Institutional Context
Summary
Nottingham Trent University is a leading civic university and one of the largest universities in the country with 40,000 students. Knowledge exchange is at the heart of our 2020-25 strategy University, reimagined. Our theme of ‘Enriching Society’ has the ambition to be a widely acknowledged force for good in social, cultural, and economic development. Our principles are that we change lives, we are bold, and we do the right thing.
We apply our research to local and global challenges, deliver teaching and learning that engages with our community and welcome access to our campuses. Knowledge exchange with our business, community and civic partners informs our thinking, enriches our work, and makes a demonstrable difference to the economy and society.
Institutional context
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) traces its origins to 1843 to the Nottingham Government School of Design, founded to support local manufacturers. As an anchor institution in the local economy, we have grown to meet the needs of employers and now have strong international reputation and impact.
NTU is one of the largest universities in the country with approximately 4,500 staff, 40,000 students, and an annual turnover of over £400m. The winner of four university of the year awards since 2017, NTU was also awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2021 for cultural heritage science research.
Knowledge exchange is fundamental to our 2020-2025 strategy, University, reimagined, developed through consultation with local stakeholders. Our ambition is to be a widely acknowledged force for good in economic, social and cultural development. Our principle is that we change lives by championing a civic, as much as an academic mission, and we are committed to our role helping to transform society.
Partnership is key to our mission. We have fifteen strategic partnerships with leading employers and over 6,000 global business connections. Collaboration with the University of Nottingham, local authorities, hospitals, and the Local Enterprise Partnership has created a joint civic agreement, Universities for Nottingham. The first of its kind in the country, it has an action plan to improve economic prosperity, educational partnership skills and employment, environmental sustainability, health and wellbeing, and to develop community connections.
We focus our research attention on challenges that are as relevant to our stakeholders locally and regionally as they are of global concern. Each year we undertake £4m of contract and collaborative research, and we are ambitious to translate our research and intellectual property to benefit our partners and society.
NTU is a significant provider of innovation infrastructure and established the BioCity Group and Antenna business centre. We constructed a £9m Enterprise Centre and a £23m dual-site Medical Technologies Innovation Facility at our Clifton Campus and in the Boots Enterprise Zone.
NTU is a leading provider of Continuing Professional Development, with annual revenues of over £5m. Through our ESF High Level Programmes we support those who are disadvantaged in the labour market.
We champion the role of students and graduates in knowledge exchange and have placed over 1000 graduates into part-funded placements. We have one of the most comprehensive business innovation and growth programmes in the UK, from start-up to scale-up. This work has attracted £22.8m investment, providing direct support to 2,251 businesses and 3,415 learners. Increasingly, our teaching programmes are enabling community engaged learning and staff and students delivered nearly 60,000 hours of volunteering in the community in the last 3 years.
We welcome public access to campus through distinguished lectures, a dynamic cultural programme at our Bonington Gallery and recently opened venues Metronome, University Hall and online via Confetti X, our 100-seater 4,000 sq.ft. multi-event esports venue and content studio. Our sports facilities are open for community use, with more than 140,000 visits from over 19,000 members of the public since 2019.
For further information, please send queries to jeremy.hague@ntu.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
NTU is a leading civic university, delivering economic, social, and cultural development. Our 2020-25 strategy, ‘University, reimagined’, has ‘Enriching Society’ as one of its six key themes, championing support for large and small enterprises.
We provide economic analysis and research insight which supports policy development for the Midlands Engine Economic Observatory, D2N2 and local government partners.
Working closely with the D2N2 LEP, business representative organisations and local authorities, we are delivering a comprehensive £46.35m ‘Start-up to Scale-Up’ growth, innovation and skills programme.
Our students and graduates acquire skills in enterprise and are supported to explore new business ideas.
The University is a major provider of innovation infrastructure; we develop strategic partnerships with local stakeholders and leading employers to provide access to high level skills, graduate talent, and research and innovation.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Local growth and regeneration.
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) traces its origins to the Nottingham Government School of Design, established in 1843 to support local manufacturers. For over 175 years, NTU has been an anchor institution in the local economy, growing in scale and adapting to meet local, regional, national and global challenges.
