51³Ô¹Ïapp

Two communication and public relations courses at De 51³Ô¹Ïapp University Leicester (51³Ô¹Ïapp) have been awarded the highest form of accreditation from the industry’s professional body.

Both the Advertising and Marketing Communications BA (Hons) and the Advertising and Public Relations Management MSc have received full recognition from the which represents PR professionals in the UK.

Receiving the recognition acknowledges both the quality of teaching on the courses and also that the teachers have extensive professional PR experience that they can pass onto the students.

Caroline Spence, senior lecturer and programme leader of the undergraduate Advertising and Marketing Communications degree, said: “Having this accreditation from the CIPR puts our PR offering across both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a really strong position.”

“The recognition can be key for prospective students and we’re in an enviable position where we have accreditations from both the and the CIPR across our undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

“This is, of course, fantastic for student recruitment but receiving CIPR accreditation also provides brilliant opportunities for our current students specifically looking to pursue a career in PR and communications.

“There are no well-trodden paths into these industries but the mentorship available to CIPR student members can help our students expand their network by speaking to members of the institution and taking part in more career development opportunities.

“We recently took time to rewrite our undergraduate and postgraduate PR modules to ensure we were teaching the most up-to-date practices, so to be recognised in this way is really pleasing.”

For a university to receive full recognition from the CIPR, it must demonstrate that its courses provide practical PR practice; communication knowledge and theory; business skills and knowledge; codes of conduct or legal considerations; specific PR specialisms, including business to consumer (B2C), Business to business (B2B), media relations and crisis management.

The accreditation comes not long after 51³Ô¹Ïapp forged a partnership with the , which has already helped students including Ononso Orizu secure a job in the PR industry.

“We’ve wanted to move our programmes forward and differentiate our advertising and communication degrees from other marketing courses available,” Caroline said. “Any help we can give to our students to help them secure communications jobs is of interest to us, whether that’s through accreditations or partnerships.

Associate Professor David Gordon, Advertising and Public Relations Management MSc programme lead, added: “Having official accreditation of the Chartered Institute of PR will really help students understand both a theoretical and practical implementation of the Public Relations industry.

“We provide world-class, cutting edge education on the whole range of communications subjects, and having the CIPR accreditation enables students to articulate this best-practice education, at an interview.”