Institutional Context
Summary
The University of Sussex has had the conviction to challenge convention since its foundation in 1961 - from the campus’ modernist architecture on the edge of a rural national park, to our progressive academics and creative professional services staff, to the inspiring students who choose to learn and live here, to the very tone of the institution and the nature of its conversations, through to the expressions of radicalism and critical thinking. Sussex has a long tradition of experimentation and innovation that has made a real difference to the lives of many students, and those who benefit from our research and wider endeavours. We challenge conventional thinking and discourses, offering inspiring and creative ways to understand and solve global issues.
Institutional context
The University of Sussex is a leading research-intensive university located in Falmer near Brighton. Since our foundation, we have developed a reputation for undertaking creative, interdisciplinary research and offering high-quality education that equips our graduates with the skills for future success. Our strategic vision Sussex 2025 reimagines the pioneering spirit of our past but does so for new times and a new generation. We want to build on our achievements and evolve as a connected university, dedicated to making a better world:
Engage for Change: aims to embed the ethos and practice of engagement across all of our activities.
Research with Impact: champions social impact.
Learn to Transform: seeks to enable our students to become civically and politically engaged, harnessing their entrepreneurial and creative spirit.
As a signatory of the Civic University Agreement, Sussex is committed to becoming even more connected to, trusted, and respected by more external partners at local, regional, national and international levels. We engage in significant research, knowledge exchange and student activities across a range of disciplines that have brought benefits to the economy, the many individuals who are part of our world and society at large. Our research contributes new knowledge, ideas and solutions, to lead real change in the world. Sussex’s Strategic Research Programmes unites academics across disciplines to address key challenges facing society. We have a track record of collaborating with diverse partners to help businesses grow and develop. Our partnerships alongside (wholly-owned business incubator) Sussex Innovation enable organisations to access our research expertise, attract investment and deliver innovative solutions to real-world problems. Our collaborative approach, building on our pioneering heritage of interdisciplinarity, provides creative opportunities to rethink old and emerging challenges in new ways. The Times Higher Education analysis of the national independent Research Excellence Framework 2021 (REF 2021) results reiterated our success in this approach where our ranking increased from 34th in 2014 to 27th in 2021 of all UK institutions for both ‘Research Power’ and ‘Market Share’.
Our global outlook enables us to be at the forefront of research influence worldwide. Sussex, with the Institute of Development Studies, has been number one in the world for development studies in the QS World University Rankings by Subject for seven consecutive years. The ground-breaking, evidence-based knowledge that our researchers generate in collaboration with partners globally makes a significant contribution to real-world problems such as disease, climate change, conflict and violence.
Responding to the impacts of COVID-19 has strengthened our existing partnerships with local councils and health bodies. The University’s response to COVID was recognised by the Cabinet Office and we received awards for our contribution to our community. From practical support, to research investigating the pandemic and how to recover from it, our approach to this global challenge was shaped by our institutional values of kindness, collaboration, courage, inclusivity and integrity.
As shown by our current activities and our strategic vision for the future, the University of Sussex recognises the important role it plays in helping to shape a better world.
For further information, please send queries to keith.jones@sussex.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
In 2018 Sussex committed to sharing its R&D capabilities, student engagement and analytical capacities with local companies and economic leaders as part of its new corporate strategy Sussex 2025. This was a new direction for the University. Since then, Sussex has built a wide range of economic and business partnerships, delivered several programmes of practical support for businesses across the region and successfully grown its own entrepreneurial base. The University’s website invites businesses to collaborate and signposts them to the right support. Pent-up internal demand to create spin-outs and attract private investment has been addressed – resulting in the University’s most successful spin-out ever (Universal Quantum) - and academics now have clear incentives to commercialise research. Student enterprise has also blossomed.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Our regional economic geography
The University is situated on the city fringe of Brighton & Hove, at the southern end of the London-Gatwick-Brighton corridor, bordering the city and the counties of East and West Sussex. The University’s geographic and economic footprint maps well onto the Greater Brighton city region (comprising seven local authorities), which straddles adjacent areas in the Coast-to-Capital Local Enterprise Partnership (covering West Sussex) and South East Local Enterprise Partnership (covering East Sussex), as well as covering the city of Brighton & Hove. This intersecting economic architecture has set the functional focus of the University’s regional local growth activities.
