Institutional Context
Summary
The University of York is a research intensive university with over 19,000 students and more than 4000 staff.
Whether developing new drugs and technologies or delivering in cultural and social activities we believe that partnerships between the University, public sector, civic and business organisations are essential for ensuring that University research can be used to generate economic, social, environmental and cultural benefits.
Across the University, we work collaboratively with external organisations to mobilise our knowledge, our people and our resources to co-produce solutions that help tackle the immediate and long-term challenges faced locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Institutional context
The University of York is committed to world-leading positive external impact as a strategic objective. Our institutional 2030 strategy aims are that
our research, teaching and knowledge exchange equips a new generation of future civic and sustainability leaders,
researchers, entrepreneurs and professionals are equipped to meet the complex challenges of a rapidly changing world and
our research and actions transform the future of our society economically, socially and environmentally.
Social and environmental sustainability is embedded throughout our research, teaching and engagement activities, both internally and externally. This applies not only to our carbon footprint and our equality and diversity policies , but also to the types of partnership we develop, and to the way we develop and engage our students and staff so they have the skills and understanding to tackle local, national and global challenges.
Much of our public engagement targets children and families and many of our events are free to ensure there are no barriers to participation.
Our influence extends locally, regionally, nationally and internationally and this is reflected in the diversity of our partnerships across the public, private and third sectors. The focus of our KE work is with those organisations most able to benefit from our world-class facilities, research and research-informed teaching.
Regional Engagement
York is a leading driver of innovation across the North of England, working closely with the LEPs, regional and city councils and associated business and civic engagement organisations.
We work to encourage high value and high tech employment in the city by providing businesses with access to high-quality executive and professional training programmes, graduate work placement students, staff and student volunteers who provide over 45,000 volunteering hours annually, and space on campus for over 150 companies.
Technology Innovation
York has significant expertise in technology innovation in industrial biotechnology, med-tech, agri-tech and in digital gaming and creative media. This expertise is helping drive York and North Yorkshire’s knowledge-driven economy.
Public Sector Impact
York has decades of experience in advising international, national and local policymakers on housing, welfare and poverty, health and social care, mental health and crime. We draw on a wide range of academic skills and disciplines, to discover, refine and apply new interventions to improve health and social care, including mental health, inequalities and food insecurity.
The York Policy Engine (TYPE) has been established to provide dedicated support to strengthen academic-policymaker engagement and to facilitate the adoption of research generated at York into policy; supporting the University's vision to be a true force for public good.
Culture and Heritage
Located in a city with a strong cultural and heritage sector, York recognises its role in driving innovation in these sectors, locally, nationally and internationally to develop places and communities we want to live, work and play in.
Through partnerships with leading museums and art galleries including the York Museums Trust, the Tate, the National Gallery and Amazwi in South Africa we engage in collaborative research projects, co-curation of exhibitions, training, staff secondments, student placements and numerous arts and community events.
For further information, please send queries to business@york.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
The University is part of the York and North Yorkshire region, which is predominantly rural. We also have strong links with the neighbouring areas (West Yorkshire, Humber and Tees Valley) and the wider Northern regions.
As part of our ‘University for Public Good’ civic mission, we proactively engage and collaborate with regional stakeholders to support economic development by improving access to (and use of) our research, teaching and organisational capabilities.
Our research expertise in the areas of bioeconomy, digital creativity, safer autonomous systems and quantum communications is of particular regional importance as they link with key industrial sectors such as rail. The bioeconomy activities are also a main driver of net zero activity for the region.
Aspect 1: Strategy
The University is proud to be an international institution, but it is also deeply embedded in the City of York and our wider region. As one of the most important institutions driving innovation and research capability in the region, we seek to improve outcomes for York, the wider region, and the north of England. We share values with the community of which we are a part, and can offer specific expertise to develop new economic activity around us.
