Institutional Context
Summary
Anglia Ruskin University, with campuses in Cambridge, Chelmsford, Peterborough and London, is a teaching intensive, research active university ranked in the top 350 in the world. With a strong civic mission, we work with key public authorities and services, business and industry, community, and voluntary sector organisations, responding to their strategic priorities and needs.
We make significant contributions to our regions through our education activities, including through our large-scale degree apprenticeship programmes, with many graduates staying in the region. Our research and KE activities, with three major themes; Health Performance and Wellbeing, Sustainable Futures, and Safe and Inclusive Communities, are aligned with the needs of our regions enabling us to work with partners and co-develop effective solutions to their challenges.
Institutional context
ARU is a global university ‘transforming lives through innovative, inclusive, and entrepreneurial education and research’. We are ranked in the world’s top 350 HEIs in the 2022 Times Higher Education THE World Rankings, and one of the top 40 universities in the UK in this ranking.
Image 1: THE World University Rankings
ARU is ambitious, innovative, and committed to excellence. We opened the first Medical School in Essex to train local talent as doctors for the region; we brought a new university campus to Peterborough, formerly a higher education ‘cold spot’, and we were awarded The Queen’s Anniversary Prize in 2021 for our world-leading music therapy work, in recognition of our outstanding research with impact.
Image 2: Queen’s Anniversary Prize
We are guided by our Institutional Strategy, Designing our Future 2017 - 2026 and by its 3 underpinning strategies (Education, Research and Innovation, Operating).With campuses in Cambridge, Chelmsford, Peterborough, and London, our community is very important to us, and we are proud of the impactful role we play in our cities and the wider region.
We are committed to deploying our research, knowledge, and skills for the public good of the communities we serve and do extensive work with SMEs and large businesses, as well as with public sector agencies, the voluntary sector and key healthcare organisations. We do this in the following ways:
Talent – developing graduates with the attributes needed by employers through partnership working and activities such as: placements; internships; curricula co-design and delivery; professional challenges set by employers which engage our students in KE projects. We ranked 1st in the East of England for graduates in work or further study in the Graduate Outcome Survey in 2021.
Skills – supporting individuals in employment and organisations to meet the skills needs of their workforce through degree apprenticeships, a range of continuing professional development opportunities and Doctoral programmes. ARU is the largest growing provider of degree apprenticeships in the country, having provided apprenticeships for over 500 national and regional employers.
Innovation – we engage with our partners, individually and in consortia, to deliver research, innovation, and impact to support local, regional, and national priorities.
Business Support – we work with business and other organisations to support their growth through consultancy, KTPs and contract research. We support businesses through carefully designed programmes that speak to business need e.g. Keep Plus and through our Arise Innovation Hubs in Chelmsford and Harlow and the Anglia Ruskin Innovation Centre.
We undertake research and knowledge exchange activities across and within 3 major multi-disciplinary themes, alongside other cross cutting areas such as digital and creative.
1. Health, Performance and Wellbeing – aims to address health inequalities and improve the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities through the application of novel methods, technologies, and creative arts.
2. Safe and Inclusive Communities – supports, develops, and promotes research, innovation, and impact across a range of areas, including the promotion of minority rights, challenging discrimination, and inequalities and combatting extremism, radicalisation and sexual violence.
3. Sustainable Futures – works with regional, national, and international stakeholders to support transformations towards environmentally and socially just societies.
For further information, please send queries to business@aru.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
ARU’s approach to local growth and regeneration, is guided by our University Strategy and mission “transforming lives through innovative, inclusive and entrepreneurial education and research”. With 41,500 students and 4 campuses, we are a large institution, with the reach and research intensity to drive sustainable and equitable economic growth.
We are inclusive and proactive, providing talent through our students and graduates, enhancing and updating workforce skills, partnering to foster innovation, and providing business support within and beyond our regions.
Our three research, innovation and impact themes Sustainable Futures ; Safe and Inclusive Communities and Health, Performance and Wellbeing provide interdisciplinary capacity and expertise to work with partners to identify and solve some of the most complex societal challenges we face.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) has a deep and longstanding commitment to supporting local growth and regeneration, both in Essex and Cambridgeshire, the counties in which our 3 main campuses and 3 Innovation Centres are based, and across the Greater South East and East of England regions.
