Greater collaboration between arts subjects and Stem subjects can benefit students, according to a campaigner.

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, the chief executive of Stemettes, an organisation that encourages girls and young women to consider a career in STEM, said thinking about arts, alongside science, technology, engineering and maths is advantageous.

Speaking at Digifest, an annual conference organised by education technology body Jisc, Dr Imafidon called for greater collaboration across subjects and departments.

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‘Helping to solve problems’

She added: “We’re now moving away from saying STEM towards STEAM - science, technology, engineering, arts and maths.

“Looking at what are the opportunities we actually have to work together with different departments, to bring out a lot of the benefits we that have in our digital technology and our creativity and our ability to collaborate do work that advances things.

“We don’t just want technology for technology’s sake, we want it to help solve problems. Enlisting other departments, opening up our learning to other students who aren’t necessarily on a digital, or computer science course is a fantastic thing to be able to do and is a great example of that happening across FE and HE to really great effect in terms of having different types of people on board.”