Located in the East Midlands of England, the University works with economic agencies at various spatial levels: locally in the city and county, and regionally across the D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership for Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, and the Midlands Engine. At the Midlands level, we are a member of the Midlands Enterprise Universities who are working together to drive productivity and growth.
The University’s 2020-25 strategic plan, ‘University, reimagined’ was developed through consultation with over 50 stakeholder organisations and makes a commitment to Enriching Society as one of six themes. Our strategic ambition is that: “We are an acknowledged force for good in economic, social, and cultural development. We collaborate with those like us who want to address the key challenges of our times and our places.”
University, reimagined outlines our approaches to supporting local and economic growth:
We will consolidate our position as a leading civic university by developing more and better structured opportunities for our students, colleagues and alumni to make meaningful contribution to the challenges faced by our local communities.
We will champion and support large and small enterprises to optimise their access to capable leadership, skilled graduates and the future-facing technologies necessary for them to thrive.
We will focus our research attention on challenges that are as relevant to our stakeholders locally and regionally as they are of global concern, partnering with outstanding institutions that share our aspirations and recognise our contributions.
Our local and regional context
The D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership area has world-class advanced manufacturing with leading employers such as Rolls Royce, Bombardier and Toyota; as a result, there are more manufacturing jobs in D2N2 than any other LEP area. A growing life sciences sector in Nottingham is anchored by Boots and BioCity (founded by NTU and University of Nottingham). Nottingham is also home to Experian and Capital One and an associated emerging digital tech cluster with national specialisms in and around Nottingham’s Creative Quarter.
Three universities are based within D2N2, and we collaborate to support a vibrant innovation ecosystem with three science parks and over ten innovation centres home to numerous innovative SMEs. D2N2 has excellent national and international transport linkages. The M1 runs through the area, close to East Midlands Airport, second to Heathrow in terms of total cargo. This is attracting major investments in warehousing and logistics infrastructure, including the emerging East Midlands ‘Freeport’, the UK’s only inland Freeport with different customs rules designed to attract national and international investment.
While the region is home to large, world-class organisations and their supply chains, it is characterised as a low-skill and low-wage economy. Disproportionate levels of the workforce participate in low skill roles. GVA per hour worked is 13% below the UK average and it is estimated that 54,000 jobs are at risk of disappearing through automation, with a further 413,000 likely to be impacted in some way. Other key challenges include a high proportion of social mobility cold spots, an above average concentration of energy intensive industries and poor East-West regional rail connectivity. While the East Midlands is a business-led innovation region with business investment in R&D at or above the UK average there is a historic low level of public investment.
The D2N2 business growth and innovation advisory board has identified 3 priority areas for innovation and growth: Low-Carbon, Digital, and Life Sciences.
Supporting local policy and partnership
NTU is represented at a senior level in local economic governance structures including the Board of D2N2 the D2N2 Business Growth and Innovation Advisory Board, D2N2 Covid-19 Response Board, the Local Resilience Forum and the Nottingham Growth Board.
NTU has been instrumental in the development of the D2N2 Strategic Economic Plan and Draft Local Industrial and Recovery Strategy. Economists in Nottingham Business School are partners in the Midlands Engine Economic Observatory.
NTU works closely with local policymakers and local government to support the prosperity of the city and county. Through local stakeholder consultation, we have co-designed a Universities for Nottingham Civic Agreement, the first civic agreement of its kind in the UK. The Agreement has an action plan to make meaningful change to the lives of local citizens. This work will be delivered across five themes: to improve economic prosperity, educational partnership skills and employment, environmental sustainability, health and wellbeing, and to develop community connections.
NTU has worked closely with local stakeholders, including Mansfield and Ashfield District Councils and Vision West Nottinghamshire College, to co-develop and co-deliver a holistic programme of work with the aim of accomplishing sustainable change for the area. Activities are spread across five key workstreams: higher education, improving educational outcomes, economic prosperity, community participation and cultural compact. Enterprising Ashfield is a £7.5m revenue programme part funded (£3.8m) by the Towns Fund. The programme is upskilling 900 individuals, helping establish 225 start-ups, supporting 293 businesses to grow, and supporting 200 businesses to innovate through university collaborations and graduate placements in Kirkby-in-Ashfield and Sutton-in-Ashfield.
