused on the needs of all children across health and social care services. The standards are underpinned by the principles of a children’s rights-based approach, safety and wellbeing, responsiveness, and accountability. Presented in the child’s voice, they articulate what outcomes a child should expect and what a service needs to do to achieve these outcomes.
 Impact: These standards will help to drive quality, safety, consistency and coordination across health and social care services working with children, as all organisations and services will be operating to one set of consistent national standards. Although an important lever for change, we recognise that services will need tools to support implementation of the standards and we will work with the sector to identify and collaboratively develop relevant tools to support implementation of the standards in day-to-day practice.

Open Innovation in Schools: A New Imperative for Organising Innovation in Education?

Schools are considered knowledge-creating organisations that find it difficult to develop and implement innovations on their own. Knowledge mobilisation is seen as the key to overcoming this problem. In particular, the use of external sources of knowledge is regarded as an important lever for change. However, there is a lack of concepts and empirical studies in educational research on the extent to which external knowledge is used for innovation in schools. Based on a sample of N = 411 schools, this article explores whether the concept of open innovation can be used in the context of education. Originating from the field of innovation research, open innovation regimes are seen as imperative if organisations are to create and benefit from technology. Multinomial logistic regression analyses show that mobilising external knowledge significantly increases the likelihood of implementing innovations in schools. A machine-learning approach reveals that it is necessary to tailor open innovation regimes to the specific conditions of any given school. In particular, with regard to the use of new technologies and innovations in the field of digitalisation, open innovation can be a lever for change.

Barriers and Facilitators to Optimal Fluoride Varnish Application

ObjectiveNational guidelines recommend that all children under age six receive fluoride varnish (FV) in medical settings. However, application rates remain low. This study aimed to update understanding of barriers and facilitators to guideline concordant FV application. MethodsWe conducted virtual semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample (eg, FV application rates, geographic location, practice size and type) of pediatric primary care clinicians and medical assistants in Massachusetts between February 1 and June 30, 2022. The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) served as the study’s theoretical framework and data were analyzed using a modified grounded theory approach. ResultsOf the 31 participants, 90% identified as White and 81% as female. Major themes, which linked to four CFIR domains, included: variation in perceived adequacy of reimbursement; differences in FV application across practice types; variation in processes, protocols, and priorities; external accountability for quality of care; and potential levers for change. Important subthemes included challenges for small practices; role of quality measures in delivering guideline-concordant preventive oral health care; and desire for preventive care coordination with dentists. ConclusionsThis study suggests that potential barriers and facilitators to guideline concordant FV application exist at multiple levels that may warrant further study. Examples include testing the effectiveness of quality measures for FV application and testing strategies for implementing consistent processes and protocols for improving FV application rates.

Assessment of a medical student mentoring programme to improve attitudes related to grief and coping with death

ObjectivesTo evaluate the impact of a mentoring programme for medical students doing a palliative care rotation, aimed at improving coping with death and attitudes towards the suffering produced by illness. MethodsA quasi-experimental study without a control group was carried out on second-year medical students. Five 1-h group sessions were conducted. Attitudes towards grief and coping with death were assessed before the mentoring programme began and afterwards, using the Brief Humanizar Scale and the Bugen's Coping with Death Scale, respectively. ResultsIn terms of the sense of grieving as measured by the Brief Humanizar Scale, the mean score for the ‘Burden’ factor was 7 points and for the ‘Change’ factor it was 28.6, indicating that suffering makes more sense as a lever for positive change than as a burden. Regarding Bugen's Coping with Death Scale, the mean score was 127.8 points before the mentoring programme and 139.2 afterwards. Hence, the score after the mentoring programme increased by 11.4 points, improving strategies to cope with death. ConclusionMedical professionals must cope with death and end-of-life patients. In addition to scientific knowledge, students need to acquire competencies for better coping with the death of patients, with mentoring programmes helping to enhance this process of learning.

Transformative change for biodiversity requires more inclusive and participatory framing of research agendas

Science plays a crucial role in identifying transformative change trajectories that are positive for biodiversity and human well-being. The concept of transformative change for biodiversity is receiving increased attention both within the political as well as in the scientific arena, but what transformative change entails still remains scientifically unclear. In this paper we report on a research priority exercise undertaken at the 2022 Alternet conference in which conference participants within each session were asked to jointly propose research gaps relevant to transformative change. Thirteen research priorities are identified, emphasising the need to learn from doing through transdisciplinary participatory action research, involving multiple disciplines including social sciences and building on existing research on, for example, nature-based solutions, OneHealth and climate change. The identified research priorities were later analysed under the umbrella of transformative change principles as a proxy for science to act as a lever to realise transformative change for biodiversity. Mobilising scientific research, interdisciplinarity and co-construction with stakeholders and decision-makers is a necessary step forward to make transformative progress in developing the biodiversity research agenda. In this respect, transformative action by the scientific community to develop the research agenda in an all-inclusive participatory process can be seen as a lever of transformative change for biodiversity. Such an all-inclusive participatory process for the development of a long-term biodiversity research agenda is in accordance with building on an integrated and whole-of-society approach as included in the EU Biodiversity Strategy’s aims and priorities around enabling transformative change.