The university takes great pride in our ‘University for Public Good’ civic mission and uses its expertise as a catalyst for economic development and supporting the diversification of the local economy into new sectors. We have invested heavily in a large economic development team that brings a vast array of experience in the management of regional funding and business engagement.
Senior members of the University serve on advisory and governance boards for local and regional organisations, including the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (the Main Board, Business Board and Skills and Employability Board), York City Council, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, Make It York, York Cares, York Museums Trust, and the York Country House Partnership. We are also represented on several regions’ UKSPF Local Partnership Boards helping support regional strategy and influencing how this funding is distributed in our regional area.
Locally
From our direct engagement with the City Council, to our leadership of, or involvement in, local community events, the university places a strong emphasis on helping make York a thriving and desirable place to live or visit. Through a range of activities, we help drive economic growth in our local businesses and underpin a social and cultural environment that benefits both residents and visitors.
We have established strong collaborative relationships with the council, business support organisations and local community groups that ensure we understand and can respond to the local growth and regeneration ‘needs’ of the area. In recent years the university has played a central role in helping the city expand from a service-based economy into a science and technology economy, encouraging new knowledge-based employers into the city.
Regionally
The University is located within the York and North Yorkshire (YNY) Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), whose region covers a large predominantly rural area with a high proportion of very small businesses. Whilst YNY is our home LEP, we have strong links to the three neighbouring LEP areas of Leeds City Region, Humber, and Tees Valley. Each of these LEPs have quite distinct profiles, ranging from Leeds, a city based LEP, to the Humber, with strengths in bioeconomy and renewables (including offshore energy), and to the Tees Valley, with an area having both a rural and automotive background.
We identified our regional economic priorities through working with these LEPs, understanding their Local Industrial Strategies and identifying where we can add value given our specific research, teaching and operational strengths. Senior university staff serve on several regional policy and strategy groups in these areas, which helps us to identify their particular economic needs, influence developments and actively support one another to achieve economic benefit.
National/International
Although most of our growth and regeneration activities are delivered at a local and regional level, our research is linked to key strategic developments at a pan-North-of-England and National level, and through supporting major global challenges.
For example, the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC), which supports the development of bio-based processes and products, was established to build upon existing regional, national and international collaborations to develop bio-based products. The BDC is part of a wider BioYorkshire initiative that the University is leading. Interactions with BioYorkshire stakeholders have identified the need for a new scale-up centre (the BDC) in the region, to foster new innovations that can be tested on an industrially relevant scale.
Aspect 2: Activity
Our activities cover local, regional and national levels, helping address the strategic economic development and diversification needs identified by strategies outlined above.
The BDC has continued to deliver knowledge exchange activities with public and private sector partners and collaborations with UK and worldwide institutes through grant and commercially funded projects. These have involved collaborative working and knowledge exchange for larger projects such as Azotic Technologies Ltd who have recently moved to the BDC site at Dunnington, so as to take increased advantage of the synergistic relationship with the BDC.
The BDC continues to be active in the BioYorkshire initiative, which brings together several large regional stakeholders and has a variety of ambitions feeding into the York and North Yorkshire LEP’s net zero and green agenda. The project will also support the region’s ambitions to become the first carbon negative region in the UK, and will support the City of York to achieve their carbon neutral 2030 target.
BioVale, our membership organisation which includes over 800 active members and special interest groups (hemp, anaerobic digestion, entrepreneurship) has delivered a wide range of workshops, training and meetings in support of SMEs and others operating in the bioeconomy.
Digital Creativity continues to be a focus of research and KE across the University, bringing together creative practice, technological development and support for both businesses and people. With more than £38m of public funding, plus match funding from the university, HEI partners and industry, we support R&D, talent development and economic development and diversification, aiming to establish the UK as world-leading in digital, interactive and immersive storytelling. The regional business case was founded on Screen Yorkshire's Growth Plan, evidencing the need for investment in the screen industries. Initiatives include:
XR Stories, part of UKRI's Creative Industries Clusters Programme, funded from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund via the AHRC to support research and development for the future of immersive storytelling through place-based, University-led engagement and collaboration with regional SMEs to enable economic growth.