Image 1: Map of ARU Campuses (excluding London)
This commitment is enshrined in our university strategy, Designing Our Future 2017-2026 which states that “We will play a significant role in making a strategic contribution to the economic, social and cultural wellbeing in the cities of Cambridge and Chelmsford, and through more focused activities across the wider region”
Whilst we partner locally within the cities of Cambridge, Chelmsford and Peterborough, our place-based approach transcends city boundaries, to encompass broader economic geographies. This allows us to work collaboratively with stakeholders, identify specific needs within those geographies and contribute our capacity and expertise to nascent, and growing innovation clusters. Our main foci of local growth and regeneration activities are at county and Local Economic Partnership level, as well as via geographic economic and innovation partnerships.
Our reach and local growth and regeneration ‘power’ is therefore significant, spanning both political boundaries and economic geographies from as far as Oxfordshire in the West, to Suffolk in the East, Kent and Sussex in the South and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in the North.
These geographies are described in more detail below:
Essex
During 2020/2021, we worked hand in hand with Essex County Council (ECC) to develop the Essex Sector Strategy. And underpinning Innovation plan which identified 5 priority sectors for growth: Clean Energy; Construction and Retrofit; Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering; Digi Tech; Life-Sciences, including MedTech and CareTech, which align both with existing business sectors, and areas of ARU expertise.
Along with our partnership with ECC we have cultivated close relationships with local public sector providers, for example with Mid and South Essex Hospital Trust through their Anchor Programme and the NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme and with Harlow Council via the Harlow Growth Board . These for a enable us to contribute to the region through the provision of high-quality research with impact, graduate talent, and cutting-edge skills and support the growth and regeneration ambitions of our regions.
Cambridgeshire
ARU plays a leadership role in the City of Cambridge, and influences local and national decision-making through membership of Cambridge Ahead , an organisation set up to catalyse economic prosperity and enhance quality of life across the region and as part of the Innovate Cambridge Steering Group.
We also partner strategically with Cambridge City Council and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) as well as Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC). The development of ARU Peterborough in partnership with CPCA has cemented the link between ARU and the Combined Authority, resulting in further collaboration to support business growth. Similarly, through close partnership working with CCC on ARU’s Students at the Heart of Knowledge Exchange (SHoKE ) programme, which engages students in projects that realise societal impact, we have gained a deeper understanding of local needs, and been able to respond to via academic engagement, and collaborative projects.
Whilst SHoKE has helped to address disparities in economic prosperity and social capital by engaging with policy teams, our strategic partnership with The Welding Institute (TWI Ltd) based in Cambridge, directly supports business innovation and growth. This partnership is exemplified by our joint investment and commitment in the Anglia Ruskin Innovation Centre – ARU a comprehensive research capacity focussed on digital transformations in industry. Similarly in 2022 ARU became a full member of Cambridge University Health Partners – CUHP , an Academic Health Science Centre with a mission to improve patient healthcare. ARU leads the ‘talent pillar’ for CUHP, in recognition that we are an integral part of the Cambridge Life Science ecosystem.
Within both Essex and Cambridgeshire, we have longstanding and active connections with many local stakeholders, some of whom are represented below:
Image 2: A selection of partner logos
Alongside these bilateral partnerships, we have prioritised several place- based multilateral partnerships representing important economic geographies in our region. We take a leading role in these partnerships, utilising our convening power and bringing insights and expertise, in support of local growth and regeneration:
Image 3: ARUs Partnerships by Economic Geography
Geographically based Economic and Innovation Partnerships
The Oxford to Cambridge emerging Pan-Regional Partnership (formerly OxCam Arc) ARU has been an important partner in the ARC Universities Group and OxCam Arc, adding to its world-leading capabilities and potential to drive transformational economic growth, and cutting-edge skills, across key industrial sectors such as life sciences, net-zero energy, advanced manufacturing and digital and creative. In 2021 ARU was instrumental in winning a £20m Govt investment in ARU Peterborough, to develop a new building, bringing further STEM education to help generate high quality economic growth and inward investment in the region’s higher education ‘cold spot’, and housing ‘The Living Lab’, an interactive public science facility and landmark cultural asset for the City of Peterborough.
