Institutional Context
Summary
Northumbria’s strategic vision, since 2008, has been to transform ourselves, becoming a research-intensive university able to deliver internationally excellent education that is enhanced by our research to provide an enriching and empowering academic experience for staff and students. Our recent exemplary achievements in REF evidence the success of our transformational strategy.
Combining research with existing areas of strength in education and relationships with business, skills, enterprise and innovation, has created a momentum that will drive Northumbria University into the next decade and beyond. This has also transformed the city, giving Newcastle a second research intensive university and creating a Northern Research Powerhouse in the region with the largest concentration of researchers outside London.
Institutional context
Northumbria’s strategic vision, since 2008, has been to transform as a higher education institution, becoming a research-intensive university that unlocks potential for all, changing lives regionally, nationally and internationally. Delivering internationally excellent education and research that creates new knowledge that benefits society and transforms lives.
Knowledge exchange is at the heart of our mission to create and apply learning for the benefit of individuals, communities and the economy. Through excellent research, education and innovation we transform lives, making a powerful contribution to cultural and economic development and regeneration, locally, nationally and globally. More than 60% of our graduates who enter employment in England do so in the NE, with more Northumbria graduates entering highly skilled employment in the region than from any other university.
We are a unique institution having achieved our strategic objectives for research excellence whilst retaining our heritage as a university of widening access and participation, benefitting students and the wider economy and society. 62% of our UK undergraduate students are from the NE and the rest of our UK UG recruitment is predominantly from the North of England (24%) and 14% from the rest of the UK. Many of these students are from low HE participation of local areas (POLAR) quintiles (Figure 1).
Figure 1- REF 2021 Research Power (England only): % of full time undergraduate home under 21 entrants from low participation neighbourhoods
When the data are mapped across a wider mix of institutions incorporating Post 92 institutions and the traditional research-intensive Russel Group members it is clear to see that we are truly unique (Figure 2).
Figure 2 - REF 2021 research power versus number of entrants from POLAR Q1 and Q2
Our ambitions and delivery for knowledge exchange are an integral part of our research and education agenda, driving remarkable impact for society and the economy. Our strategic partnerships with private, public and charitable organisations enable us to address their problems and support them to achieve their goals. Our unique position is enabling us to extend the reach and impact of our activities across the knowledge exchange spectrum.
We are proud of our deep connections and heritage in the north-east, however the region continues to lag other parts of the UK in most key economic indicators including R+D expenditure, economic activity and employment. Recent government focus on levelling up is welcome in regions such as ours as we strive to ensure that opportunity is spread equally across the country and maximise the role of universities in delivering this mission.
As part of the transformational change at Northumbria we have clearly identified our areas of research excellence. These closely align to local emergent opportunities including energy storage, health care services and space and satellites, as well as highlighting areas of research expertise that are globally recognised. As we look to the future and develop and embed our new university strategy to 2030 these research areas of excellence will enable us to deliver targeted and impactful knowledge exchange benefitting our communities, businesses, students and academics.
For further information, please send queries to Rm.knowledge.exchange@northumbria.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
Northumbria University is actively supporting local growth and regeneration through a range of complementary and strategic programmes combined with an increasingly visible role in local engagement and policy making. Our research excellence and proud heritage as a university of widening access and participation within the North East of England has resulted in enhanced business engagement, creation of highly skilled job opportunities and increasing commercialisation activity.
Our forward strategy will embed this approach further with significant strategic programmes of work that have local growth and regeneration at their heart supporting the region's economy, skills needs, and emerging sectors aligned to research excellence and the research enriched learning environment within the university.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Northumbria University is a research-intensive university that unlocks potential for all, changing lives regionally, nationally and internationally. We deliver internationally excellent education that is enhanced by our research to provide an enriching and empowering academic experience for our students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds in the North East of England. We have a global reputation for academic excellence and are committed to our role as an anchor institution with a civic responsibility. We are a major employer in the region, a key partner in improving the health, wealth and wellbeing of our community and beyond, and we are proud to be ranked in the top 30 of The Guardian University Guide 2021. One of the largest universities in the UK, we attract more than 30,000 students from over 130 countries and have our main teaching and research campus in Newcastle city centre with additional teaching campuses in London and Amsterdam. We were the THE University of the Year in 2022.