SIGN (Screen Industries Growth Network) funded by Research England's Development Fund to support regional TV, film and games industries through business support, training, research and inclusion of diverse participants.
XR Network+ a national project funded by the EPSRC to bring together five of the existing Creative Industry Clusters and unlock the potential of content creation and consumption in virtual production and eXtended Realities (XR) for the wider digital economy.
The Institute for Safe Autonomy was established to build on existing University expertise and create new, cross-cutting research areas with external partners. The Institute’s vision is to “… be the partner of choice for world leading, multi-disciplinary expertise on the safety of automated systems that supports impactful use by society, government and industry at a local, national and international scale”. This will be delivered through a cross-sectoral approach and strong relationships with a range of external stakeholders, focused on safety critical industries, that enables the design, development, demonstration, and testing of complex autonomous systems. This will be further supported by actively influencing thinking on the regulation, trust and adoption of these technologies.
Enterprise Works is a new business hub that brings together regional businesses, entrepreneurs, students and researchers to nurture enterprising talent and help small businesses to grow and drive social change by encouraging and supporting entrepreneurial activity. Working across the City and Region, Enterprise Works builds on the University’s experience in supporting student start-ups and small businesses, to support entrepreneurs across our city and region including those from disadvantaged or minority groups.
The University of York has formed a partnership with Barclays Eagle Labs to provide local businesses with access to banking experts, a network of co-working spaces, mentors and learning tools, as well as events and growth programmes for ambitious entrepreneurs and businesses.
The Product and Process Innovation (PAPI) project (£8m ERDF) activities in both the YNY LEP and LCR LEP areas are playing a key role in the LEPs’ business support ecosystems. The majority (£5m) of project funding is used to provide small grants to businesses to help with the cost of developing new products. PAPI is a clear example where the University of York has stepped forward and acted as an ‘anchor institution’.
The StreetLife project is using York’s historic High Streets as heritage a catalyst for community renewal. The project received £460,554 of UK Government Community Renewal Funding (CRF) and showcases history, arts and creativity related research in a previously vacant shop in a key high street in York (Coney Street). Regular poetry, music and sound workshops have also taken place, providing additional evening attractions for residents. Several permanent and visiting exhibitions are on display bringing to life the lesser known histories of the street to life.
This supports the Government initiative of diversifying local high streets so that they are not totally dependent on retail. The space currently hosts ‘The Common Room’ project engaging people creatively and actively with place-making and planning and expanding our work with York Civic Trust and the Helmsley Group (a local property developer) ensuring that the local community has input into the Helmsley Group’s plans of opening-up the City’s riverside space.
To deliver this activity we employed eleven research trainees who worked alongside University academics specialising in the subjects of heritage, English and music. This helped to bring to life the history of the street and developed a truly unique offer on the high street.
Aspect 3: Results
The activities listed above are achieving significant benefits for the local, regional and national economy.
BDC and BioVale
Over the years, the BDC has (through grant funded projects) provided 88 SMEs with access to their facilities and expertise, developing projects to enhance their economic outputs by de-risking new and innovative processes within the bio and circular economies. The BDC has also worked with 38 companies, including SMEs and large multinationals, through privately funded routes with a total of 99 projects.
The partnership with Azotic Technologies Ltd, has brought 30 new jobs to the area and continued opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaborative working.
Knowledge exchange with other research institutes has continued through the years with 7 projects forming collaborations with UK and worldwide institutes.
The Institute for Safe Autonomy (ISA)
The focus areas for the Institute remain flexible to pivot to new activities should opportunities arise – as shown by the £1.5m funding secured for the Net Zero project for the construction of a solar farm ‘living lab’ adjacent to the Institute and the installation of an ‘Internet of Things’ smart sensor testbed within the building. The facility is enabling a range of research projects and industry collaboration in the areas of solar array inspection, robotic development, IoT and Digital Twins.