The Harlow Digital Innovation Zone (DIZ) includes West Essex and East Hertfordshire, and joins stakeholders from business, health, education, local authorities, and the voluntary sector to maximise opportunities posted by the digital revolution. It is a multi-sector partnership that aims to be ‘a beacon for the application of new technology, to grow our economic prosperity and provide the best services to our local communities in the most efficient way’ We actively participate in this partnership through our campuses in Chelmsford and Cambridge and
The UK Innovation Corridor which connects Cambridge to London, is a knowledge-intensive, dynamic innovation ecosystem hosting one of the largest biomedical clusters in the world. It is also home to the ‘left behind’ areas of Peterborough and Harlow. ARU plays a pivotal role in supporting regional economic growth in the corridor, through meeting business needs across talent, skills, innovation, and business support initiatives, drawing on our expertise in health, performance, and wellbeing and by stimulating the innovation ecosystem through our Arise Innovation Hubs, the Clinical Entrepreneur Programme and our University Medical Technology Research Centre .
Alongside these important boundary-spanning innovation partnerships, we have been proactive in strengthening our partnerships within our local authority and LEP areas, to understand and respond to local and regional needs:
The South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP) and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA)
ARU has worked closely with both SELEP and CPCA to deliver talent, skills, innovation, and business support that meets local need. The KEEP Plus innovation support programme for SMEs, led by ARU with 5 other university partners spanned both regions and created significant economic impact, contributing to productivity, job creation and business growth.
Aspect 2: Activity
ARU has a strong focus on working with stakeholders in our regions to respond to their local growth and regeneration priorities and needs. In the last three years, our main activities have been directed to:
Supporting cluster development and the growing Health, Performance and Wellbeing innovation ecosystem in the region.
Supporting small and medium sized enterprises to become more profitable, innovative, and sustainable.
Supporting regeneration through student knowledge exchange.
Meeting regional skills needs through stakeholder and employer engagement.
Supporting cluster development and the growing Health, Performance and Wellbeing innovation ecosystem in the region
ARUs Arise Innovation Hubs at the Harlow Science and Innovation Park and on our Chelmsford campus are dedicated innovation start-up spaces with support programmes delivering high quality MedTech and CareTech sector support. Through partnerships with Medilink Midlands , the Life Sciences Industry association and The Pioneer Group , strategic investment from ARU and access to academics via our Medical Technologies Research Centre (MTRC), Arise Innovation Hubs provide:
Sector specific innovation support and advice – with a specialist adviser providing tailored support, information provision, and facilitation, enabling the development of products, processes, and services (led by Arise and Medilink)
Business Development activity – to identify those businesses to whom this and subsequent programmes may be beneficial (led by Medilink)
A commercialisation programme for entrepreneurs to examine the commercial viability, business model innovation and tell the story to investors and key stakeholders (led by The Pioneer Group)
Alongside this, ARU leads the national NHS Clinical Entrepreneur Programme which provides entrepreneurial thinking and innovation support to NHS clinicians to develop products, process, and service improvements with commercial potential.
Supporting small and medium sized enterprises to become more profitable, innovative, and sustainable.
ARU has a strong focus on supporting SME growth and development, through European Regional Development Fund programmes (including Interreg) and Innovate UK funded Knowledge Transfer Partnerships.
We have aligned student talent, workforce skills, innovation and business support activities to meet regional SME needs, for example, our practical support to help businesses become more sustainable, through the South East New Energy project, which encouraged new build, retrofit, and renewable energy technology uptake, as well as carbon footprint assessment. Similarly, Futures by Design supported SMEs across Europe by stimulating innovation by becoming more data driven whilst Eastern New Energy supported SMEs to transition to net zero carbon
The ERDF funded KEEP Plus programme offered different interventions depending on business need, from 12 – 18 months ‘Knowledge Exchange and Embed Partnerships’ (KEEPs), to 12-month Research and Innovation Collaborations (RICs) and smaller Consultancy and Capital grants. During the period between Aug 2018 and July 2022, £1,874,000 was awarded to SMEs in the East of England to develop new products and services and embed innovation capacity. The grants helped companies from a variety of eligible sectors including manufacturing, information and communication, software development, engineering design, architectural activities, research and experimental development on biotechnology and natural sciences and engineering, design and photography and performing arts.
Image 4: KEEP Plus in numbers
Throughout the 3- year period from Aug 2018 to July 2022, we actively pursued Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) opportunities with local SMEs and set up 5 new projects during that time.
Supporting regeneration through student knowledge exchange
We deliver the Students at the Heart of Knowledge Exchange programme, in close partnership with Essex County Council and Cambridgeshire County Council, as well as with other stakeholders such as Essex Police and Fire Service and Diabetes UK.