Although increasingly global in reputation and reach Northumbria University remains rooted in the local area, and Newcastle city in particular. The university plays a critical role in the city through education, research and knowledge exchange alongside our civic and industrial partners. The city and the wider North East region are our operational focus for local growth and regeneration activities. Northumbria’s university strategy sets out a clear pledge to grow and improve its research, innovation and knowledge exchange through collaboration with key stakeholders and, where relevant, to address national/regional economic and social priorities.
The North East is a relatively small region and Northumbria University works strategically at several levels supporting our approach to the place agenda and local growth and regeneration impact. We work alongside civic partners to align our economic regeneration and local growth support structures with identified local needs and national policy objectives. These partnerships include Newcastle City Council, North of Tyne Combined Authority and the North East LEP who all help shape and inform our support for local growth through data analysis, collaborative working and policy development. We also work closely with other key anchor institutions in the region including the other regional universities, NHS trusts and foundations and the catapult network. We are active partners in the Collaborative Newcastle (Collaborative Newcastle | Health, Wealth & Wellbeing) partnership and in 2021 we formed the Collaborative Newcastle Universities Agreement with Newcastle University.
The Levelling Up White Paper delivers a coherent cross government policy in support of areas such as the North East and is enabling Northumbria University to engage and develop new partnerships, delivery and ambition to support this agenda. Northumbria University provides more skilled graduates to the regional workforce than any other university as well as attracting highly-skilled staff to the region through our impactful research strategy. The region (North East Evidence Hub (northeastlep.co.uk)) has identified areas of potential growth and economic opportunities that have emergent status that align closely with our core capabilities in teaching, research and knowledge exchange including: energy storage and generation, healthcare services, space and satellites. These local priorities are supporting our strategic planning and delivery of local growth initiatives.
Aspect 2: Activity
The following provides some examples of the KE activities that Northumbria University has committed to and delivered over the period Sept 2019 to Aug 2022. These demonstrate how the activity meets local need as well as supporting the overarching ambitions of the university and represent highlights of a broader regional programme of work.
All of the activity aligns to the identified regional needs for:
Enhanced levels of company start ups
Increasing levels of R+D investment in the region
Enhanced levels of collaboration between the HE sector and industry
Local skills need
Creation of high-quality jobs
Working with civic and industry partners in the region enables us to develop and deliver impactful support meeting the needs of the local economy and supporting local economic growth.
Research and Innovation
As a core partner in the ERDF and university co-funded Intensive Industrial Innovation Project (IIIP) we have been able to offer collaborative PhD opportunities with local research intensive SMES. Our delivery has supported 22 regional SMEs and 25 PhD candidates to date with a fully supported three-year project undertaking PhD research on a business specific challenge and developing new IP for commercialisation in the region in high growth sectors aligned to the NELEP key sectors. Early outcomes are showing a high success in SME employment, academic collaboration and impact on business outcomes. An interim evaluation concluded that for every £1 invested over £7 of impact would be anticipated to be delivered through this programme, the majority of this would be in the region within research intensive businesses. The project is a collaboration across the regional universities that has galvanised opportunities for further collaborative research and interventions such as KTPs to emerge; further supporting knowledge exchange and long lasting productive collaborations between the HE sector and industry.
The value and benefit both institutionally and within industry from the collaborative PhD approach is further strengthened at Northumbria through our co-funded collaborative PhD support enabling industrial partners to access match funding from the university to deliver PhD studentships aligned to industrial needs. Both of these PhD schemes significantly add to the talent, skills and engagement within the university and within the region. Creating the high skilled jobs of the future that will support economic growth and capitalise on emergent market opportunities.
The region lags behind most others for business formation and survival rate and is well below average in terms of R+D expenditure. To address these embedded issues in the region the Northern Accelerator programme has been developed (utilising Connecting Capability Funding and ERDF as well as university co-investment) with the regional universities to support spin out formation and long-term sustainability. The programme has delivered a step change across the region, and within Northumbria University, for the delivery of support for commercialisation and the ambition across the regions universities with successful spin out rates approaching quadruple that which were achieved prior to the targeted support being available. As a founding partner we have embedded these new activities into our ongoing approach enhancing support available within the university and seeing demonstrable progress in commercial opportunities, licensing and spin outs linked to our research agenda.
