Institutional Context
Summary
Brunel University London was established in the 1960’s to be the home of technical education, championing innovation and enterprise and supporting the knowledge base the UK needs to compete on the international stage.
That core motivation remains to this day, and our current strategy is to reinforce our position as a research intensive, employer facing, technical, 60s institution.
We are proud of our record of industry collaboration – most of our externally funded research is collaborative – and of our students’ engagement in knowledge exchange activities, such as the highly successful Co-Innovate programme.
KE activities are a core part of our Vision and Mission and the Brunel 2030 Strategy.
Institutional context
Brunel is situated in a vibrant yet socio-economically challenging part of the UK. West London is the UK’s second largest regional economy, but is an area with significant deprivation. We have Heathrow on our doorstep, yet there are low levels of both business start-ups and economic growth in much of West London.
We take our role in the region seriously; in 2021 we worked with civic partners to help establish the West London Universities Partnership, which we now lead; we are founding members of the London West Innovation Network and recently signed a Civic Partnership Agreement with the London Borough of Hillingdon. We are working with the local authorities and local business groups to drive and support increased business start-ups and success. We have a strong record of supporting our entrepreneurial graduates to set up their own businesses, including through our role in initiatives such as the CRL incubator and accelerator.
We are particularly strong in the following key sectors, all of which are reflected in our education, research and engagement portfolios:
• Automotive and advanced manufacturing
• Energy, water and food
• Digital and ICT
• Healthcare
• Creative and Cultural Industries
Brunel has long had a substantial portfolio of Innovate UK funded projects, and a large proportion of our research is in collaboration with industry partners. We are one of only five universities to have secured funding from Research England’s UKRPIF scheme for three or more major research capital initiatives; these have leveraged a total of over £60M in industrial co-investment. We are involved in five doctoral training centres across a range of disciplines as well as being an EPSRC Strategic Partner.
Brunel has an excellent track record for successfully developing and delivering innovative multi-partner industry-university projects. Examples include:
The National Structural Integrity Research Centre (NSIRC), operated in collaboration with TWI, and supported by UKRPIF
The National Centre for Sustainable Energy Use in Food Chains, led by Brunel with 32 industrial partners
The Advanced Metals Casting Centre, in partnership with Constellium and JaguarLandRover.
Our Co-Innovate programme which supports companies across London to identify, design, develop and test new or significantly improved products, services and systems.
Our External Engagement, Innovation and Entrepreneurship strategy reaches across KE in both education and research, and across all academic areas. Our guiding principles are to truly understand our partners’ needs, and to build mutually-beneficial relationships with them.
Our KE goal is to maximise the global reach and impact of our research and education to make a positive and lasting difference to people’s lives and cultures, our environment and the economy.
Our current strategy is to achieve this through the following priority objectives:
Pursuing research that addresses major societal, cultural and industrial challenges
Actively ensuring that our research is translated into benefits for society and the UK economy
Educating and supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, innovators and leaders
Engaging and communicating with policy makers, third sector organisations and the wider public to stimulate informed dialogue and discussion.
For further information, please send queries to engagement@brunel.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
Brunel is a major employer and contributor to the local economy; supporting over 7,500 jobs and contributing £510M to the local GVA. We focus on using our academic expertise, facilities and ability to access funding to assist people to start new businesses and to help existing businesses to grow through developing innovative products and services. Economic growth and the creation of new jobs is important in regenerating areas of deprivation within West London and beyond. Our work has helped create 35 new jobs during the period and we have helped over 2,000 businesses including 150 collaborations on new products and services during this time.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Whilst Brunel’s growth and regeneration activities span local, regional and international geographies our primary focus is on West London and the Thames Valley. This geography is within easy reach of Brunel so businesses and entrepreneurs can access the expertise of our academics and work with our students on real-world projects. Through our memberships of a wide variety of local organisations, and using our local networks, we work with local partners to prioritise potential interventions to promote regeneration and local growth, and then to deliver them.