Meeting regional skills needs through stakeholder and employer engagement.
Part of ARUs commitment to regional growth is working directly with employers and stakeholders to understand and meet skills needs. We there worked with Cambridgeshire County Council and CPCA to undertake a Green Skills audit in order to understand the skills that will be required by local organisations to help support a low carbon post-COVID-19 transition to a cleaner, fairer economy and society in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The Green Skills final report was published in April 2021
Image 5: Cover of Regional Green Skills Audit undertaken by ARU
Alongside collaboration with partners to understand local skills needs, we proactively engaged with industry and the public sector, to inform the development of courses at our new campus in Peterborough during 2021. 12 Sector Interest Groups, comprising over 170 individuals, from across industry, education, government, and business membership organisations. Similarly, ARU has worked with the Harlow DIZ to identify barriers faced by third sector organisations in the adoption of digital solutions. This has led to development and delivery of interventions to address barriers, including support for digital skills, access to re-purposed equipment and connectivity and provision of service delivery through apps. Smart-Places-Seminar-5.1-Digital-for-the-CVS-Sector-201119-Executive-Report.pdf (diz.org.uk).
Aspect 3: Results
Our activities across our regions have resulted in both economic and societal impacts.
Our MedTech and CareTech cluster development activity is evidenced by our active support and resulting outcomes for entrepreneurs and businesses in those sectors. Up to July 2022 Arise Innovation Hub hosted 71 businesses, with 31 located in the facility as of July 2022. Between 2018 and 2021 the Clinical Entrepreneurs Programme has engaged with 522 clinical entrepreneurs and supported the development of 551 inventions and over 18,000 hours were spent mentoring entrepreneurs CEP Programme Stats
There have been a variety of direct benefits for businesses involved in ARUs SME support programmes, including via KEEP Plus and other ERDF-funded Interreg projects:
KEEP+ won a total of £5.9m of ERDF funding from 2016 to 2023, of which £1.9m was deployed between August 2018 and July 2022 in the four East of England LEP areas: SELEP, NALEP, Herts and CPCA helping a total of 155 SMEs and 171 projects. The funding enabled SMEs to innovate by developing new products and services which promoted growth in the regions and created new jobs. Keep+ Success
Case studies such as : ARU and Transporter Engineering and testimonials from businesses have been overwhelmingly positive, for example:
“The KEEP+ ERDF funding helped us to understand what our customers want us to do next. Without this and the research it funded we could have gone in the wrong direction” (Charles Joynson, Managing Director, Wavedata Ltd)
“KEEP+ funding gave us an opportunity to create a breakthrough tool to measure digital wellbeing in companies powered by AI. Without it, we as a small company would find it difficult to develop an innovative tech solution in a short time frame”. (Anastasia Dedyukhina, Director, Consciously Digital)
Similarly, Futures by Design engaged 31 SMEs to complete a data-driven support programme; realising operational and evaluative results for growth, productivity, and innovation and GrowIn 4.0 , which concluded in 2020 created a total of 14 tools to help manufacturing SMEs to digitise and become more efficient. Finally, Blueprint engaged 1302 disadvantaged people and 697 non-disadvantaged employees were trained in the principles and practical work for the Circular Economy.
Our SHoKE programme, has helped ARUs regional partners to address the complex challenges that they aim to solve through their policy or practice. Between February 2021 and July 2022, 60 complex social challenges were tackled by 381 students, co-creating innovative approaches that have led to social change..
Image: The SHoKE team with students
The findings and recommendations from ARU students were incorporated into the development of policy within the authority, which would directly and positively impact citizens in the region.
“We have implemented their recommendations in our Firebreak programme, creating a bespoke Violence Against Women & Girls programme for young people. Their positive engagement and passion enabled the creation of such a useful tool which absolutely has directly impacted on young people in the communities of Essex. With consideration to expand the use of the lesson for Fire Cadets within Fire Service and Police Service and… be shared nationally to the National Fire Chiefs Council Fire Cadet Board.” - Essex Fire Service
We have made a major impact in Peterborough, a city characterised by poorer health and education outcomes than other parts of the region, with the opening of ARU Peterborough . This exciting development, in an area that had been considered a higher education ‘cold spot’ demonstrates our commitment to meeting regional skills needs and engaging directly with employers through networks such as the ARU Future Talent and Skills Network, which has approximately 200 members drawn from across the region. ARU is also leading the way in the provision of Degree Apprenticeships. By February 2022 we had worked with 500 employers to meet their skills needs through Degree Apprenticeships and we are currently the fastest growing provider in the UK ARU News
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
Our commitment to Public and Community Engagement is a highlighted in our university strategy Designing our Future 2017 - 2026 We understand our communities through listening and discussion, e.g. co-created R&I projects; student knowledge exchange; economic development projects; patient public interaction groups; participation in community events; and communication of our research through public lectures, major festivals and events, publishing in a range of fora using multimedia.
