The Chinese government has placed workforce upskilling at the core of its reform agenda to sustain the Chinese “economic miracle.” As such, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS) and Ministry of Education (MOE) have each launched separate apprenticeship reforms geared towards enhancing China's oft-criticized vocational education and training system. Using a self-constructed theoretical framework, this article examines the two reforms and ascribes their divergent outcomes to the two ministries’ distinct approaches to institutionalizing their central initiatives (i.e. the top-down model followed by the MOHRSS versus the collaborative model of the MOE). However, given the absence of industry-level civil society governance in China, neither of these models has delivered ideal training outcomes, although the collaborative model has satisfied more employers and apprentices. China's skills-development reforms have thus become trapped in an institutional dilemma which is likely to impede the long-term economic restructuring efforts of the central state.

Implementation of clinically useful research discoveries in the academic environment is challenged by limited funding for early phase proof-of-concept studies and inadequate expertise in product development and commercialization. To address these limitations, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the National Centers for Accelerated Innovations (NCAI) program in 2013. Three centers competed successfully for awards through this mechanism. Here, we present the experience of one such center, the Boston Biomedical Innovation Center (B-BIC), and demonstrate its remarkable success at the translation of innovations to clinical application and commercialization, as well as skills development and education.

Mini-sabbaticals are formal short-term training and educational experiences away from an investigator’s home research unit. These may include rotations with other research units and externships at government research or regulatory agencies, industry and non-profit programs, and training and/or intensive educational programs. The National Institutes of Health have been encouraging training institutions to consider offering mini-sabbaticals, but given the newness of the concept, limited data are available to guide the implementation of mini-sabbatical programs. In this paper, we review the history of sabbaticals and mini-sabbaticals, report the results of surveys we performed to ascertain the use of mini-sabbaticals at Clinical and Translational Science Award hubs, and consider best practice recommendations for institutions seeking to establish formal mini-sabbatical programs.

Reflective journals have been used as an assessment tool in clinical practice, in the fully integrated context directed learning (CDL) undergraduate program at the University of South Australia, over a period of five years. This paper reports the commonest issues evidenced within the year 2 and year 3 reflective journals. The results confirm that these are linked to the stage of development and experience of the students in both academic knowledge and clinical practice. Quotations from the journals give an insight into students' experiences of both emotional and practical skills development.