Creative Fuse NE is an AHRC and ERDF funded collaboration between Durham, Northumbria, Sunderland, Teesside and Newcastle University aimed at unlocking the true potential of the creative, digital and technology sectors to drive innovation & growth of the region’s economy. We have supported 71 SME businesses with intensive assistance from the local area as part of the delivery of this programme. The delivery has been a blend of design facilitated advancement programmes in innovation readiness, innovation internships, and dedicated pilot projects.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships continue to be a valuable and impactful part of our knowledge exchange portfolio of support and we had 20 KTPs in delivery during the period of this report, 75% of which were with North East businesses. We continue to use the range of knowledge exchange opportunities with business as a foundation for longer term collaboration as exemplified by our work with Sterling Pharma Solutions - the KTP between Sterling Pharma Solutions and Northumbria University builds new commercial opportunities.
Business growth
Northumbria Enterprise and Business Support (NEBS) launched in January 2021 as a combined enterprise and internships programme supported by ERDF and provides the opportunity for students to work in small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in Tyne & Wear or Northumberland. As well as a professional salary, the internship provides an excellent opportunity to gain practical experience, see what roles there are available in the region, develop skills and enhancing employability of our student base. As of 1st August 2022, 197 applications for internship have been received from NE-based SMEs, with 90 internships having commenced.
The Northumbria University Incubator opened in December 2019, with support from Santander Universities and the NE LEP. The Incubator is a dedicated space for student and graduate entrepreneurs from the University where they can develop their ideas for self-employment/business start-up. They receive wrap-around mentoring support, including access to external specialist advisors and mentors. The focussed enterprise programme of events and support has delivered 32 new companies to date, with a further 134 students/graduates made ‘enterprise ready’ through attending enterprise bootcamp activity.
As well as accessing external funded support for local growth initiatives we also prioritise enhancing the teaching experience through incorporating real life business problems into study, benefitting business and the students. A great example of this is our MA/MSc in Multidisciplinary Innovation (Multidisciplinary Innovation MA / MSc at Northumbria University) which encourages creative solutions using strategic innovation to solve real world complex challenges across a range of businesses from small scale start-ups to multinationals. During the reporting period we undertook over 20 projects via this route with half being based in the region.
Current and future workforce skills
We deliver a wide programme of skills through the university from small scale targeted CPD through to degree apprenticeships that all address regional skills gaps in key sectors. Our established degree apprenticeship schemes work with over 400 SMEs providing vital next generation skills. These programmes are co-developed to ensure emergent industry needs are met and our participant students are best placed to take advantage of the opportunities presented for them as a result. Some exemplars are:
The North East Solicitor Apprenticeship - combining theoretical academic study with practice-based modules and work-based learning (in partnership with a range of local law firms). This programme offers a blended learning approach, enabling the apprentice to develop their theoretical knowledge, practical experience and competency over the 6 year course.
Help to Grow: Management (Help to Grow | Northumbria University ) is delivered by our Business School and is part of a national network that aims to support over 30,000 SME business leaders with leadership skills supporting business growth.
Aspect 3: Results
Northumbria University is proud of the quality, breadth and depth of the work that it delivers which has a positive impact on local growth and regeneration. The impact of our work reaches many parts of our region, creating new knowledge, transforming lives and creating wealth. It is vital that we use our civic engagement and convening power to support the regional growth agenda wherever possible and we ensure that proposals and investments are maximised and aligned to local need.
It is absolutely necessary that we gather feedback from participants, beneficiaries and partners of all of our local growth delivery to ensure that it is fit for purpose and adds value. This is undertaken systematically via the project teams and strategic leads in each of the areas and feeds institutional strategic priorities and approaches alongside other more data driven metrics. Many of the programmes of support are externally funded so for these we focus on thorough evaluation and institutional lessons learnt to influence internal strategy and wider communications activity whilst being cognisant that delivery may not always be possible to maintain at the same levels dependent on the external funding environment.
The ERDF Intensive Industrial Innovation programme has enabled Northumbria to support innovation in regional SMEs. IIIP funded PhD students deliver technological, product and service innovation across sectors including digital and AI, health and life sciences and construction. All three cohorts have now progressed through the project with the final participants due to complete in June 2023. Interim evaluation of the programme has been undertaken building to a full evaluation of the programme in the next year. Measurable and sustained growth in employment numbers, GVA and R+D spend are all being reported by participants. All civic partners will receive copies of the final evaluation once it has been finalised, case studies have been used throughout the network
Embedding and delivering a step change in the region’s economy through spin out creation from our academic base is being pioneered by Northern Accelerator through the creation of a venture capital fund to provide early-stage equity-based investments in spinout companies formed from university research. The fundraising strategy will move the support away from grant-based delivery mechanisms towards market generated ideation and delivery through Venture North. Currently investments are being sourced to develop this fund through North Star Ventures and the collaborating universities for circa £50m - £70m. Successful delivery of Venture North will embed and further support the spin out ecosystem across the consortium partners (now including York and Teesside universities) and final evaluation of the CCF supported programme is being undertaken by external consultants currently, the findings of which will be shared widely.