We have sustained a commitment to this facet of our work through dedicated human resources, staff, and student development, establishing partnerships, all underpinned by specific funding. We regularly review our activities and incorporate feedback from stakeholders and the public to ensure a real-time commitment to continuous improvement.
Aspect 1: Strategy
ARU has a longstanding commitment, through our Institutional Strategy to “creating a leading learning and innovation ecosystem that delivers impactful community engagement and leadership”. We take our civic responsibilities very seriously, engaging at leadership levels with others, convening our staff and student community to meaningfully engage our publics. This commitment has been further reinforced in 2022 in our newly approved 3 underpinning strategies: Operating, Education and Research and Innovation . These strategies were developed with extensive internal and external consultation and engagement and tested with stakeholders, including our local authority partners, businesses, public sector partners and a range of community and third sector organisation and representatives where we have sustained long-term impactful and collaborative working. The cross-cutting theme to:
“enhance ARU’s civic role, by working with partners to promote social, cultural, economic and environmental improvement in the communities in which we are based”,
runs across each of the strategies.
These strategies provide us with clear roadmap for the next 5 years, laying out our goals and the priority actions we will take to achieve each goal. We will:
“Solve civic challenges for local and global benefit.” – Research and Innovation
“Embed civic values in all that we do.” - Operating
“Deliver an inclusive and transformative education.” - Education
The approach to our strategy development, and hence our embedding of public and community engagement in our strategies as a cross-cutting theme, is distinctive. The strategies were developed alongside each other, with contributions from across and beyond ARU, to ensure they worked together in support of each other and to deliver our mission “transforming lives through innovative, inclusive and entrepreneurial education and research’.
Image 1: ARUs 3 Underpinning Strategies and Cross-cutting themes
We have committed to a number of key initiatives in our strategies, which have been informed by, and continue to inform our approach to Public and Community Engagement (PCE):
1. Develop strong partnerships with organisations locally and globally to address civic challenges and opportunities.
We have established many strong partnerships at leadership level across our regions, a few representative examples now follow: with Citizens UK local Chapters which enables community listening and action; our local authority partners, with whom we collaborate to bring about social, economic and environmental change (Essex and Cambridgeshire County Councils and CPCA ); Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP) to improve patient healthcare through a talented workforce and realising the benefits of knowledge generated through leading edge research and the innovations and impacts which derive from it; the 7 police forces in the South East and East of England to address issues of sexual violence, child safety, knife crime ( PIER ); and NATO with whom we collaborate to better support veterans and their families (VFI)
2. Initiate a thriving public engagement and dissemination programme with our partners and communities.
Our close partnerships with Healthwatch Essex and CUHP have helped us to embed public engagement in research across ARU by listening to stakeholders. In addition to this we are committed via our strategies and supporting action plan to embed this approach and way of working fully within the staff and student communities associated with our 3 overarching Research, Innovation and Impact themes (Health, Performance and Wellbeing Safe and Inclusive Communities and Sustainable Futures ).
3. Develop our convening power across our multiple regions to support civic aims in education and research and innovation.
We have used our convening power to bring groups of public, private and not for profit sector organisations to explore future skills needs; as well as to run collaborative innovation and cluster development activities, e.g. as part of the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust Anchor Programme
4. Scale up and evolve our student knowledge exchange communities.
Alongside our Students at the Heart of Knowledge Exchange (SHoKE) programme of activities, we have embedded Live Briefs in every course at ARU. This brings relevant and current business issues to students to augment their learning and enables businesses to access student talent.
Our governance for Public and Community Engagement is via the University Executive Team (UET), with senior sponsorship from the DVC Research and Innovation, DVC Education, and Chief Operating Officer, through to our academic Senate and the Board of Governors. We have established a Civic Action Group, which has representation from Faculties and Professional Services, and reports to the ARU Research and Innovation Committee and ARU Education Committee and strategy oversight teams, to ensure progress in line with our relevant KPIs.