The Greater Brighton city region geography is shown in Green - relative to London, the neighbouring counties of East and West Sussex and the rest of South East England (shown in red in the insert).
In recognising the growing importance of local engagement, as well as global engagement, the University’s corporate strategy Sussex 2025 (https://www.sussex.ac.uk/strategy/) adopted in late 2018 prioritised working closely with the relevant stakeholders to better understand and co-design priorities for intervention and to join with them to enable the region to prosper. This has been subsequently expanded and emphasised in Sussex’s Knowledge Exchange and Impact Strategy, adopted in October 2022.
New Strategy for Partnership
Implementation of Sussex 2025 has entailed Sussex reaching out to work closely with publicly appointed economic leaders as well as key business organisations and individual business. This is to enable the University to best align its capabilities to address the challenges where Sussex is able to make the most positive impact. The need for working in close partnership with stakeholders across the region became acutely important in response to the COVID pandemic.
New Business Engagement to Deliver Economic Growth
Much closer engagement with the economic stewardship of the region combined with strengthened links to individual business enables the University to better match its knowledge and expertise to the needs of businesses across the region. Since 2019, Sussex (with delivery partners University of Brighton, Chichester and Sussex Innovation) has bid for, won and delivered five substantial programmes – spanning the city and across West and East Sussex, aimed at enabling SMEs across the region to innovate, collaborate, access university expertise and grow.
New Focus on Entrepreneurialism
An equally strong focus has been placed on supporting academics to commercialise their research and expertise and on enabling students to start their own businesses. New University approaches to supporting both areas of activity (aimed at increasing participation, creating incentives and improving expert support) have led to very positive early results.
New Directions Set
To drive progress on the approach set in Sussex 2025, new teams were established at Sussex to focus on:
Developing research and innovation collaborations with businesses and the public sector (using Knowledge Exchange income as a key measure of success) and
Driving the commercialisation of innovation to enable the integration of our ground-breaking research into society
Enabling as many students as possible to develop successful businesses and
Collaborating with economic and business leaders across the region and in the sectors which mirrored our academic expertise to grow the economic impact and reputation of the University.
Aspect 2: Activity
Building Partnerships with Impact
The University has built strong relationships with the Greater Brighton Economic Board (GBEB, covering seven local authorities), Coast to Capital Local Enterprise Partnership (C2C LEP) and Team East Sussex (TES – the federated board of South East Local Enterprise Partnership), the Brighton & Hove Economic Partnership and the East Sussex Environment Board. The University has informed and contributed to their strategy development (and in particular their post-COVID regional economic recovery plans), their investment decisions and local growth programmes. Some illustrations of the University’s traction in contributing to the economic stewardship of the region are as follows:
The Coast to Capital LEP’s post COVID economic recovery plan “Stronger, Smarter and Greener (https://www.coast2capital.org.uk/stronger-smarter-and-greener) highlighted the need for a “Quantum equity investment fund – to support commercialisation of ideas from the Quantum Technology Lab at University of Sussex” as one of the key transformational projects for regional economic recovery.
The Greater Brighton “10 Pledges” to tackle climate change (https://greaterbrighton.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Greater-Brighton-Economic-Board-10-Pledges-on-the-Environment-update-October-2021.pdf) highlight a Sussex-driven ‘Innovation Forum’ to drive new best practice as one of the Partnership’s key deliverables, citing the master-planning of a new ‘green blueprint’ by Sussex to enable the city region to achieve a net zero economy.
The University is also now an active member of all the key regional business networks. These include the Chambers of Commerce for both Brighton and the rest of Sussex; the Gatwick Diamond Business Partnership, the Confederation of British Industry (with attendance at its regional committees on a regular basis) and sector-specific networks such as Wired Sussex (for digital SMEs) and the Creative Coast. The campus has played host to some of these business and economic partnerships’ meetings and conferences.
Building a strong foundation of economic and business partnerships across Greater Brighton and beyond was critical to the University being able to play a constructive role with our partners during and immediately after the COVID pandemic.
With mounting pressures on intensive care hospital beds, there was an urgent need across the Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) to better manage the competing demands for bedspaces for intensive hospital care and post discharge services. The research and modelling provided by a Sussex mathematician - through support from the University’s HEIF allocation - enabled the production of a toolkit that projected the number of patients discharged throughout the winter period, which provided the Sussex CCG with the information to appropriately allocate resources and to successfully secure an additional £1.63 million to deal with the burden of COVID-19. A post-doctoral researcher at Sussex continues to be 50% funded through Brighton & Hove City Council to further develop the toolkit for wider application within health and social care services.