Brunel’s role in the launch of the West London Universities Partnership has placed it at the forefront of the move to address the economic impact of covid, mobilising universities to address the need for re and upskilling and generate growth through innovation and entrepreneurship. In the last few years we have developed programmes including apprenticeships, internships and a new PGCert in Work Based Learning to deliver against the skills needs of the area, as well as developing a Progression Pathway Agreement with 8 local FE Colleges to support the West London skills pipeline.
Brunel is also a founding member of the London West Innovation Network (LWIN), which arose out of the work done by Brunel and West London Business on the Science and Innovation Audit Innovation for Sustainable Airports in 2018. An unincorporated association, LWIN aims to connect stakeholders in innovation and foster world class local innovation clusters in the area aligned to the Heathrow Functional Economic Area. Convened by West London Business, other members include Heathrow, SEGRO, Middlesex University and several of the West London boroughs councils.
As a member of the LWIN, Brunel helped its partners, and in particular West London Business, to establish the Hillingdon Enterprise Fund. The Fund is a vehicle for the London Borough of Hillingdon to support businesses in Hillingdon to work with a knowledge exchange partner to take forward an innovative product or process that would support economic growth. Brunel (and LWIN) were similarly involved in the London Borough of Ealing’s Ealing Pioneers Fund.
In January 2023 Brunel signed a civic agreement with the London Borough of Hillingdon, our home borough within the West London Alliance. This will see us working more closely with Hillingdon over the next few years across a range of areas, combining the talents of our staff, our facilities and our resources to improve the wellbeing and prosperity of those who live, work and study within Hillingdon.
With Hillingdon Chamber of Commerce and other local partners we secured a GLA “High Streets for All” grant that supported work on Reimaging Uxbridge High Street, resulting in a preliminary report analysing the experiences of users (locals and visitors) of Uxbridge High Street to provide an experiential-emotional map of the current look and feel of the High Street
We actively provided support to local business during the pandemic including a Webinar series focussed on resilience and the Build Back Better programme, funded by the GLA and the European Social Fund, empowering senior managers to identify challenges affecting their business performance and providing tailored support to help their business grow. We are also delivering the Small Business Leadership Programme under our Small Business Charter accreditation.
As many businesses are unaware or unconvinced of the benefits of innovation, we carried out primary research with London SMEs to build an evidence base. The research indicated that 60% of SMEs were unsure about the support and advice available from Universities, and over a third of SMEs planning to develop new products and services said cost and a lack of technical support was an inhibiting factor. Since 2009 reports such as The Connected University: Driving Recovery and Growth in the UK Economy highlighted the importance and potential of building regional clusters for knowledge exchange to meet the needs of business.
Over the last decade, London’s annual net business start-up rate has averaged 1.7% compared to 1% for the UK as a whole; however, London has the lowest five-year business survival rate of all UK regions. Our Bridging the Gap supports and develops entrepreneurs during the critical set-up period, with a particular focus on women entrepreneurs as highlighted by the Burt report.
Our strategy is focussed on delivering support for entrepreneurs and scale-up businesses at the Central Research Laboratory (CRL) in Hayes, providing advice and guidance to potential start-ups through the Bridging the Gap project and providing business, innovation and product design support to SME’s in London through our Co-innovate program.
Aspect 2: Activity
Brunel has focussed on utilising its academic know-how, facilities and networks to provide information, advice, mentoring and support to entrepreneurs, start-ups, scale ups and SME’s in developing new products and services and growing jobs. Our activity is in response to needs identified by ourselves, local and national government and other stakeholder organisations identified in Aspect 1.
As part of the operation of the Hillingdon Enterprise Fund and Ealing Pioneers Fund £3.3M was invested to fund innovation programmes with 35 businesses. 8 of these businesses originated from Brunel and Brunel was the knowledge exchange partner, with Brunel staff and students contributing to the innovation programmes for a further 5 of these businesses.
Following our successful GLA High Streets for All project we have begun a further phase of work to support the London Borough of Hillingdon to develop a masterplan for Uxbridge High Street. In particular, we are carrying out research to understand what short, medium and long-term interventions are needed to attract people to come and spend more time on Uxbridge High Street, with an emphasis on access, social and cultural interventions as well as public services and retail within a post-Covid environment.
