1 Graduate Employability: future directions and debate Leonard Holmes Published as Chapter 17 of Graduate Employability in Context: Theory, Research and Debate Edited by Michael Tomlinson and Leonard Holmes Published by Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017 Pre-publication version This book, and the contributions to it, are all premised on the understanding that the issue of graduate employability is an important one, meriting serious attention by a wide range of stakeholders. It is important for society as a whole, and for individuals undertaking higher education studies and their families, for employers and for the wider economy, for higher education institutions and for governments. It is an issue that sits at the heart of contemporary considerations of the nature and purpose of higher education and its relationship to society and the economy. Although varying between countries, it is of growing concern across the world as states seek to ensure that the governance of their higher education systems is consonant with political and economic governance. It should be clear from the discussions by the various authors here that we do not consider employability in any narrow sense of a direct preparation of students for the work performance by graduates immediately upon gaining employment. Our concern is, rather, for the post-graduation lives of higher education students, lives that for most will extend for three or four times as long as they have already lived by the time they graduate. The quality of their post-graduation lives are likely to be strongly affected by the nature of employment they engage in, in terms of income, continuity, intrinsic satisfaction and so on. Whilst most academic staff in higher education institutions (HEIs) would probably be mainly motivated by their enthusiasm for their subject