Aspect 2: Activity
NTU has invested £18.5m in economic programmes. Since 2019 our programmes have a combined value of £46.3m, delivered through the European Structural Investment Funding and UK government funding. Through this investment we are providing direct support to over 2,200 business and high-level skills to over 3,400 people.
Innovation infrastructure.
The University was a founding partner of BioCity, one of Europe’s leading life-science incubators. BioCity now operates MediCity and facilities in Glasgow and Cheshire.
A £23m dual-sited Medical Technologies Innovation Facility (MTIF) was built on our Clifton Campus and on the Nottingham Enterprise Zone. MTIF's mission is to improve the quality of patient care by helping organisations to accelerate the development, clinical production and commercial availability of innovative medical technologies and devices. We are a strategic partnership of stakeholders delivering complementary elements to help take innovative Medical Technologies from “bench to bedside”. MTIF is working with regional businesses to support research and development in areas such the development of new mRNA vaccines, cancer treatments and hearing loss.
The Smart Wireless Innovation Facility (SWIFt) provides a state-of-the-art commercial 5G and Internet of Things (IOT) testbed, which is enabling regional businesses to test and pilot new products and services. This is supported by consultancy and training. Innovative projects include consultancy with a local authority to develop smart infrastructure and capability across its services, the development of streetside IoT cabinets for communication companies, the creation of digital twins, and new digital infrastructure for agricultural applications including crop and animal management.
NTU Enterprise supports entrepreneurs in turning business ideas into reality. It supports over 792 students a year. The £9m Dryden Enterprise Centre opened in spring 2021, providing on-campus accommodation for those entrepreneurs, and businesses who can benefit from a relationship with the university. NTU Enterprise has engaged with more than 14,000 individuals in the last 18 months and have delivered business support programmes and events to over 300 companies.
Antenna Media Centre provides practical support, meeting spaces and networking for 400 businesses operating across the creative industries in Nottingham’s Creative Quarter.
Metronome is a UK-leading centre for music, moving image, video games, live performance and the spoken word and creates a platform for local artists, future artists and technicians. It provides an important regional platform for performance and digital art contributing to the development of Nottingham’s growing cluster of creative and digital industries.
Confetti X is a £5m multi-events esports venue and content studio that hosts events and provides space for students to study esports production and other emerging technologies via the best facilities and technology, with strong links to regional industry.
Business support, high level skills and innovation
The University is a leading provider of business growth and innovation services in D2N2. We work with businesses at each stage of their maturity from Start-Up to Scale-Up. Through business diagnostics, expert workshops and individually tailored assistance, the University supports businesses to upskill their workforces, access graduate talent and to innovate through cutting-edge research and world-class facilities and expertise.
Business start-up and growth. NTU Enterprise supports business idea evaluation and start-up as well as providing business accommodation. Our acceleration and growth programmes are delivered by Nottingham Business School, accredited by EQUIS and AACSB. NBS holds the Small Business Charter, and its Help to Grow courses support SME managers in boosting their business’s performance, resilience, and long-term growth.
Driving innovation. NTU provides significant support for innovation. Our Design Matter research group delivered the £1.1m Impacting Business by Design programme to commercialise business design innovations. The £3m Big House programme has driven business acceleration in the creative and digital industries, working with over 200 businesses. Productivity through Innovation, delivered with the universities of Derby and Nottingham, will enable NTU to work with over 60 businesses to improve their productivity through intensive knowledge exchange. The programme measures SME productivity before and after our intervention to inform a ‘what works’ perspective. The University also provides innovation support to businesses through contract and collaborative research, including KTPs offering funded partnerships with academics and researchers, consultancy and facilities and equipment related services.
Creating high level skills. NTU is a leading provider of Continuing Professional Development for business (c.£5m annually). Through the European Social Fund, NTU leads a local consortium of FE and HE partners in a £23.3m High Level Skills programme which is improving the skills of 6,000 individuals and over 1,174 businesses. Our work includes accredited programmes in women in leadership, sustainability and marketing. We partner with B-Global, Nottingham’s Black-Led business network to deliver our programmes on diverse leadership, management and recruitment.
