Belbin® for Higher Education

Improving Teamwork, Transferable Skills & the Student Experience

Group work is central to higher education, yet it often creates challenges for both students and staff:

  • Uneven contribution and disengagement
  • Conflict within student teams
  • Complaints about fairness in group assessment
  • Limited student ability to explain what they have learned about teamwork

At the same time, employers consistently expect graduates to demonstrate effective collaboration and professional skills, not just subject knowledge.

We are currently looking for Business Schools who are interested in running a small, low-risk pilot. Let us know if you would like to find out more.

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UK universities and business schools are increasingly expected to show clear evidence of the following:

  • How students develop teamworking and collaboration skills
  • How group work supports transferable and professional skills
  • That learning is intentional and structured, not accidental
  • That students are prepared for the workplace
  • Credible employability outcomes and skills development

This places greater emphasis on ensuring group work functions as purposeful learning, not simply assessment.

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Belbin® Team Roles provide a research based framework for understanding how people contribute in teams.

Rather than focusing on personality or preference, Belbin:

  • Examines observable behaviour in context
  • Identifies strengths and associated limitations
  • Emphasises contribution and balance rather than labels
  • Encourages reflection on how behaviour affects team performance

This makes Belbin particularly suitable for educational settings where teamwork and collaboration are core learning outcomes.

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Belbin supports learning and teaching by:

  • Giving students a shared, accessible language for teamwork
  • Improving engagement and accountability in group work
  • Supporting structured reflection and meaningful discussion
  • Reducing dysfunctional team dynamics
  • Enhancing the overall student experience 

Belbin helps move group work from something students experience to something they actively learn from.

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Through Belbin informed activity and reflection, students learn to:

  • Understand how they add value in a team
  • Communicate strengths and limitations clearly
  • Adapt behaviour to different contexts
  • Work productively with others
  • Reflect critically on teamwork experiences

These capabilities transfer directly to placements, internships and graduate employment.

Common Uses in Programmes

  • First year induction and transition
  • Core undergraduate modules with group assessment
  • Postgraduate and MBA team projects
  • Leadership and professional skills modules
  • Live client, enterprise and consultancy projects
  • Project management

Belbin can be used formatively or integrated into reflective and assessed learning activities. Some examples of how Belbin is being used is shown below.

Next steps

  • Keep scrolling to hear how other institutions have used Belbin with their students.
  • Use the form below to start the conversation

We are currently looking for Business Schools who are interested in running a small, low-risk pilot. Let us know if you would like to find out more.

 

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Get in touch

Speak to a Belbin expert about how you can implement Belbin within your curriculum.

A game-changer for group assignments

Professor Javier Marcos, Professor of Strategic Sales Management and Negotiation at Cranfield University, shares his experience of using Belbin Team Roles to help students with their group assignments.

I would definitely recommend Belbin, no question.

Liverpool University Management School uses Belbin with students to help them with developing teamworking skills for group working and also employability.

Dr Jenny Johnson shares why she believes developing an understanding of teamwork, self and others, is one of the most important things that students can learn.

Better academic outcomes, better student satisfaction

Hear how Esade Business School uses Belbin in their induction for MSc students to derive better academic outcomes and course experiences.

Belbin raises students’ awareness of their strengths and personal brand, and the importance of teamwork and employability skills.

Building collaboration skills ready for industry

Dr Netra Neelam has used Belbin extensively with post graduate students at SCMHRD.

To date, she has introduced the Belbin language to over 1200 students.

Her work is very much around developing human beings and capacity building. "Belbin has come to us as a boon to develop individuals and talk about these young minds going into industry with the perfect value of collaboration."

 

Improving collaboration for better team and organisational results

Line Pillet is Professor in Systems Thinking & Sustainable Leadership and Head of the Institute Entrepreneurship & Management, at the University of Applied Sciences & Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO).

"I will definitely recommend Belbin to any organisation that wants to improve the collaboration, the dynamics within their teams, and how you can make the most of every contribution to have an impact and result in your specific industry."

 

Get in touch

Speak to a Belbin expert about how you can implement Belbin within your curriculum.

Case Study

Northumbria University

Dr Teresa Roca, Senior Lecturer in Leadership and Human Resources at Northumbria Business School, shares how she uses Belbin internationally to give students a competitive advantage, increase employability and develop emotional and cultural intelligence.

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Project-based learning and Innovation

Dr Thor Roser, Loughborough University London

"Innovation projects often involve interdisciplinary teams.

This makes innovation work more challenging and complex as it requires teams to build new and generative relationships and team dynamics.

Innovation teams need to develop a shared identity, common goals and cohesive team actions from during early stages of team development in order to become high performing project teams.

Belbin enables this process and it can help individual team members to develop new skills and capabilities based on reflecting on their own ways of working and interacting with others.

For our students, Belbin helps to make them more aware of critical issues and teams and helps them to develop new skills that make them ‘innovation ready’ and fit for future project work with industry."

Case Study

University of East London

Belbin reports were used with students at the University of East London to elevate student learning and outcomes. 

By using Belbin to identify and acknowledge the diversity of roles within a team, the objective was to enhance communication, reduce conflict, and promote a collaborative atmosphere conducive to achieving project goals.

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Case Study

University of the Basque Country

In 2018, Asier Aranzabal, Eva Epelde and Maite Artetxe, professors at the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the Basque Country, identified several problems with team selection in the project-based elements of their chemical engineering course.

The professors sought a reliable and valid method for forming teams, with a view to improving performance and engagement, and incorporating learning around teamwork.

They used the Belbin methodology to assign students to teams and measured a number of key outcomes, including project and exam scores, and individual accountability.

Read the paper

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We are proud to be a Corporate Member of the Chartered Association of Business Schools, and a sponsor of the Learning, Teaching & Student Experience (LTSE) 2026 conference.

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Speak to a Belbin expert about how you can implement Belbin within your curriculum.