Our interactions with the West London councils have resulted in a number of knowledge exchange projects, for instance; with Harrow to improve food waste recycling rates, with Barnet on the problems with power supply in West London and with Ealing on the remediation of contaminated community land near Southall station and the role of social movements in increasing sport and physical activity for health, wellbeing, and local community outcomes.
New initiatives to support SMEs during the period include the Brunel Talent Marketplace and RIEm. The Brunel Talent Marketplace is a pilot student consulting initiative in which computer science students deliver projects to business on data & AI, software development, proof of concept, applied R&D and user experience design. So far 6 projects have been completed involving 18 students to a value of £17k. We are now looking at the best way to scale this project up. In our RIEm (Research, Innovate and Emerge) programme we work with cohorts of SMEs to develop their research and innovation strategy, develop proposals and secure funding. 49 businesses, in two cohorts, have taken part in the programme and many have gone on to develop their own collaborative research projects.
Programme delivery has been supported by funding from the GLA and ERDF, and matched with academic time in order to deliver real value for our external customers /collaborators. The three major projects that deliver aspects of our strategy are:
Co-innovate
Central Research Laboratory (CRL)
Bridging the Gap (BtG)
Figure 1 Engagement Support for SMEs
Established in 2012, Co-innovate was initially scheduled to last for two years. A second tranche of activity, called Co-innovate Journeys, was funded and is now scheduled to finish in 2023. Co-innovate Journeys aims to engage with 240 SME’s and generate 120 in-depth collaborations.
Our aim is to improve access and accelerate the transfer of knowledge and research expertise from Brunel University London to SMEs in London; introducing a dynamic range of activities to support new product and service development leading to business growth for the participating companies, and regional economic and employment benefits.
‘Making the Future’ was the working title of a proposal which became the Central Research Laboratory (CRL). Originally a partnership between property developer U + I and Brunel, and operated by our strategic partner Plus X, the project has a bold ambition to facilitate and support economic growth through creating an open and integrated innovation eco-system that promotes sustainability and was internationally engaged. It is designed to spawn a maker community, developing a new generation of products and product-related services through the adoption of green technologies whilst providing learning opportunities for students.
The project brings together innovative manufacturing, design, sustainable development and entrepreneurship in a new, custom-built facility - the CRL - at the Old Vinyl Factory, Hayes. The CRL, based at the former EMI site, forms a key part of a project spearheading the regeneration of Hayes which is an area of social deprivation within the London Borough of Hillingdon.
The CRL provides a range of facilities including access to three dedicated prototyping workshops, presentation spaces, meeting rooms, an onsite cafe and a photo studio to compliment the desk space. The CRL is a community of makers, innovators and entrepreneurs who support each other and benefit from a community knowledge tool and drop-in sessions with experts and investors. Technicians help to pass valuable prototyping and materials knowledge to the community as they possess skills that are becoming difficult to access for London-based start-ups. The highly-successful Accelerator Programme is the longest continuously running programme of its kind and is now on its tenth cohort. This provides additional access to funding, mentors and experts as well as a unique opportunity to visit China to seek out production partners. In 2020 our activity at CRL was boosted by a £1.6M Research England grant to expand its activities into the digital sphere. Brunel is currently working with the operator Plus X to consider the options available to expand the project in different locations across West London.
Our third major regeneration-focussed project is Bridging the Gap (BtG). Also funded by ERDF, and part of the Co-innovate programme, Bridging the Gap aims to increase the quality of graduate start-ups by providing a support ecosystem enabling entrepreneurs to use the university’s knowledge, expertise and networks to develop, launch and operate companies. The project provides support to enable entrepreneurs to develop concepts into business-ready ventures. BtG provides diagnostic and development support to nurture entrepreneurs and to take product ideas from concept to commercial realisation. The project aims to increase the participation of women and intends to deliver support to 30 Enterprises, 25 New Enterprises and to create 15 Jobs annually. The project will develop 10 Collaborations and assist the introduction of 10 “New to the Firm” Products.