Sustainability in Enterprise. This £4m ERDF-funded programme helps SMEs in Greater Nottingham on their journey to Net Zero. Supporting 250 businesses, it can demonstrate a reduction of 839 tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions.
Students and graduates supporting innovation in business
Our students and graduates play an important role in knowledge exchange, and placements are integrated into our economic programmes. We have facilitated over 1000 part or fully funded graduate placements in the last three years. Our Employability Team supports companies to recruit graduates, often for the first time.
NLS Legal has provided 1,197 students with the opportunity to work on over 300 cases since 2019. Our multi award-winning teaching law firm sees Nottingham Law School students work on cases under the supervision of qualified and experienced lawyers to develop their employability skills. It provides legal advice and assistance to those unable to afford or otherwise access legal services across a variety of service areas including employment, family, housing, welfare benefits, special educational needs and disability, civil litigation, business and intellectual property. In 2022, NLS Legal was crowned 'Law Firm of the Year' at LexisNexis Legal Awards in recognition of its innovative business model, contribution to the community and access to justice. To date, NLS Legal has achieved financial awards for its clients of over £6 million.
Aspect 3: Results
Outcomes:
We have created a dynamic cluster of entrepreneurs. In the last three years, NTU Enterprise has worked with over 1674 entrepreneurs and has supported the creation of 229 businesses. Businesses which graduate from NTU Enterprise have an average three-year survival rate of over 68% and collectively turn over £26.4m in the local economy.
We have improved the local innovation ecosystem – with the Universities of Derby and Nottingham we have created a new diagnostic and evaluation tool to understand productivity in and provide bespoke innovation solutions to 63 local businesses.
Our economic programmes make a lasting difference to business success - Businesses that received NTU support on the ERDF Enabling Innovation programme (2016-2019) survived longer than the average D2N2 business. It is estimated that the 5-year survival rate for EI businesses is 1.5 times higher than the D2N2 average for the same period 2016-2021.
We are developing a growing network of scale-up businesses – over 450 SMEs are active members of our Business Growth Community, sharing ideas and collaborating to grow their businesses.
NTU has created and led the High-Level Skills coalition for the D2N2 LEP which is improving career prospects for local employees, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. NTU provides 50 publicly funded short-course programmes to local SMEs in high level skills, most of which are micro-accredited.
Our Sustainability in Enterprise programme has pioneered novel forms of student KE delivering consultancy to SMEs and a cross-departmental, university-wide approach to helping businesses achieve net zero.
NTU is delivering a £7m comprehensive business support and training package in Kirkby-in-Ashfield and Sutton-in-Ashfield which will train 900 individuals and increase the local start up rate by 10% – the only programme of its kind in England funded by the Towns Fund.
Success in the Towns Fund has facilitated our partnership with Ashfield District Council on the development of its £30m Towns Fund Automated Distribution and Manufacturing Centre (ADMC). Our HE Hub in the nearby West Nottinghamshire College will provide the high-level education programmes in automation and robotics.
Expert advice to support economic and social planning during the pandemic. NTU contributes to fortnightly monitoring reports on the economic impacts of Covid-19 for the Midlands Engine Partnership and for the D2N2 Economic Recovery Analytical Group supporting pandemic and economic recovery planning. NTU social scientists contributed to the C19 National Foresight Group. Through the development of bespoke reports and an app, NTU has created a new mechanism for Local Resilience Forums, local authorities and recovery cells to learn about Covid-19 and share good practice.
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
NTU is a leading civic university, delivering economic, social and cultural development. Our 2020-25 strategy University reimagined has Enriching Society as one of its six themes. We engage stakeholders to identify challenges and to make meaningful contributions to communities locally and further afield.
We invest in strategic partnerships. We research issues of social and economic relevance. Through placements, projects and volunteering, we apply our expertise to make a difference.
We promote public access to our facilities to participate in our activities. We harness the creativity of our students and colleagues to increase the reach, diversity and recognition of local arts and heritage.
We work with disadvantaged communities providing education that supports social cohesion and skills for changing careers.
Aspect 1: Strategy
NTU’s 2020-2025 strategic plan, University, reimagined, was launched in 2020. Its six themes outline our ambitions in: i) Creating Opportunity for our stakeholders, ii) Valuing Ideas, iii) Enriching Society, iv) Embracing Sustainability, v) Connecting Globally and vi) Empowering People.