Examining Child, Family, Classroom, and School Factors Associated with Latinx Children’s Early Science Achievement

ABSTRACT Following a theoretical framework that recognizes the potential of promotive and inhibitive effects on children’s development, this study explored child-, family-, classroom-, and school-level factors as predictors of Latinx (N = 4,590) students’ early elementary science achievement. Research Findings: Employing a path modeling approach with ECLS-K:2011 data, we found that child factors were both positively (early reading, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and being older) and negatively (having a disability, being assessed in Spanish) associated with first-grade science achievement and gains between first and second grades. Family factors were also positively (higher parental education and family income) and negatively (children with foreign-born parents or who spoke Spanish at home) associated with initial science achievement but were unrelated to achievement gains. Frequency of teaching science, use of Spanish for instruction, and attending a school in the first grade with a larger percentage of Latinx children were associated with initial science achievement, while use of Spanish for instruction in first grade and whether the school made AYP in first grade predicted change in science through second grade. Policy or Practice: Results have implications for U.S. education policy, uncovering potential levers of change in supporting early science achievement among Latinx children.

Designing for empowering curriculum implementation

International advocacy for future-focused curriculum design often centres on the idea of “competencies” or “capabilities” as potentially transformative constructs for high-level curriculum frameworks. This trend is exemplified by the addition of “key competencies” to the 2007 New Zealand Curriculum. Despite good intentions, this structural change appears to have made minimal difference to the learning that many students experience, or to the assessment practices used to evaluate that learning. With a Curriculum Refresh currently underway, now is an opportune moment to revisit the use of competencies as a lever for curriculum change and ask how the type of transformative change they are intended to stimulate might be conveyed and implemented in more empowering ways.
 This paper introduces the idea of “enduring competencies” as an umbrella construct for more effective curriculum design conversations. Learning from what has proved problematic in the past, we show how this construct might refocus thinking about purposes for learning, while at the same time being more specific about how and why traditional curriculum “content” might need to change. We illustrate this potential by drawing on our recent collective endeavour to build a small set of enduring competencies for school science education. The paper briefly outlines these four enduring competencies and demonstrates how they build bridges between past (more traditional) and future-focused (more transformative) curriculum and assessment design for the science learning area.

Barriers to Graduate Applications: Perspectives of Undergraduate Students From Underrepresented Backgrounds in Communication Science and Disorders

Purpose: The purpose of this preliminary study was to examine the perspectives of students from underrepresented backgrounds on the graduate school application process and identify ways to improve diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in communication science and disorders. Method: A novel 15-item survey was used to solicit information about the experiences and perspectives of the graduate application process from 39 senior undergraduate students in a communication science and disorders program. Semistructured interviews were then conducted with seven students from underrepresented backgrounds to further explore perceived barriers to graduate applications and potential resources and supports. Results: Results demonstrated a variety of factors, including financial demands, Graduate Record Examinations requirements, and program location and prestige, that influenced student decision making during the application process. Students from underrepresented backgrounds reported applying to more programs on average but engaged in numerically fewer hours of research and practicum experiences than peers from majority backgrounds. The most significant barriers to the graduate application process included learning and mentorship challenges during COVID-19, limited experiential learning opportunities, and difficulties forming social connections. Departmental support, application assistance, and mentorship initiatives were highlighted as potential levers of change. Conclusions: Based on reported barriers to the graduate application process, more research is necessary to further investigate the extent these factors influence achievement, retention, and overall success of students from underrepresented backgrounds. Additional resources and supports, especially those recommended by students in this study, may serve as potential action steps to improve diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in communication science and disorders programs. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23519058

Beyond Law as a Tool of Public Health: Vaccines in Interdisciplinary Sociolegal and Science Studies

Research on vaccines in the law and social sciences skews heavily toward an instrumentalist approach to knowledge in service of vaccine promotion. Overcoming hesitancy and promoting vaccine acceptance have been major goals, but successful levers for behavioral change remain elusive. Research with constructivist approaches to vaccines from feminist sociology and anthropology has uncovered ethnographic richness to describe how vaccine debates illuminate inequalities in parenting and re-entrench patterns of racism and colonialism. There is considerable potential in science and technology studies approaches that take seriously the materiality and movement of vaccines in networks of production, finance, and global politics, though there are considerable methodological challenges for these research designs. This review charts the lopsided bibliography of law and social science research on vaccines, asking why scholars rarely move away from instrumentalist conceptions of law in the service of public health and, when they do, explaining what theoretical tools enable it.

Designing futures through student engagement: A policy futures perspective

Futures research is gaining increased prominence in educational research and development ( Tesar, 2021 ), and particularly now as we emerge from the global COVID-19 pandemic, which has provided a lever for change and an opportunity for innovation in learning, teaching and assessment ( Hall et al., 2020 ; Jandrić et al., 2022 ; Tesar, 2020 ). Designing Futures (DF) is an initiative that aims to transform the student learning experience at university, including through promoting student entrepreneurship and enhanced interaction with enterprise, industry and the innovation sector, supported by a national employability policy agenda, and concomitant, significant government funding. Ireland’s Higher Education Authority has invested €7.57 m in the DF programme at University of Galway for a period of 5 years, 2020–2025. However, introducing such a programme as DF within higher education raises problematic tensions around the purpose of higher education today, as set amidst the current policy futures perspective. Specifically, how do we balance policy imperatives to work more closely with enterprise and industry, while at the same time protecting the essential role of higher education, which must be to provide a formative context for all students to reach their fullest potential as active citizens? This paper helps to position the concept of student engagement, taking DF as an exemplar initiative, and examining the concept as it is construed and deployed in an innovative, futures-oriented educational programme. This review is critical for DF, to ensure we remain fundamentally focused on education, and not just for the world of work, which is of course important, but beyond enterprise and industry: to ensure students’ readiness for the complex and challenging world of today and tomorrow. Furthermore, this constitutes an important contribution to the literature, at a time when the identity of the university and purpose of higher education are the focus of an educationally problematic neoliberal agenda ( Mintz, 2021 ).