The Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) initiative in England, Wales and Northern Ireland aimed to develop teaching and learning and invest in practice to produce benefits for students, teachers and institutions. Of the 81 CETLs it is not possible to say how many had some dimension of Work Related Learning (WRL) involved in them, however, in a recent report reviewing the 'good practice in employability and enterprise development by CETLs', it notes twenty two fell in to this category. This special edition was conceived in order to investigate what development the WRL CETLs had made in progressing university curricula towards learning for work and to outline what the future of WRL in much of the UK's HE might look like. The case study approach was chosen to provide an opportunity for those involved in the WRL CETLs to outline what they believe to be their most significant achievements, and to make available a bank of ideas and developments for HE practitioners wishing to develop WRL.