Public and community engagement (P&CE) is fundamental to our strategy, which was developed through consultation with 50 community stakeholders. University, reimagined makes P&CE commitments, aligned to wider institutional objectives.
Figure 1: University: reimagined
Our P&CE is articulated in five approaches that are embedded across our six strategic themes:
Civic university – participating in and shaping the civic life of our city and county;
Teaching and research for societal change – aligning our core activities to the needs of our communities.
Culture, faith and sport – Through investment in the public realm, contributing to the vibrant arts and culture of the region, and welcoming the wider community into NTU life;
Tackling disadvantage through education - working with schools, colleges and employers to increase life chances and lifelong learning;
Volunteering to transform communities – facilitating our staff and students to support disadvantaged communities.
Strategic development and support for activity at school level is articulated through the P&CE aspect of School Knowledge Exchange (KE) plans. These contribute to planning activity and enable resources to be directed towards articulated goals.
Strategy and Leadership
Strategic KE – sponsored by the University’s Executive Team (UET). UET proactively supports the University’s engagement with civic leaders and community organisations. Defined programmes of work, led by senior staff, are resourced to enable wider participation of colleagues and students.
Figure 3: NTU Leadership structure for P&CE
Aspect 2: Support
Investment
NTU invests annually in institutional and school engagement in P&CE embedded across school and departmental budgets, internal competitive funding calls and strategic initiatives.
The Institute for Knowledge Exchange Practice (IKEP) was established in 2021 to support best practice in KE, including P&CE. IKEP offers Innovative KE Funding that supports non-commercial KE activity, often involving P&CE. Projects in 2021 included:
‘Celebrating Linguistic Diversity in Nottinghamshire’ working with local secondary schools, former miners, poets and other community groups in collaboration with Inspire Libraries and Youth Arts to create sound clips that are being uploaded to a publicly available online linguistic map of Nottinghamshire.
‘Immersive Experiences: Dark Skies’ co-created tailor-made immersive public engagement activities of sensitive or hard to reach cultural heritage sites.
Multi-Actor Research & Knowledge Exchange Teams, implementing quadruple helix partnerships involving communities, industry, public sector and NTU to address complex local topics.
CPD and training
Our work is led by P&CE specialists. Training is provided for volunteering activities and to support community engagement. In addition, the Trent Institute for Learning and Teaching holds an annual conference which enables lecturing staff to exchange good practice in teaching methods that support community engagement.
IKEP co-ordinates workshops on P&CE in KE and the Researcher Development Team host a range of resources on Thrive, our online organisational development portal, accessible to all staff.
Reward and recognition
P&CE is recognised as part the professorial promotions criteria and the criteria for the VC’s Excellence Awards, embedding P&CE activity as a valued and valuable activity for academic colleagues.
Teams supporting P&CE
The Centre for Student and Community Engagement (CenSCE) leads NTU’s engagement with schools, community organisations and oversees an ambitious staff and student volunteering programme. In 2021, CenSCE introduced an NTU citizenship module, to help students reflect on their identity, culture and values and understand how their sense of self impacts their view of the world around them. The module encompasses NTU’s expectations relating to inclusion and respect.
NTU Events and Conferences organise the distinguished lecture series and professorial lectures that are open to the public.
NTU Sport offers public and community access to sporting facilities.
Associate Dean for Research with responsibility for public engagement with research supports researchers in developing their P&CE ambitions.
Aspect 3: Activity
Approach 1. Civic university – participating in and shaping the civic life of our city and county;
NTU plays a leading civic role. It has senior representation in local governance including the D2N2 Board and the Chief Officer’s Forum of Nottinghamshire County Council.
Universities for Nottingham (UfN) is a civic partnership agreement between 10 organisations. Through the Community Connections theme, we engage with and support local communities and groups. Academics at NTU and the University of Nottingham won the Times Higher Education award 2021 in the category of Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community for their work around the effect of classifying misogyny as a hate crime. Their unique collaboration, between a linguist and a criminologist, has trail-blazed an evidence-based approach addressing violence, abuse and harassment of women and girls.