Through Team East Sussex, a team of Sussex psychologists worked with East Sussex businesses to develop a toolkit for the type of SMEs which most characterise the East Sussex economy to enable them to achieve optimum remote working arrangements – again with support from the University’s HEIF allocation. This is now being showcased as a permanent resource, accessible from the East Sussex County Council website: https://wellbeingatwork.eastsussex.gov.uk/working-well-from-home/
New Business Engagement Delivering Economic Growth
Together with its wholly-owned business incubator Sussex Innovation and with other delivery partners such as the Universities of Brighton and Chichester, Sussex has co-delivered innovation and business growth programmes for 1,700 companies across Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex and Croydon – funded by the key local authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and the EU - whereas prior to 2019 the University had not participated in this type of activity. Specific programmes are as follows:
RISE (Research and Innovation in Sussex Excellence – ERDF funded) has delivered innovation audits and supported access to university expertise to 240 businesses in the Coast to Capital LEP area, in partnership with the University of Brighton.
The Business Hothouse (ERDF funded) has offered free, expert advice and guidance to 279 business in the Coast-to-Capital LEP area, with University of Chichester and Sussex Innovation.
The Innovation Masters programme (Community Renewal Fund financed) has provided specialised mentoring and group workshops designed to respond to the needs of 850 companies at different stages of maturity, using the University’s Business School experts.
The Bamboo Club (Business East Sussex Pivot Programme funded) is an exclusive peer networking and coaching programme for 36 high growth business leaders in East Sussex delivered through Sussex Innovation. Each cohort of founders meets regularly over a year for masterclasses with a team of expert facilitators to share and solve common challenges.
BRAIN (the Business Research Academic Innovation Network – ERDF funded) has helped 235 innovative local start-ups across the Coast to Capital LEP area and researchers to connect and collaborate with the large organisations and larger corporate firms based across the region.
Sussex is now also part of a consortium of Coast to Capital LEP Higher and Further Education providers that won a bid to come together as an Institute of Technology, based near Gatwick Airport. Through the Institute, Sussex will start to deliver its very first suite of degree apprenticeships in data sciences, software engineering and computer sciences for financial technologies from 2024.
Recently appointed Business Partnerships staff at the University have been able to drive and support multi-faceted University-company relationships which have included R&D, sponsored PhD studentships, internships and graduate recruitment. Two new Knowledge Transfer Partnerships were established with Greater Brighton based companies, whereas previously Sussex operated none. One is focussed on machine learning and the other on developing complex software.
A new south coast universities BBSRC Doctoral Training Partnership has generated interest from an additional 40 companies which are investing in collaborative training for PhD students across the wider region.
New University website pages geared to businesses and public sector partners now provide a single portal for all external business enquiries and showcase the University’s innovation offer, including its IP for licence and its spin-outs for investment: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/collaborate/
Entrepreneurial Flourishing
In the three years since 2019, Sussex has launched five new spin-outs, these reflect our strategy to create a “Better World” and offer potential benefits for both people and our planet. These are:
Universal Quantum: by far the most successful of any Sussex spin-out to date, benefitting from substantial international financing, with labs and highly skilled staff based in nearby Haywards Heath: https://universalquantum.com/
Stingray Bio: developing applications of a protein called “LMTK3” to fight aggressive breast cancer: https://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/55013 (website not yet built)
Metasonnixx: geared to producing products capable of selectively screening out different sound frequencies: http://www.metasonixx.co.uk/
Alternox Scientific: aimed at adapting naturally occurring chemical fungicides to attack multi-drug and multi-compound resistant species of fungi that now threaten human health and food security worldwide (website not yet built)
OW: hardware and software solutions to identify smells and digitally recreate them and mimic their unique perceptual effects. The founders have since left Sussex but the University still owns the founding IP and has shares in the company:
https://www.ow-smelldigital.com/
Student and graduate enterprises have also flourished. New in-house programmes geared to attracting and supporting the widest number of students culminate in ‘Start Up Sussex’ - a programme run by subsidiary Sussex Innovation to provide intensive support for student enterprises to launch successfully. Many thrive as soon as they go live, such as Books That Matter and Trim-It.