XR Stories
More than 100 separate R&D projects, 500+ engagements with SMEs and over 100 companies receiving direct investment to support R&D.
£6.6m GVA and 543 jobs created/maintained up to the end of 2023 based on “XR Stories being the leading centre for [creative R&D] in Yorkshire and Humber and this activity being complementary to other growth drivers”.
£2m in direct investment in creative industry SMEs with £21m of leveraged co-investment into the region.
85% of surveyed businesses indicate that working with XR Stories has enabled them to create assets that will generate revenues for them into the foreseeable future.
SMEs working with XR Stories evidence 46% higher growth in revenue and employability that is directly attributable to our intervention and investment.
SIGN
SIGN has delivered over 70 interventions designed to overcome the challenges of working within the screen industries including issues around workforce development, barriers to entry, diversity of content, audiences and workforce, and post-Covid recovery of the sector including::
560 lab sessions attended, 197 boot camp attendees, and 824 short course attendees, totalling 1581 people supported.
125 bursaries awarded to date, helping people with transport costs to interview, attending training and skills development opportunities, or upskilling.
141 people across the screen industries supported through our mentoring programme.
Internships and placements
Across both XR Stories and SIGN, over 135 people have undertaken an internship or placement. 27% of those led to a job in the company for the participant. 95% of those employers who engaged with this programme noted a benefit to their company in terms of product development, with 100% considering the placement to be a success.
PAPI
PAPI is an established part of the regional business support ecosystem and has ERDF funding until June 2023. The two PAPI projects have approved 290 SME grants for a total value of £4.64m. The map below shows how this activity is spread across the whole area.
A further 164 SMEs have been supported via two-day Innovation Workshops.
By the end of project, it is expected that support from PAPI will have led to:
598 jobs created
472 new to the business products created
215 new to the market products created
PAPI has also facilitated a large number of cross-referrals both internally and externally, ensuring the businesses get the help they need.
StreetLife
The project has hosted over 100 events and exhibitions (including the University’s own Festival of Ideas); officially engaged with 1,133 members of the public, interacted with 137 businesses and connected with 51 voluntary sector organisations. In addition it has delivered outcomes including formal knowledge exchange collaborations with key partners and stakeholders, individuals going onto further education and training and new services and products developed.
The project has delivered economic and social benefits of £1.39m including a preserving heritage benefit of £1.26m (based on DCMS Culture and Heritage Capital Evidence Bank). StreetLife represents high value for money generating £2.20 in social and economic benefits for every £1 of public money spent.
The University has continued to fund the project so that it can continue to deliver in 2023. This project has strengthened the involvement of Arts and Humanities activity in local economic development issues. and led to more partnerships with community groups and local developers, enabling the University to increase its role in the discussion around the future of York’s high street.
As a University for Public Good, we are keen to continue supporting the creative sector and having an outlet for research to engage with the local community.
Communication of Results
The hyperlinks in this document provide examples of our communication ranging from case studies, local, regional and national press releases and social media. Through these, the University communicates the value of its research, teaching and other organisational activity and outlines its impact on the wider economy.
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
The University of York is a university for public good. Conducting publicly engaged research and knowledge exchange is core to our mission. We are passionate about engaging diverse communities to increase the positive impact of our research beyond academia through a wide range of activities, including participation in research and its co-design and co-production, open lectures, consultations, festivals and exhibitions, networking, and training & development.
The University Strategy 2030 calls for collaboration with individuals, organisations and communities, to work together to define common challenges, and design effective solutions. In 2021, we commissioned an NCCPE-led review of public engagement at the university, which resulted in a university-wide scoping exercise and the formation of a working group to better support PE practitioners.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Our collaborative ethos at the University of York drives our community and public engagement (P&CE) and aligns with our vision to be a university for public good, see our University Strategy to 2030. From its very founding, the university has been committed to working with communities locally, nationally and internationally to address social justice and inequalities, values we continue to champion in our 60th anniversary year.