BtG targets three stakeholder groups:
Final year students at Brunel
Brunel alumni
Final year students and alumni from Brunel’s CRL and consortium partner universities (Kingston University, RCA, Birkbeck, University of London, University of West London and Westminster University).
The project is designed to increase the participation of women from STEM orientated subjects in start-ups. The woman-centric approach is built into each of the five pillars of the BtG framework through specific activities and goals.
The overall aim of Bridging-the-Gap is to stimulate and enable high quality graduate start up and spin outs from Brunel and our partner universities through developing the entrepreneurial potential and mindset of target beneficiaries leading to the creation of business start-ups with a greater potential to succeed. The framework features five pillars which deliver the key components of the beneficiary journey including:
Access to an on-line platform which provides a space for entrepreneurship information and dissemination of information about individual’s business concepts.
5c’s innovation training delivered by a combination of Brunel academics and supplementary expertise
Pitching and communication including a sequence of pitching opportunities for beneficiaries through an annual cycle, building up to a formal pitch opportunity to the CRL.
Mentoring by Mentors drawn from the Brunel Innovation Ecosystem and tailored to the business opportunity. The focus on women is emphasised by ensuring that 50% of the mentors are women. Brunel has considerable experience of encouraging and supporting female career paths through the Brunel Women in Engineering programme.
Access to the Brunel Innovation Ecosystem which provides a basis for marketing and promotion to potential entrepreneurs and generates a panel of experts with interests in contributing to the mentoring programme and pitch events.
Aspect 3: Results
The Co-innovate programme has been successful in meeting its targets of SME engagement and industrial collaboration. The scheme also has targets for developing new products and creating jobs. The programme is currently nearing the end of its second phase (2017-2023) and therefore there are no published evaluations. However, the fact that ERDF continues to fund Co-innovate Journeys and Bridging the Gap demonstrates its effectiveness. The current programme objectives are to engage with 190 SMEs and to deliver 108 collaborative projects. The scheme aims to deliver five new product developments and to create five new jobs within SMEs as a result.
Brunel produced a book of case studies from phase one and a similar book for phase 2 will be available shortly. The books provide examples of how the programme has contributed to specific SME’s and industrial sectors whilst also showcasing the contribution to the wider innovation landscape within London. It is an excellent representation of the work which is currently taking place. Co-innovate won the Business Incubator of the Year at the 2023 West London Business Awards.
The Bridging the Gap project’s objectives (2017-2023) are to support 30 Enterprises, 25 New Enterprises and to create 15 Jobs. The project will develop 10 Collaborations and assist the introduction of 10 “New to the Firm” Products. The latest performance across both projects combined is captured in the chart below
Our work with SMEs has been recognised through the award of the Small Business Charter in 2020.
The Central Research Laboratory (CRL) has proved extremely successful. The original proposal described a project with a bold ambition to facilitate and support economic growth through creating an open and integrated innovation ecosystem that promotes sustainability and is internationally engaged. The project has exceeded these objectives and has proved to be a catalyst not just within the region but has led to plans for the development of a UK-wide network of such centres, the first of which is the BRITE centre in Brighton. Over 2,600 businesses have interacted with the CRL during the period of the project with 488 start-ups and early stage businesses using the facilities up to January 2023. The support and facilities provided by CRL are clearly making a difference as worldwide survival rates for new start-ups achieve around 10% whereas the CRL cohort survival rate is 80%. Notably, all members of Cohort 8 of the CRL raised investment within a year of graduating. We have seen an increase in job creation within CRL linked with the success of CRL businesses in attracting funding. We anticipate creating more than the 50 jobs targeted for 2023/34. Examples of the sort of businesses emerging from the CRL can be viewed here
Demo Day 2021 - Central Research Laboratory.