Northumbria’s ERDF Internship and Enterprise Projects providing graduate internships and enterprise support is having a sustained and tangible impact. The current ERDF project is expected to build on historical successful delivery and support at least 230 new and existing SMEs and provide internship opportunities to 120 graduates post Covid. The institutional HEB-CIS data for this activity recorded 25 new business start-ups, 128 businesses surviving more than 3 years and an estimated turnover of active business start-ups of over £100m.
Communication of these activities and the focus on local growth that they have had is a core strand of our engagement strategy supported by our centralised marketing, PR and communications team. Blending research expertise and industrial connections into a cohesive knowledge exchange narrative for communications is an increasingly powerful route for the university to engage with a wider group of partners and shape future delivery ambitions.
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
We see strong civic bonds as a key component of an economically inclusive and socially mobile society. Our view is that Higher Education institutions are able to transform the lives of stakeholders through active and impactful public and community engagement.
At Northumbria University, public engagement underpins our high-quality research and educational offer. This approach supports academics and students to contribute to their communities through working with entrepreneurs, practitioners, employers, third sector, public institutions and individuals. This approach has enabled us to contribute to improving social prosperity and embedding longer term partnership and collaboration opportunities through a focus on external needs.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Public and Community Engagement (PCE) is vital for supporting our academic and education endeavour and is a core part of our University Strategy supporting our ambition to “Take on Tomorrow”. The full university strategy document can be found here (Northumbria University Strategy 2018 - 2023 by Northumbria University - Issuu) but our opening narrative exemplifies the importance we place on the role of knowledge exchange and particularly that of PCE throughout the institution.
“While the world constantly changes, we are ready. Excited by the future, we tackle tomorrow’s challenges head on. Pursuing new thinking, forging new partnerships, creating and exchanging new knowledge, we lead the way forward. Empowering innovators, visionaries and change makes to transform lives and make a remarkable impact on the world. We celebrate the exceptional, question the ordinary and make bold choices. Engaging all, we continuously reinvent and reshape to make the impossible, possible.”
At the strategic level PCE is incorporated as a core mission within the Teaching, Research and Knowledge Exchange portfolios of the UE leads and is seen as an enabler for both our institutional strategy and our impact. Faculty leadership supports the identification of best practice and review and reflection through departments to the research and knowledge exchange team structure enables the university strategic approach to be nuanced and evolved in line with emergent best practice and relevant to both department and partner needs.
This open, collaborative approach within the university community enables strategic direction to be maintained whilst supporting innovation, emergent opportunities and best practice to be both supported and disseminated widely. We have identified institution wide methodologies that we can support and encourage in enabling PCE (e.g. internships, public lectures, research projects) alongside reflection on the existing relationships and engagement that we have and potential new opportunities. Our approach to needs identification is often woven within the PCE activity itself (as exemplified below) and creates the consistent feedback loop that we then use strategically to support future engagement programmes.
A key development in our place based PCE strategy has been the civic university agreement, Collaborative Newcastle (Collaborative Newcastle | Health, Wealth & Wellbeing ), which has been developed from our partnership with Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council, North of Tyne Combined Authority and the Newcastle and Northumbria NHS Trusts. Through this partnership we have identified priority areas for interaction and specific projects have emerged, including Insights North East, which supports the underpinning priorities of the partners.
Aspect 2: Support
PCE is a vital mechanism for us to fully deliver our university strategy and ambitions. As such we have a number of different approaches deployed across the university and within faculties that enable, support and enhance PCE opportunities in line with best practice.
Central Support
Professional services support is provided through impact support officers working with academic colleagues to ensure positive and beneficial impact is identified and a core ethos of research activities. Departmental impact leads have been identified across the university and are encouraged to speak to PCE regularly at departmental executive meetings giving an oversight of ongoing activity and emerging opportunities relevant to the dept. Aligned focussed support from marketing is also enabling us to open up new channels for engagement and exemplify best practice in an accessible format and dedicated business development support works with our business communities to identify needs around PCE. Forward plans include key stakeholder and PCE mapping and account management as we look to maximise the value from existing relationships and identify new emergent ones and mechanisms to support.