Our institutional Strategic Aims ensure “Our partnerships enable us to engage effectively with community members who bring different experiences and approaches to collaboration, who can open the door to those communities and who can teach us about new forms of leadership”.
These partnerships are governed by the University Partnerships, Engagement and Enterprise Committee (UPEC) which is chaired by our Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Partnerships and Engagement. UPEC is also responsible for developing the University’s Community and Civic Engagement Agenda and our Enterprise Agenda and importantly, UPEC has governance and oversight of public and community engagement at York.
Following our first KEF submission we have focussed on enhancing public engagement at York through UPEC and the support of the NCCPE, who reviewed our public engagement activities, and enabled us to develop a number of approaches to better monitor, report and support PE activities at York. We are signatories to the NCCPE Manifesto for Public Engagement, and this recent work has allowed us to develop the following definitions and objectives:
Definition - Public engagement at York pervades all elements of the University. It includes:
enhancing recognition of what the University does and stands for,
our social responsibility, including our civic agenda and our commitment to widening access,
public engagement as part of the student experience,
public engagement with research.
Objectives - Public engagement with research at York aims to:
Create an ethos of partnership and collaboration in the way research projects are shaped and developed.
Create cultural and social value, enhancing public perceptions and cultural experience,
Demonstrate the value and relevance of our research.
Create learning opportunities for all.
Engage with and give a voice to underrepresented groups.
Impact positively on the groups engaged with, and on the researchers and research projects that seek to engage.
We are developing strategic approaches to understand the needs of our engaged communities and to harness the University’s strengths for public benefit. Long-term partnerships with arts and heritage organisations such as the York Museums Trust allow the University to play a vital role in the city’s cultural life and enable large and diverse audiences to engage with our research and students.
We are taking a holistic view of engagement, integrating research, teaching and outreach as exemplified by our Environmental Sustainability at York and Place and Community initiatives. The latter connects with partner organisations in York to support placemaking and community building, EDI initiatives, cultural well being and post-Covid recovery. EDI values run through all that we do and we work to empower all staff and students and the communities we work with; Inclusion is also one of the principles of our University Strategy..
As outlined in Section 3, we have a diverse breadth of excellent P&CE activity being conducted across the University around the themes of:
Community support and engagement with research
Community support and engagement through students
Public involvement in research
Events and adult learning.
Much of our P&CE is funded through HEIF which we use to leverage additional external funding. In the last 12 months we have leveraged more than £1.6m of additional funding to support public and community engagement initiatives.
Aspect 2: Support
Staff across the University engage in, and provide support for P&CE, within both academic departments and professional services (PS) directorates. Within PS, staff from External Relations, Research Innovation and Knowledge Exchange (RIKE) and Careers and Placements are all involved in supporting P&CE.
In addition to staff resource to support P&CE, we have a variety of tools and toolkits including:
An internal institutional website providing information to all staff on initiatives in public and community engagement support,
An evaluation toolkit for public engagement with research which is available to all staff.
A co-created set of resources for audiences interested in developing participatory research and/or drawing on participatory approaches to policy making, as part of the Covid Realities project.
Webpages on co-development of equitable technologies
Through implementation of our KE Concordat (KEC) action plans we have delivered training for 60+ academic and PS staff in engagement and developing commercial, civic and community partnerships. We have also developed new internal and external KE web pages, newsletters and internal and external videos to support engagement of our staff with external partners.
All departments have academic Impact and KE Leads who provide first line support for academic staff wishing to engage in public and community engagement activities. We are also continuing to build expertise in our schools/departments through dedicated members of academic and PS staff who provide more localised support.
The importance of P&CE is recognised within specific indicators for our Promotions Criteria within: 1) Research, 2) Teaching, Scholarship and Professional Practice and especially 3) Academic Citizenship.