TotalBusinesses assisted
290
Non-financial support
290
New enterprises supported
15
Employment increase
7
New collaborations
213
New to firm products
8
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
Brunel University London takes its place in the local region seriously and the wellbeing of the local community is at the heart of our approach to community and public engagement. Our multi-faceted environment, which is simultaneously home to both the UK’s second biggest regional economy and a significantly socio-economically deprived area, marks our approach to community and public engagement. The University’s External Engagement, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Strategy makes clear our duty to engage in a mutually-beneficial dialogue with the public to improve the social, economic and cultural wellbeing of the community on our doorstep. Engaging local civic organisations and members of the public in our research from the outset, we improve their wellbeing and enhance our research in turn.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Brunel’s community is drawn from all parts of the world and home to a culture that drives widening participation and equality, diversity and inclusion. 45% of academic staff have a non-UK background, 63% of our UK PGR students have BAME ethnicity and 78% of our home/EU students are in one or more groups under-represented in HE. Through this diverse community and culture, we have always firmly engaged with the wider world and this is also reflected in our approach to P&CE work, which provides all staff with equality of opportunity to overcome barriers and pursue engagement projects.
We produce graduates ready for their future careers, pursue research addressing major societal challenges, and are in constant dialogue with our partners to ensure that our academic endeavours benefit the public and community groups who need it most. This is also encapsulated in our Royal Charter.
Brunel is located in the UK’s second largest regional economy, yet simultaneously also in a socio-economically deprived area. Heathrow (one of the largest employers in the region) is only a few miles away; however, West London suffers from low levels of economic growth and new business activity. This multi-faceted environment in which we are located characterises our distinct approach to P&CE work.
Our dedicated External Engagement, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Strategy sets out the University’s key areas of strategic focus for P&CE work:
Business Engagement
Civic Engagement
Public Engagement
The strategy for external engagement, innovation and entrepreneurship establishes priorities and activities for realising Brunel’s vision and mission for our interactions with our more affluent partners, such as Heathrow, but also the financially vulnerable and socially deprived communities on our doorstep. For this purpose, we define external engagement as the multiple ways in which the activities and benefits of our research can be shared with the public. Engagement is by definition a two-way process and we have set in place multiple mechanisms to ensure our partners are involved in our P&CE activities from the outset, with the goal of generating mutual benefits.
Each key theme in the strategy is underpinned with action plans and a dedicated team, namely the Engagement Strategy and Support Unit (ESSU), which supports the delivery and the strategy and co-ordinates the relevant activities across the University. We have been working with the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) to develop and adapt our strategy where needed since 2016.
Additionally, we have established a strategic health partnership BPACHS (Brunel Partners Academic Centre for Health Sciences) which is facilitating work with Hillingdon and Central & North West London (CNWL) NHS Foundation Health Trusts to provide a platform for multi-disciplinary research whilst supporting the local delivery of community health and social care.
Brunel’s commitment to Civic Engagement is informed not only by the regional environment in which we operate, and our distinct role in that environment, but it is also enshrined in our signing of the Civic University Commission’s pledge. Engaging the public with our research, whether it is business, industry, patient groups or members of the general public, has been at the heart of what we have done since our formation in 1966.
Aspect 2: Support
Public Engagement (PE) at Brunel is supported by the three-strong central Engagement Strategy Support Unit (ESSU), six engagement-focussed colleagues in the Events teams, specialised Public Engagement Champions in each department, and an Academic Champion for Public Engagement. Together, they promote public engagement activity within the academic community at Brunel and provide support and advice to colleagues about all aspects of the University’s engagement strategy and PE.
The ESSU utilises the intranet to signpost internal and external resources, calls for funding for PE relevant training opportunities and detailed information about the External Engagement, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Strategy and relevant action plans. This includes information about equality of opportunity to overcome barriers to public engagement and support all staff to pursue engagement projects.
A wide range of training opportunities are made available to staff to gain capacity in different engagement techniques, for example on the strategic use of social media for PE purposes and writing for non-academic audiences. The National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) has provided specific public engagement training to our academic staff.