To encourage and support entrepreneurial flourishing amongst the academic and student community, Sussex has recently revamped its IP policy, based on a review of best practice across Cluster X universities and specialist arts institutions.
Aspect 3: Results
A Strong Anchor Institution Driving Regional Growth – through Partnerships, Business Engagement and Entrepreneurialism
As a result of the new directions taken through corporate plan Sussex 2025, the University has delivered a step change in the difference it has made to the economic stewardship, prosperity, well-being and life chances of communities across the region. Through working in partnership with decision makers, service commissioners and business customers, the University has:
Delivered value-adding support to more than 2,000 additional local businesses and forged new long term local business partnerships to enable technology transfer into the local economy
Grown the city region’s entrepreneurial base by launching five successful new research-related spin-outs at four times the pace of the previous 20 years
Doubled the number of graduate start-ups still successfully trading after three years from 21 to 40
Designed its first jointly sponsored degree apprenticeships with partner education providers and local businesses in high value sectors
Increased the economic value of the University to its host region
Within the University, three successive years of HEIF-funded competitive calls for projects since 2019/20 have generated an additional 50 collaborations, some of which are developing into long term commercial relationships.
Sussex’s thriving community of 115 graduate and staff businesses enjoyed a combined turnover of nearly £32m in 2020/21 – an increase of nearly 175% compared to 2018/19. Together these businesses attracted external investment of £2.5m and they now support 470 jobs, which is 150 more people than in 2018/19. More recent figures outside the reporting period suggest even stronger levels of success.
The University’s entrepreneurial activity has attracted external investment to the region and creates transformational economic and social benefits – for example, in bringing forward exponentially faster quantum computing capability and breast cancer drug treatments where other remedies fail. Of the new spin-outs launched over the last three years, four out of the five immediately secured private investment and one is now employing 15 advanced engineers after only a year of operation. Local Brighton-based investors have now been able to invest in home grown innovation, whereas previously the University offered no opportunities to recycle the city’s financial capital into its own intellectual assets, due to the low level of entrepreneurial activity at Sussex before 2019.
The most recent review of the University’s economic impact by Oxford Economics (2023) indicated that it is now hugely important in driving regional growth and contributes nearly half a billion pounds (£495 million) each year to the local economy (up by 8% in five years) and supports 10,000 jobs. It supports 1 in 80 jobs in the Greater Brighton area and over 7,000 jobs across the wider region – a 40% increase in five years. More broadly, the University supports 10,000 jobs in total across the UK.
Celebrating success
The University designs multifaceted dissemination campaigns with wide reach to share the results of its local growth successes with external and internal audiences For example, the breakthrough made by University and Universal Quantum scientists in quantum computer development was disseminated through media channels, e.g., BBC News, BBC News Online (at one point being the 6th most read story), an interview appearing across multiple BBC outlets, a BBC Breakfast segment, and a video explaining how quantum could address societal problems. Content shared through channels (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) and diverse outlets reached general and specialist audiences. This level of promotion inspires greater internal engagement with the local economic growth agenda and stimulates further external interest collaboration with Sussex.
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
The University of Sussex has had the conviction to challenge convention since its foundation in 1961 - from the campus’ modernist architecture on the edge of a rural national park, to our progressive academics and creative professional services staff, to the inspiring students who choose to learn and live here, to the very tone of the institution and the nature of its conversations, through to the expressions of radicalism and critical thinking. Sussex has a long tradition of experimentation and innovation that has made a real difference to the lives of many students, and those who benefit from our research and wider endeavours. We challenge conventional thinking and discourses, offering inspiring and creative ways to understand and solve global issues.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Underpinned by our values (kindness, integrity, inclusion, collaboration and courage) P&CE is woven into the aims of three pillars of the Sussex 2025 strategy – A Better University for a Better World:
Engage for Change: To meaningfully and proactively interact with people, organisations and communities across local, regional, national and international levels.
Research with Impact: To achieve social impact, emphasising innovative, collaborative approaches to interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder research and knowledge exchange.
Learn to Transform: To provide our students with the confidence, knowledge and skills that enable them to be civically and politically engaged.