Nottingham Civic Exchange (NCE) addresses local community needs. NCE supports and maximises the work colleagues do beyond academia, often working with communities. Projects since 2019 include:
C19 National Foresight Group, a cross-governmental group set up to support the UK response to Covid-19, drawing on NTU’s academic expertise to support communities.
Mapping the Health & Wellbeing Across the Firefighting Career supporting the development of a fully inclusive approach to supporting volunteers and staff to manage their own health and wellbeing and understand how to seek support for themselves and others.
Suicide prevention in probation working directly with Ministry of Justice, HM Prison & Probation Service and community groups to reimagine strategy to reduce suicide in high-risk populations.
The Mansfield and Ashfield Programme is transforming local educational outcomes, enhancing culture, delivering economic prosperity and making meaningful change to local people. The programme was designed following co-convened conferences with local leaders, businesses and stakeholders.
Since early 2021, NTU have been working with Ashfield Voluntary Action (AVA) to help develop local community activities to support Social Prescribing in the area. Additionally, consultancy work with Ladybrook Community Centre has been launched, to help build relationships with local people and to find out and understand their needs.
Approach 2. Teaching, research and societal change – aligning our core activities to the needs of our communities;
P&CE is embedded across many aspects of our teaching and research, including:
The Nottingham Centre for Children, Young People and Families evaluation of the £45m Small Steps Big Changes programme to improve the lives of Nottingham’s young people.
Festival of Science and Curiosity had over 20,500 participants attend 121 events since 2018.
Co(l)laboratory Project In 2021, NTU and the University of Nottingham secured £5.1M from the Research England Development fund for the Co(l)laboratory Doctoral Training Partnership, the first flagship project in the UfN initiative. Over the next eight years, it will deliver 30 community events, provide 25 paid ‘Citizen Scientist’ research placements and support 15 community projects.
NLS Legal Our multi award-winning teaching law firm sees Nottingham Law School students work on cases under the supervision of qualified and experienced lawyers to develop their employability skills. It provides legal advice and assistance to those unable to afford or otherwise access legal services across a variety of service areas including employment, family, housing, welfare benefits, special educational needs and disability, civil litigation, business and intellectual property. In 2022, NLS Legal was crowned 'Law Firm of the Year' at LexisNexis Legal Awards in recognition of its innovative business model, contribution to the community and access to justice. To date, NLS Legal has achieved financial awards for its clients of over £6 million.
Approach 3. Culture, faith and sport – Through investment in the public realm, contributing to the vibrant arts and culture of the region, and welcoming the wider community into NTU life;
Curated & Created programmes public cultural events at the Bonington Gallery, Metronome (music, comedy and spoken word) and University Hall (music). Our cultural programme has attracted audiences of 76,099 since 2017. We support the development of local artists, host the Cultural Education Partnership for Nottingham and have strategic partnerships with:
Owned by NTU, and headquartered at Metronome, Notts TV has held the sole licence to broadcast local television in Nottingham city and the surrounding area since 2014. Dedicated to ‘Championing Notts’, the channel attracts 300,000 regular viewers every week.
NTU Sport offers access to our facilities to the public, including gyms, climbing wall, dance studios, sports therapies, Astroturf all-weather pitch, squash courts, grass pitches, exercise suites and sports classes, hosting 140,000 visits from over 19,000 different people since 2019.
Approach 4. Tackling disadvantage through education - working with schools, colleges and employers to increase life chances and lifelong learning;
CenSCE works in partnership with stakeholders to deliver initiatives such as the Nottingham Trent Children’s University, Saturday Art Club and the flagship post-16 learner programme NTU Progression. There is a strong statistical association between young people’s participation in CenSCE’s outreach initiatives and higher levels of attainment and engagement with evidence indicating that:
Key Stage 4 attainment – Free School Meal participants achieved an average of 3.5 grades higher in the Attainment 8 assessments than non-participants
HE entry – Pre-16 outreach participants from disadvantaged backgrounds were more than twice as likely to enter HE than their non-participating counterparts.
This provides ongoing evidence that NTU are working to deliver our commitments to:
reducing the gap in access to NTU between the most and least represented groups.
reducing the gap in higher education participation rates of pupils in Nottinghamshire eligible for Free Schools Meals.
Approach 5. Volunteering to transform communities - facilitating our staff and students to support disadvantaged communities.