Every year, Brunel offers seed funding for academic staff who wish to undertake PE activity. The scheme, the Public Engagement Fund, is an annual competitive call for PE proposals which specifically address the needs of our communities with up to six projects funded each year since the scheme’s inception in 2016. In the last three years, 83% of staff funded were female whilst 20% were from an ethinic minority background. A wide range of projects have been supported, from co-producing a community health group to supporting local mothers living in disadvantaged areas to raising awareness of the role of urban museums in the city.
Key to embedding PE at Brunel is the sharing of best practice. We host an annual Engagement Day during which both the academic community and members of the public can learn more about how we connect with businesses and community groups in West London.
PE is also part of rewards and recognition at Brunel and those who participate in PE activities are provided with high-profile recognition schemes. For example, PE is part of the published promotion criteria at Brunel and in June 2020, Brunel launched its inaugural research impact and public engagement awards. These high levels of recognition ensure that PE at Brunel is high quality and will continue to evolve.
Aspect 3: Activity
Given its location in a lively yet socially deprived area, Brunel is committed to sharing expertise and facilities for the benefit of the local community. In partnership with the London Borough of Hillingdon, Brunel affirms its commitment to the people and organisations in the local community and mobilises resources to deliver outcomes for the public good.
Our initiatives include Brunel Volunteers. In 2021/22, 1,447 Brunel students contributed 9,921 volunteering hours in supporting 160 charities and organisations. A number of key volunteering events were organised to support local charity organisations, the Mayor of Hillingdon’s charities, Volunteering Fairs, Twelve Days of Giving (Christmas activities), Brunel Buddies mentoring scheme and Brunel Volunteers awards.
Brunel opens up its campus to Junior Citizens, an annual initiative organised by the London Borough of Hillingdon to teach local children invaluable life and safety skills. In 2023, 3,200 children from 50 schools took part. A report from the 2021 event is available.
The University’s commitment to educating local children is evident in many other ways as well: each year, over 10,000 pupils have the opportunity to benefit from our STEM Centre where they learn about the prospects of studying STEM subjects.
The Brunel Legal Advice Centre provides pro bono services to the local community: offering legal advice on employment law, intellectual property, welfare benefits, and domestic abuse, the Centre offers access to justice to anyone in the community who may not receive it otherwise (Brunel Legal Advice Centre | Brunel University London).
Figure 1 Brunel Legal Advice Centre
In May 2022, the University hosted a series of ‘Community Conversations,’ in Uxbridge, where researchers held public events to explore how their work affects the people living in the local community. Ranging from reimagining Uxbridge and researching a (new) High Street to reducing food waste, a list of Community Conversations is available.
In the same month, we held our first ESSU Engagement Day which brought together Brunel colleagues, local businesses and the third-sector to learn how they can develop strong colloborative relationships.
Brunel contributes significantly to the local arts and culture scene by hosting free concerts and art classes throughout the year and being home to Studio Brunel, a student-led theatre company whose productions are accessible to the public and which puts on multiple performances, podcasts, concerts and seasonal events each year.
In 2019/2020, Brunel launched the Artist in Residence scheme, which enables artists to spend six months in the Brunel community at the end of which the residing artist will have developed a programme of work to be viewed by the internal and external community.
The Hillingdon Herald, a newspaper produced by Brunel students prints and distributes 10,000 copies locally each month, reports on local news, theatre, and entertainment in Hillingdon. Meanwhile, Brunel academic staff contribute regularly to The Conversation, a digital source of news written by academics for the wider community. In the last three years, we have published 60 articles with over 2M reads. Members of the public can also access Brunel’s digital research repository BURA and the physical archive of Special Collections.
Brunel’s annual public lecture series which focusses on contemporary issues is always livestreamed and therefore accessible to all. We also produce a digital “What’s On Guide” to which the public can subscribe and which shares news about our activities and events.
Within BPACHS, the Brunel Design School has been working with CNWL to deliver more accessible guidance for the prevention of falls in Hillingdon. Researchers have developed visual information incorporating falls prevention toolkits and risk assessment tools into simple and effective posters.