In year QR investments have enabled enhanced PCE activities to be identified and supported through a competitive bidding process across the university and we will continue to use any future investments in a similar way. Similarly, seedcorn funds from university resources often enable PCE as part of the early research process ensuring appropriate plans that meet the needs of external stakeholders can be developed. These funds are all managed centrally and reported into Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee.
Departmental support
Departments are actively choosing to add value to the central support services in place to encourage and support additional PCE activity. The focus of this is often to provide the first stepping-stone towards activities and to ensure PCE is well resourced and robustly delivered.
Humanities have introduced new forms of financial support for staff to access, including a departmental fund for impact-related activities for small-scale support. This is intended to support PCE work in its early stages, with a view to such ventures being grown to then apply for support through the NU central funding for KE, Impact and Policy work and/or external funding schemes (esp. UKRI).
A further key means of practical support has been the creation of Impact Cluster Groups. These interdisciplinary groups centre on types of PCE work and include the following: Policy Initiatives; Community Stakeholders; Interpreting Sites & Collections; Creative Practice Stakeholders. These initiatives are building a practical resource through avenues for networking with colleagues and external stakeholders, sharing best practice and developing group projects/grants.
Support from research
Within our Business and Law Faculty - Insights North East (INE) is part of the infrastructure supporting community engagement in the university. The project funds a joint team of nine new appointments, with inputs from 11 academic staff. The design of INE places the needs of the community central to our work and the project is demand-oriented in that public partners propose priority topics for investigation and the project is designed to draw upon existing research and evidence rather than commissioning new research.
Reward and Recognition
Last academic year Northumbria reviewed and updated the forms and process for academic progression and promotion. Discussion of different forms of KE are explicitly requested in the documentation and rewarded in our decision making. PCE is celebrated in this part of the promotion documentation.
EDI
EDI is explicitly recognised and explored in our internal process related to KE. Where possible, applications for internal resources are anonymised and subsequent allocations (such as internal funding for growing KE work and working with communities) analysed by gender and membership of an ethnic minority grouping to check for fairness and bias. All academic departments have achieved at least Athena Swan Bronze award with Research and Innovation Services hoping to secure this accreditation in 2023.
Aspect 3: Activity
As detailed earlier we undertake a wide range of complementary PCE activities across the university supporting our research, knowledge exchange and teaching agendas. Below are some examples of the diversity of our approach and the impact being realised as a result of PCE both within and outside of the university.
Student aligned examples of PCE activities
Internships
NU Internships are a structural investment by the University which have allowed us to partner with many external organisations via each of the internships building on our PCE approach. Our internally funded scheme creates 100, paid, 100-hour undergraduate internships per year.
Interns in the design school were liaising directly with external partners and staging public engagement events and exhibitions to develop their confidence, communication and commercial acumen whilst embedding PCE ideas and thoughts into their emerging work.
Student Law Office
The Student Law Office is a multi award-winning and world leading law clinic, offering vital legal services on a regional and national level free of charge to members of the public, businesses and community groups. Through its outreach activity, the Student Law Office acts as a catalyst in raising awareness of and providing access to justice. Each year, approximately 200 students and 25 staff contribute many thousands of hours of pro bono advice each year. The Student Law Office produces exceptional results: since 2008 the Student Law Office has dealt with over 3000 enquiries, represented more than 1000 clients and secured over £1 million on their behalf. This work culminated in 2019 in winning a Green Gown Award - for Benefitting Society.
The Business Clinic
Businesses can access expert advice and consultancy from final year business students across a wide array of business issues. Students work in small groups to undertake scoping, research and making recommendations engaging with the client at every stage.
Research aligned PCE activities “Being Human” the UK Festival of Humanities
Northumbria has successfully gained funding for public events for every year of the festival since its launch in 2014, and twice been awarded Hub Status. We were last a hub in 2022, with a programme of 11 public events celebrating the 1,900-year anniversary of Hadrian's Wall and the return of the Lindisfarne Gospels to the region for a major exhibition at the Laing. Our festival events have attracted large public audiences demonstrating our ability to tailor appealing public events and pitch research in accessible and relevant ways. Every festival event sees NU researchers work alongside cultural sector partners, often in ways that bring new audiences to that partner.
