Take innovation to implementation

Explore open-access tools, frameworks, and case studies that make work-integrated learning (WIL) scalable and sustainable across higher education.

About the Hub

The WIL Accelerator Resource Hub is an open-access library built to help higher education leaders, industry, and innovators turn ideas into action.

Each resource reflects lessons learned from pilots, research, and collaborations across the Accelerator network—tested models that anyone can adapt, apply, and build upon.

Whether you’re integrating real-world projects into the curriculum, designing workforce partnerships, or testing digital WIL tools, this hub connects you to the frameworks and insights shaping the future of higher education.

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Articles

How UVA is Taking Action and Flooding the Zone

In this disappearing internship market, with the quantity of internships decreasing and the competitiveness of landing one increasing, UVA is stepping up with an alternative. A study by "The Agility Imperative" reinforces that students need diverse applications of their knowledge to be competitive in today's job market. For many students, especially those with tight academic, athletic, or work schedules, an in-person internship, particularly over the summer, simply isn't feasible. UVA's Career Academies offer a solution, a no-cost way to build experience and skills through virtual projects with real employers, paired with free Google Career Certificates. As traditional internships become harder to come by, UVA's approach shows there's more than one way for students to build the experience employers are looking for.

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Research/Reports

Building Better Internships

Internships are one of the most effective ways to help students successfully transition from college to careers, leading to stronger employment outcomes, higher earnings, and greater career readiness. However, many students face significant barriers to accessing internship opportunities, especially paid ones. Using national survey data, the report emphasizes that internship quality depends on the provision of meaningful work, skill development, mentorship, networking opportunities, and connections to academic learning. This report calls on colleges, employers, and policymakers to expand access to paid, high-quality internships.

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Research/Reports, Videos/Webinars

Belongingness during Work-Integrated Learning for Healthcare Students

Elon University presents a study that examined 79 healthcare students and their experience of professional and social belonging during work-integrated learning (WIL). While students generally felt respected and competent, their sense of connectedness to colleagues was consistently the weakest area but placements of six weeks or more were linked to stronger belonging overall. The study concluded that learning through WIL experiences must extend beyond technical skills, clinical placements must also ensure healthcare students feel socially connected and valued, as it directly impacts their professional identity and long-term retention in the field.

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Articles

What Makes Work-Based Learning Work at Scale?

Efforts to scale work-based learning don’t fail for lack of effort. They fail because the incentives and infrastructure to make it work at scale aren’t there. Break Through Tech has been stepping up, stepping in, innovating and delivering work-based learning programs with transformational outcomes for 10 years. We’ve learned a lot along the way about what makes for effective programs. With respect to scale, here is what we see.

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Articles

From case study to real-world: Scaffolding work-integrated learning to apply classroom learning

To bring more practical learning into an organizational behavior course, the University of Waterloo's Centre for Work-Integrated Learning partnered with the Accounting and Financial Management program to create a more practical learning experience by integrating a real-world case study into an organizational behavior course. Instead of working directly with industry partners, students completed a consulting-style project that applied classroom concepts to realistic workplace challenges while strengthening skills such as teamwork, communication, critical thinking, and problem-solving. The initiative demonstrated that guided learning can effectively bridge the gap between theory and practice while preparing students for future work-integrated learning experiences.

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Guides/Templates

A First-Year Seminar Syllabus for Transfers Using Work-Integrated Learning

University of Maryland Baltimore County's syllabus for the class UNIV 301: Introduction to the University Seminar for transfer students.
A course for first-year students focused on personal and professional development, academic success, and establishing a sense of belonging, with Work-Integrated Learning as a core component.

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Guides/Templates

A First-Year Seminar Syllabus Using Work-Integrated Learning

University of Maryland Baltimore County's syllabus for the class UNIV 101: Introduction to the University Seminar. A course for first-year students focused on personal and professional development, academic success, and establishing a sense of belonging, with Work-Integrated Learning as a core component.

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Guides/Templates

Reflective Prompt Library: Mapping Learning to Professional Skill Sets

The University of North Texas (UNT) is currently developing a reflective prompt library to help faculty and staff integrate career-connected reflection into curriculum and advising. It outlines reflection prompts and implementation strategies that enable students to recognize, articulate, and apply durable skills throughout their academic journey. The library will continue to evolve through pilot testing and stakeholder feedback.

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Articles

The WIL Operating System

As work-integrated learning (WIL) gains momentum across higher education institutions, funding agencies, and industry partners, an opportunity has emerged to fundamentally reconceptualize how we understand and operationalize experiential education.

The most successful institutions recognize that delivering work-integrated learning consistently and equitably requires intentional architecture: coordinated systems of governance, partnerships, pedagogies, and support mechanisms capable of generating diverse experiential opportunities across student populations. Rather than treating internships, co-operative placements, industry sponsored capstone projects or clinical rotations as work-integrated learning itself, these institutions have reimagined their programs by evaluating the systematic architecture that creates those experiences.

Institutions that successfully scale experiential learning understand that work-integrated learning is embedded within the educational system and not simply an add on. They have constructed robust infrastructure that consistently produces diverse, high-quality experiences through developing relationships in a multi-stakeholder ecosystem including: employers, community organizations, professional associations, and academic departments to provide experiential benefits to the student body as a whole.

These in turn enable student outcomes including skill development, career readiness, professional identity formation, and employment success. Critically, these institutions recognize that broad participation and equitable access across diverse student populations serve as a fundamental measure of a successful, functioning system.

This paper advances the concept that delivering work-integrated learning consistently and equitably at scale requires intentional institutional architecture that includes a coordinated framework of policy, partnership, pedagogy, and support mechanisms designed to generate career-connected learning opportunities for all students.

This strategy invites stakeholders to shift from a tactical view that asks, “How do we create more internships?” to a systemic inquiry, “What architecture can we build that produces sustainable and equitable access to experiential learning for all students?”

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