Image 2: Governance of civic activities at ARU
Aspect 2: Support
PCE is supported and resourced both by our Public Engagement team and through faculties, directed by a public engagement plan for events, media activities and festivals maintained by our Corporate Marketing team. Highlights of the plan include hosting the British Science Festival in Chelmsford in 2021, and supporting community events such as the Chelmsford Half Marathon, Cambridge Festival and Essex Book Festival.
Image 3: Chelmsford Half Marathon on ARU Campus
Our Faculties, course teams and major research groupings have an annual rolling plan of priority activities in support of student learning and their undertaking of authentic professional learning and practical activities; research with impact activities, and work to support the running of and core activities within a range of local business, public, third sector and community organisations. To support the delivery of our strategy we have created a number of focused roles in our central Research and Innovation Development Office, that augment our existing Partnership Development Manager capacity, including:
Citizens UK Lead – our partnership with Citizens UK and the role it plays as a powerful enabler to support community listening is so important to ARU, that we have appointed a CUK lead, ensuring that ARU colleagues are actively involved in the partnership, and find opportunities to engage with community organising.
Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Manager – this role is responsible for supporting and facilitating public involvement in research, and co-creation with research users, across all our disciplines through the ARU “Your Voice Shaping Research” initiative.
Students at the Heart of Knowledge Exchange (SHoKE) Team – following successful delivery of the OfS and Research England funded SHoKE project, a 4 strong team has been created to scale up the programme and expand engagement with partners and students. The aim of SHoKE is to create societal impact by providing students with opportunities to help solve complex social challenges by working in teams alongside local partners. The partners include organisations such as Essex Police, Essex Fire and Crime Commissioner, Essex and Cambridgeshire County Council, Huntingdonshire District Council, Diabetes UK.
The annual Vice-Chancellors Staff Awards, our ARU Academic Career Framework and promotion criteria and the proactive nomination of colleagues for external awards are the primary means for institutional recognition and celebration of public and community engagement. In 2021 the VC Award for Outstanding Research Impact was awarded to our Veterans and Families Institute who engaged widely with ex-military service personnel to gather evidence of need, and then with charities and government departments in order to bring about policy change that positively impacted the lives of ex-service personnel.
ARU is a signatory to the Manifesto on Public Engagement, and provides opportunities, via our staff and student Development Programmes, for members of our university community to undertake CPD on ‘Communication, Engagement and Impact’. We have also supported colleagues to attend Citizens UK ‘Community Organising’ training. In addition, the DVC R&I considers Faculty plans for PCE activity on an annual basis and will ensure funding to underpin the proposed activities which are designed to create P&C impact.
Aspect 3: Activity
Our approach to PCE is best illustrated by way of the following examples:
1. ARU has been part of Citizens UK since 2019 Citizens Essex . The purpose of this relationship is for ARU to work to help strengthen local organisations through knowledge exchange and to make practical, positive change in our communities by developing local leaders and supporting them to help find solutions to issues that affect them and the people around them. ARU has worked as part of Citizens Essex to find solutions to many issues including digital inclusion, improved street lighting, reporting misogyny as a hate crime and working with businesses and local authorities to become Real Living Wage Accredited employers.
Image 4: Citizens UK Assembly at ARU
We have an extensive and thriving public engagement and dissemination programme which involves public lectures, workshops and exhibitions, such as the Creative Showcase which showcased the excellent work of Arts, Humanities and Social Science students to the public. We also contribute to festivals eg British Science Festival 2021, Cambridge Festival of Ideas, Cambridge Festival, Cambridge Science Festival, Chelmsford Science Festival, Essex Book Festival and Mill Road Winter Fair. Our dedication to delivering academic insights to the public is also evidenced by our engagement with The Conversation . In 2021-2022 32 authors wrote 49 articles which received no fewer than 4.1 million reads.