Aspect 3: Activity
The following examples highlight only a few indicative projects to showcase the vitality of our ongoing work. Please see our P&CE narrative from 2020 for a more complete picture of the many activities that continue to thrive at York. Our local growth and regeneration narrative also outlines a wealth of our engagement activity to support local/regional businesses and local councils.
Community Support and Engagement with Research
The StreetLife project has created innovative, immersive experiences to revitalise historic Coney Street in York. It hosted events and activities around heritage, music and print, engaging with over 1,000 people, reaching 169 organisations and delivering more than £1.26m of economic and social value through ‘Preserving heritage’. The project connected communities with civic spaces, transformed the streetscape and allowed local residents to influence future development opportunities for the local high street.
Through the York Law School, The Baroness Hale Legal Clinic provides free high-quality legal advice to members of the public, in particular those who cannot afford to pay for such services, as well as students and small businesses.
As part of the Fix Our Food community project on changing the Yorkshire food system, we have also established the first schools network of its kind in the UK, the ‘Fix our Food in Schools’ cohort, with the vision of transforming food in schools in Yorkshire.
Grow It York, an indoor urban community farm supplies hyper-local produce to the surrounding businesses and communities by using vertical farming to create positive changes in food systems, benefiting health, environment and economy.It was awarded the Vertical Farming World “Best Community Initiative” Award for 2022.
Community Support and Engagement through Students
York has piloted Community Projects including the Sustainability Clinic, which brings together students, researchers and regional voluntary, cultural and statutory organisations to deliver team-based projects. The Clinic offers students the opportunity to take part in live, real world sustainability initiatives in collaboration with community organisations.
Over 2400 students volunteer in the community annually through a network of 150 local partner organisations, building capacity for positive social impact and outstanding contributions in the local area were recognised at the Student Volunteering Awards.
Public Involvement in Research
The Covid Realities project documented everyday life for families on a low-income during the pandemic. Novel online participatory research methods were developed to enable families to share experiences of poverty and co-produce recommendations for change. Following on from this, Changing Realities is now working together to document life on a low income and lobby for change through participatory research approaches.
The Place and Community project enhances our links with the arts, heritage and community sectors including the National Railway Museum and York Museums Trust. Projects included raising musical aspirations amongst young people in Tower Hamlets, and a Heritage Game Jam in which participants from a range of backgrounds explored collaborative game design, decolonising heritage gaming and digital archaeology.
Citizen science and public engagement is at the core of research at the Stockholm Environment Institute at York (SEI-Y) through actively involving the public in research activities and delivery, co-production of research and engaging the public through partnerships and collaboration.
Youth LIVES draws on York expertise of citizen science, participatory codesign, and patient and public involvement in research to facilitate meaningful co production between youth citizen scientists and academics
TUPUMUE -- “let’s breathe” in Swahili – focuses on lung health of children and adolescents using a co-created transdisciplinary approach, including participatory theatre to help explore community knowledge and lived experience.
Involvement@York has embedded 74 patients and members of the public as lay project advisors in ‘active partnerships’ with research teams, helping researchers understand which outcomes matter most to patients and the public.
Events and Adult Learning
Our annual calendar of free public events includes our flagship York Festival of Ideas in which almost 40,000 people attended 195 in-person and online events, across 153 countries. YorkTalks was again hosted online in 2022, with a series of talks open to the public, including topics such as Robotic Colonisation of the Universe.
In our Learning and Leisure offering, the Centre for Lifelong Learning offers a wide range of short courses to local learners as well as massive open online courses (MOOCs). The York Open Lectures reached over 12,000 people across 160 events in 2021-2022.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
Evaluation of our P&CE projects has been critical to demonstrating the impacts of our activity. Indicative examples are below.
Our Community Engagement learning projects trialled two mechanisms for measuring impact and effectiveness:
1) student ‘learning gain’ which revealed statistically significant development of confidence in a number of employability related skills and
2) evaluation of the impact on community organisations’ capacity to deliver their core activities.