During Covid-19, Brunel staff and students continued to respond to the needs of the local community: from being at the front-line of health care to providing PPE and laboratory equipment to the NHS to developing Covid tests and predictive modelling for local hospitals. Examples of our wide-ranging contribution to fighting the pandemic can be found here.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
Brunel continuously strives to enhance the quality of its practice. Utilising the diverse skills of our staff to put on the key programmes of activity described above, we regularly reflect on those programmes to determine where to go next.
To enhance our practice activity and grow our community of practice, it is standard procedure across all PE activities to gather constructive feedback, so we can identify changes we may wish to make to future activities. Brunel gathers data on attendance at events, for example at the public lecture series, STEM outreach activities and concerts to see attendance trends and determine whether new audiences are coming to campus. This data also forms part of our annual Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (HE-BCI) return.
In 2021, Brunel founded the Co-production Community, a diverse group of experts who come together to reflect and learn with (and from) others. The group currently consists of over 100 members, including researchers, practitioners, community leaders, policy makers, and public experts.
Many of Brunel’s PE activities are designed to gather participant feedback from the onset. For example, our ‘Happy-to-Chat’ project which aims to combat loneliness and social isolation amongst older people in the local area, collected preliminary data from Brunel’s Older People’s Reference Group (BORG) which then influenced decision-making in subsequent participation activities. This direct approach ensures that we conduct research and PE activities in which members of the public are actively involved and from which they genuinely benefit.
In terms of our digital activities, such as events communicated on our external website and digital newsletters, we track public interest via data analytics, for example number of page visits and amount of time spent on specific content. This enables us to monitor and adapt our web content as necessary to ensure we meet visitor needs.
After the initial editions of Brunel’s “What’s On Guide” were published, the University asked their subscribers to complete a survey to gather feedback to determine the make-up of future editions. The results from the survey showed that:
95% of respondents stated they would book an activity as a result of receiving the What’s on Guide
58% of respondents had a ‘great time’ at a Brunel event
90% said the Guide has made them more aware of the things that the University can offer the community
89% stated their preferred method to receive communication was via email. The What’s on Guide is sent this way.
These results demonstrate that investing in digital communications with the local community not only benefits the community but also provides valuable insights into their perceptions of the University and its PE activities. This then influences future activities to maximise the beneficial outcomes for the public.
Aspect 5: Building on success
We take our role in the region seriously and therefore have in place key governance and accountability mechanisms that support the realisation of our strategic goals and ambitions for Public and Community Engagement. Brunel’s PE activities are led by our Pro Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Employment together with various key internal and external partnerships. We lead the West London Universities Partnerships, are an associate member of the Uxbridge Business Improvement District and have recently signed a Civic Partnership Agreement with the London Borough of Hillingdon. By including PE in promotion criteria, rewards and recognition schemes and internal funds, we hold academic staff accountable, raise standards and promote best practice. (See Aspects 1 and 2).
Participating in our Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), namely the local authority’s Hillingdon Partners, enables us to share and receive feedback on our community activities from a wide range of local stakeholders. This then feeds into the evaluation of our strategic approach and adaptation of our infrastructure to support best practice in future activities and ensure that our research is translated into benefits for the local society, economy, and environment. (See Aspects 3 and 4).
To maximise this undertaking, we involve our partners in the steering of the activities and engage in informed dialogue with them to ensure we understand properly the issues affecting the local region. For example, we play a leading role in the Hillingdon Chamber of Commerce to make sure we understand issues affecting local businesses before we propose strategic goals and Public and Community Engagement activities to support those issues. We also work closely with West London Business and the West London Alliance (which comprises of the seven West London Boroughs) to develop a detailed understanding of the needs of our community and support the re-building of the local economy.
Our “Help to Grow” programme feeds directly into this: by enabling senior managers of SMEs to take part in practical management training programmes, we boost their business performance, resilience and long-term growth. To date, over 3,000 senior managers have completed the programme.
Note You are currently viewing the latest version of this narrative statement. View the previous version as published in previous iterations of the KEF (KEF1 and KEF2)