Image 5: ARU Public Engagement Events in Numbers
Our approach to public engagement in research has matured significantly since 2020. Following an extensive internal mapping exercise, we commissioned Healthwatch Essex to review the ways in which community voices shape our research. In line with our commitment to EDI, they gathered views from some of their lived experience ambassadors and made videos for us featuring the following groups: young people; service users with sensory loss; learning disability and autism; carers and physical impairment users; elderly and frail service users; faith groups; traveller communities; ethnic and diverse communities; and service users accessing mental health services. This has given us unique insights into the needs of different communities we engage with, through education and research. A further example of public engagement in research is:
Homeside – Our Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy (CIMTR) are the PPI lead for this project which extends across 5 countries, and brings together an international group of service users, carers, and people with dementia as well as researchers to help guide the project and its communication with older people.
2. The ARU Wellbeing Research and Innovation Network was set up to facilitate collaboration and engagement between a range of organisations and communities, focussing on the mental health and wellbeing of the communities we serve. The network has developed in the East of England and, predominantly, locations that are often neglected in terms of research and wellbeing initiatives, such as West Norfolk. Through working together, and identifying common needs, themes and issues, the network has developed a workplace wellbeing intervention, which is being piloted with two of its members.
Image 6: The ARU Wellbeing Research and Innovation Network
3. “In Her Shoes” – A SHoKE Case Study
In November 2021, 46 students attended a launch event with Essex Police who wanted to how they could change attitudes and behaviours towards young women and girls to improve their feeling of safety. 21 student videos were submitted to the Police who were very impressed and chose to commission 5 of the ideas for further research and development by postgraduate SHoKE Student Consultant teams. The project generated media interest from the BBC and has opened the door to further partnerships and has informed training delivered by the office of the Essex Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner in schools across the County.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
In addition to our institutional KPIs, which have been approved by our Board, we have identified a series of performance indicators (PIs) which help us to monitor, measure and improve on our public and community engagement, and our role as a civic institution. These PIs relate directly back to the strategic goals and relevant strategic initiatives identified in Aspect 1 include:
The number of civic organisations and business partners formally engaged in our three Research, Innovation and Impact themes
The number of collaborations between ARU and our Arise Hubs occupants.
The number of public engagement events and attendees per calendar year
The number of citizens engaged in ‘Your Voice Shaping Research’, our public involvement in research initiative.
The number of new partners, academics and students engaged in SHoKE.
The number of staff and students involved in policy development programmes.
In setting these PIs, we engaged with external consultants and consulted widely with colleagues across ARU. The governance and oversight of this work and progress towards targets has already been outlined in Aspect 1.
Aspect 5: Building on success
We support a culture of continuous improvement by involving stakeholders in design of our public and community engagement activity, and through regular reporting to, and feedback from, UET.
We have embedded a Statement of Intent process across ARU in support of colleagues developing their ideas and projects for R&I and the consideration of PCE and pathways to create impacts from collaborative working in the projects and programmes of work which emerge from this development process. This process has enabled a significant adoption and spread of approach amongst a very significant number of our colleagues.
For example, between February and March 2021 we undertook consultation across ARU to understand what the current levels of public engagement in research were across the institution. In addition to a number of Employer Advisory Groups, there were existing and significant areas of good practice, such as the Veterans and Families PPI Group, and groups involved in designing music therapy interventions for adults suffering from dementia ( CIMTR ) . The excellent, good practice we unearthed, indicated a much more strategic and embedded approach was required, and by May 2021 a plan to proceed with this approach, had been endorsed by UET. Our large R&I communities of researchers affiliated to our 3 Research, Innovation and Impact Themes have a very good track record of PCE as a central tenet to their way of working.
Many of our projects have involved formal evaluations, for example SHoKE has been evaluated both by SQW on behalf of the Office for Students, as well as by our contracted consultant, Nous Consulting. A final project report, reflecting on the previous 2 years of delivery, which was published in September 2022, found that:
“Partners have appreciated a more strategic approach to engagement…..the programme has gained significant traction in ARU and the sector and now features in ARU’s core strategies (Education, Research and Innovation and Operating) as a priority to deliver its goals”
The delivery of our 3 underpinning strategies is guided and overseen by a Leadership Team for each, Chaired by the relevant executive sponsor and including senior colleagues from across the institution. These Leadership Teams are accountable to the University Executive Team (UET), and ultimately the Board of Governors.
Regular monitoring of progress against PIs takes place via these Leadership Teams, and with and within our partnering organisations with reports submitted first to UET and then to the Board. As a result of monitoring and discussions, we have increased and enhanced the support available across ARU for public engagement initiatives, for example, by making a strategic investment in capacity to support student knowledge exchange.
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