Through in-depth interviews with partner organisations, we developed a suite of surveys to interrogate the impact of our projects on community partners. As a result, 58% said that the solution developed by the students was very or vitally important to their organisation.
We have also developed an evaluation framework for annual interviews with community partners, assessing the ongoing relationship between the partner and the university, the ongoing impact of student projects on the partners’ capacity, and how we can support each other’s strategic priorities. Having developed this framework for the Community Projects, it will now be rolled out to the 40-50 partners per year for student internships.
The Covid Realities project has created a rich archive of over 2000 experiences of families living on a low-income during the pandemic. One of the participants, Jo, reflected on their experiences of speaking to the media, writing blogs and presenting at parliamentary events. “For some of us this has changed so much in our lives and has made us believe that we are more than a popular narrative which degrades and devalues our place in society, and that is priceless.” Policy engagement through the project is also notable, with bi-monthly meetings between the project team and the Dept for Work and Pensions. Finally, methodological learnings are being applied to create resources for those interested in participatory approaches to policy making and we plan to mainstream/share the methodological approaches across the institution.
The StreetLife project has undergone extensive evaluation by Kada Research. Engagement with the public has “ignited curiosity, emotions and a sense of community” and the project met or exceeded its targets for engagement with people, organisations and businesses. Collaborations with external partners strengthened the impact of StreetLife and the project highlighted the importance of the public voice within regeneration initiatives. The total net economic and social benefits of the StreetLife project were £1.39m, with £2.20 generated for every £1 spent. The University has committed £165,000 of additional funding based on the strength of its impacts to date.
The Events Team uses a range of quantitative and qualitative indicators to benchmark the efficacy of our public engagement. Reach and demographic data is complemented with POLAR data and audience segmentation to track engagement with low participation regions.
In 2022, the online and in-person hybrid programme of the York Festival of Ideas (FoI) improved accessibility and inclusion, expanding our local reach and opened up our event to global audiences. As highlighted in the FoI impact report for 2022, the 40,000 attendees came from 153 countries including 20 countries that are new to the Festival. 55% of survey respondents had not attended FoI previously, and one of the events attracted 67% of attendees from groups least likely to engage in Higher Education. Overall, satisfaction with the FoI remained high at 99%.
Aspect 5: Building on success
In 2021 we commissioned a review of public engagement at York by the NCCPE with the aim of identifying recommendations to significantly enhance our PE support and activity.
The NCCPE review included
1) document review of existing policies and processes,
2) in-depth interviews with 41 members of staff, including the VC and all 3 PVCs; and
3) a survey with responses from 84 staff and students.
A working group including senior leadership served as “critical friends” and advisers to the project and served to prioritise key recommendations including:
Identify, prioritise and diversify our “publics”
Clarify how York’s academic strengths contribute to regional priorities and needs.
Support departments to develop their own PE action plans.
Review central coordination for PE and establish dedicated funding mechanisms.
We subsequently developed definitions and objectives for PE at York and established a KE Concordat PE Working Group (KEC PE WG) to implement the recommendations of the NCCPE review.
In July 2022 the KEC PE WG initiated a scoping survey of individuals and departments to find out
1) what activity is already ongoing
2) what support needs are and
3) views on how best to support PE
This survey was launched across this institution via this video from our PVC Partnerships and Engagement. To complement these surveys, we also held meetings with each of our faculties to discuss their views of PE and support needs. Analysis of survey results is ongoing and recommendations on resourcing for PE will be taken to UPEC in Spring 2023.
As a result of the NCCPE review and the Scoping Survey we now have a stronger understanding of how our current support for PE is utilised and what practitioners feel they need to do more/better PE.
The commitment to both strands of this work over 2021 and 2022 demonstrates a step change in our approach to public and community engagement since the last iteration of the KEF in 2020.
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)