At NTU we are committed to improving outcomes for our staff and students, local communities and society as a whole; delivering change through CenSCE programmes such as;
Getting School Ready involves multiple stakeholders and is designed to build the life skills of young people. It aims to empower parents and communities to become key agents of change in supporting children from their early year through to GCSE.
Student volunteering - Local volunteering opportunities offered in collaboration with approximately 120 community partners offering a mixture of one-day, one-term or one-year experiences. These are developed to ensure that the student can apply skills gained at university in a way that is beneficial to the organisation, as well as to their own development – for example language students supporting refugee and asylum seekers or criminology students supporting witnesses in court. Since 2019 this has equated to over 59,000 volunteer hours.
Staff Volunteering – Structured employee volunteering and community engagement scheme involves c.600 staff a year. NTU grants paid time off work to participate in local volunteering opportunities offered in collaboration with community partners. enabling staff to volunteer through regular opportunities with local charities or schools, acting as trustees. Approved activity equated to more than 10,000 hours of community volunteering between 2019 and 2022.
Activities include:
ClickSilver – mentoring older people in computer skills
Right to Read – supporting child literacy
Community Volunteering – providing nearly 60,000 hours in heath, sustainability, criminal justice, education, sports and culture projects.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
Improving our own practice
The Institute for Knowledge Exchange Practice (IKEP) provides the infrastructure for reflecting, learning and sharing our practice on all aspects of KE, including P&CE. IKEP funds grass-roots KE practice networks, enabling communities of practice to come together and learn from one another. Lessons learned and implemented are shared at the annual conference and through our online collaboration spaces.
The CenSCE Stakeholder Engagement Project ran between December 2020 to October 2022 and used a research-informed approach to intentionally assess and develop a way of measuring relationships held with local schools and voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations. The goal was to develop an understanding of the current relationship, whilst also identifying opportunities to develop and move the relationship into a more transformational space (rather than simply transactional) for both parties. Based on the Clayton, Bringle et al Transformational Relationships Evaluation Scale (TRES) and two years of study, reflection, critical learning and development, we have produced a TRES adapted to the UK and NTU context. The ‘Working in partnership with CenSCE’ survey, underpinned by our values, being rolled out with our partners to collaboratively work on assessing our relationships to look for areas for enhancement and co-create strategies to achieve improvements.
Contribution to sectoral improvements
Since 2020, NTU has supported the NCCPE Service Learning/Community Engaged Learning Network in the UK with several NTU staff serving on the committee. In May 2020 NTU co-delivered a UK workshop on Community Engaged Learning with other university partners. Other activities have included webinars and virtual coffee mornings.
Aspect 5: Building on success
P&CE is fundamental to our strategy. We report and review this activity:
At an institutional level
At our Board of Governors through ‘deep dive’ papers on our strategic themes and actions.
At UET Team for university-wide programme activity.
At a departmental level
Our specialist P&CE teams have departmental workplans which contribute to NTU’s Strategic Plan. Objectives and KPIs are reviewed through bi-annual appraisals.
To our external partners and stakeholders
A significant amount of our P&CE activity is co-designed and co-delivered. There is on-going and reflexive dialogue on our joint work through civic leadership functions, programme boards and the Community Advisory Board of CenSCE. Our collaboration with our strategic partners is governed by a compact agreements and regular reviews. Examples of publicly available reporting on P&CE include:
Social and economic impact of UfN
Case studies of the work of the CenSCE
NLS Legal annual reports
Action research and an understanding of ‘what works’
NTU has made a strategic commitment to focus research upon local issues. As our P&CE grows, we are embedding action research within our programmes to evaluate the efficacy of our work and to support evidence-based interventions. We are partners in TASO (Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education) which has created an evidence and evaluation methods toolkit support its work in eliminating equality gaps in higher education.
IKEP is supporting an evaluation culture across NTU for KE activities, including P&CE. Between March and June 2022, IKEP ran a series of evaluation masterclasses exploring a range of evaluation methods for application to business, industry, third sector and P&CE projects. All projects funded by IKEP are requested to include evaluation, feedback or reflection element and these are used to develop resources and improve practices. Colleagues are encouraged to share their evaluations at the IKEP Annual Conference.
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