The vocational education and training sector has an important role to play in the National Innovation and Science Agenda, particularly through the development of skills. This research explores the idea of whether the student placement process — where an individual is placed in a workplace to hone their new skills — can contribute to innovation in the host organisation. The research found that, while students were generally not able to contribute to innovation per se, there were examples of knowledge diffusion (students bringing new and updated knowledge into their host organisations) and of students making small-scale local improvements in the workplace.