CAPE
The Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE) programme is a knowledge exchange and research project that explores how to support effective and sustained engagement between academics and policy professionals across the higher education sector. CAPE is a partnership between UCL and the universities of Cambridge, Manchester, Northumbria and Nottingham, in collaboration with the Government Office for Science, the Parliamentary Office for Science & Technology, Nesta, and the Transforming Evidence Hub. The model supports a range of engagement opportunities including policy fellowships, collaborative funding opportunities, events and training.
Educational offer supporting enhanced PCE delivery
NUSTEM
NUSTEM provides support and materials to encourage and inspire local children to engage with science and consider it a viable career opportunity. During 2021-22 the team undertook over 12,000 interactions with children and young people and collaborated with 66 schools delivering 363 events and activities.
CPD
Within our social work, education and community wellbeing department almost all our work is community facing and community engaged because of the range of professions we educate and support. We have developed a standalone CPD accredited module “Public involvement and co-production in research” This module is designed to help the public to gain the skills and knowledge needed to be able to take an active and meaningful part in research projects that concern the public.
Converge
Converge at Northumbria is a collaborative project with York St Johns to deliver free educational campus based opportunities in the community for those who have / or are experiencing challenge associated with mental health. Courses available range from fine art to drama and performance. The university is looking to further embed and expand our impact through our focus on health and social equity as a core pillar of our future strategy.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
Evaluation of our PCE takes many forms, reflecting the range of approaches across the university. These can be as diverse as formal project level evaluations through to informal feedback mechanisms, discussion forums, formal community feedback and data capture. They all support the evolution of our institutional approach and knowledge sharing across departments and will form the basis of a more structured institutional approach via the emergent university strategy.
As well as supporting exemplary PCE activities we also have pockets of research expertise in these areas that are being rolled into the wider university approach and inputting quantum and support into best practice evolution. Insights North East is an example of embedded research expertise and learning enabling us to influence best practice institutionally as well as in our partnerships. The project has an action learning work package built in to monitor and evaluate the activities of the project and develop learning on good practice in policy and community engagement. This activity will develop new tools for evaluating our success as well. Results will be shared with community representatives via our advisory council and also published on the website and shared through significant events such as an annual conference open to all organisations in the city region.
Humanities are currently working to set up a meeting for all staff holding external funding to agree a set of principles related to the organisation and support of evaluation of P&CE activity. They will collaboratively create a framework of guidance for best practice on this front, before rolling this out across the department.
Aspect 5: Building on success
We have realised our goals and ambitions for PCE in a number of ways. At the institutional scale we have provided support and funding for community engagement work and refined and developed partnerships in the region to work with communities. We include members of the public within our governance and management structures, such as on our Board of Governors and on our Research Ethics Committee. At a more local scale we have secured research funding that explicitly engages the community in our work, often within individual faculties. Collaborative Newcastle and INE represent significant investments in developing our work with local communities and are a significant step forward.
The increasing focus on the critical role for PCE has seen emergent new areas of work, for instance, in Humanities the creation of the Impact Support Team and impact departmental role have been crucial to allowing us to further resource and provide the necessary support for PCE work. We are currently developing a new foundation year core module ‘Humanities in the Wider World’ which will showcase these activities and embed them in our learning offer, promoting the exciting and innovative ways in which Humanities research translates into practice in the P&CE sectors.
Aligned to our flexible needs based approach to PCE we monitor and evaluate this activity at the local scale. For example the Department of Psychology monitors Public Engagement activity (PE) through an ESRC-modelled online tracker capturing various metrics including engagement format, audience, reach, and impact. Based on reports from staff thus far, our strongest capacity lies in engagement through expert panel groups, workshops and media dissemination. The department provides PCE support to staff through the Public Engagement Lead, a repository of PE resources, and have organised a series of workshops for PGRs focused on public involvement, and community engagement.
As part of our marketing operations we review and reflect on how communications can help engage our communities. We understand our research and education can lead to positive benefits so we ensure we celebrate and share research that can influence policymaking and make positive changes to our stakeholder community. We use internal communication mechanisms to share learnings from PCE work where relevant to our staff and students. Evaluation also feeds into our Researcher Development Programs.
Using the KEF process to reflect and review what has been an extraordinary period of change both externally and internally we have never valued the need for appropriate PCE more highly. As we develop and embed the new institutional strategy (2024 onwards) PCE will be one of the key enablers for success. The next stage of growing our capability and capacity in PCE work and supporting directed investments at the institutional level is to undertake a formal review of what we currently do, how best to monitor and evaluate this work, and this will be used to inform and shape an integrated approach across the institution.
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)