Together our aims offer real public and community value. For example, as a University of Sanctuary we offer refuge and support to forced migrants, empowering them to flourish, assisted by pro-bono legal advice (Migration Law Clinic), specialist research (Sussex Centre for Migration Work) and student activism (Sussex Students Action for Refugees).
We have committed to championing P&CE as NCCPE Manifesto on Public Engagement signatories and founding members, and as co-creators of the Citizens UK Brighton & Hove Chapter. We support regional campaigns through the Chapter, and have pledged to expand our contributions as Civic University Agreement signatories.
Our region combines urban, rural and coastal environments, incorporating the Living Coast, shaping distinctive opportunities to engage with multiple partners on issues of public and community significance. Contributing to a healthy regional economy and public services, we work with the region’s Councils, Greater Brighton Economic Board and Brighton and Hove Connected (responsible for the Sustainable Community Strategy). We support development of the region’s cultural and creative sectors through the Culture in Our City initiative. We collaborate with the Sussex Anti-Slavery Network, e.g., facilitating community engagement and online webinars. Our expertise in environmental sustainability contributes to addressing the terrestrial and marine environmental challenges along our shoreline, showcased at the Better World Event which was open to the public, alum and civic leaders.
Our P&CE approach is informed by Inclusive Sussex, our vision for all to have equal access to opportunities to flourish, celebrating diversity and tackling inequalities, led by our Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Culture, Equality and Inclusion. We subscribe to equality charters and benchmarking frameworks: Athena Swan awards; Race Equality Charter; Stonewall Diversity Champion; Disability Confident. We promote an inclusive culture beyond the University for meaningful societal change. For example, in tackling barriers to education for the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, our research informed the Higher Education Policy Institute report “Gypsies, Roma and Travellers: The ethnic minorities most excluded from UK education”, and a campus-based celebration event.
Governance of P&CE sits with the University Executive Group and implementation is managed across multiple units: research and enterprise led by the PVC for Research and Enterprise; education led by the PVC Education and Students; civic activities within the Communications, Marketing and Advancement Division. A Knowledge Exchange Steering Group, newly established as part of integrated governance, feeds learnings into the institution through our Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee (and hence Senate).
Aspect 2: Support
P&CE support is embedded within central and academic school structures. The University Executive Group provides strategic leadership, supported by Deputy Pro-Vice Chancellors and, within Schools, academic Directors of Research and Knowledge Exchange and Impact Leads. Key roles within our Communications, Marketing and Advancement, and Research and Enterprise teams: create and develop relationships with partners; support impact and enterprise; manage public affairs and communications; support widening participation; and engage our alumni. Our EDI approach, encapsulated in Inclusive Sussex, led by our PVC Culture, Equality and Inclusion, is supported by a dedicated Equality, Diversity and Inclusion delivery unit, based in Human Resources. Each academic school and professional service division has an EDI champion. We offer a portfolio of training, networks and mentoring programmes (e.g., ASPIRE Mentoring). Our Widening Participation team support under-represented staff and learners to engage in community-based co-curricular and volunteering activities.
Senior staff engage with local communities at a strategic level, advocating for inward regional investment. The Vice-Chancellor serves alongside community leaders on the City Management Board, the Greater Brighton Economic Board and the Sussex Health and Care Assembly. The University’s assets support our community, particularly during Covid when we hosted medical and military personnel on-campus and provided an additional regional body storage facility. Other senior staff serve on the Board of the Applied Research Collaboration, Kent, Surrey and Sussex and the Governance Group of the ABCD plan for Cultural Recovery.
Our Impact Acceleration Accounts (ESRC; AHRC; and STFC) have funded P&CE impact work and mentored engagement capabilities. School budgets can support P&CE ambitions. Policy@Sussex and the Public Affairs team offer dedicated facilitation of policy impact on issues of public and community relevance. For example, a change to close a loop hole in the Domestic Abuse Act to ensure domestic abuse survivors are adequately protected. Within the Brighton & Hove Citizens Chapter we support community engagement skills development for staff, students and community leaders. We host campus-based (e.g., Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts) public events, often co-created with local groups, promoting knowledge exchange between staff, students, visitors and the wider community. The Sussex Lectures series is open to all and free to attend. We partner with (e.g., Brighton Pride, and Brighton Festival) and participate in community events (e.g., Brighton Marathon). Dedicated social media channels management identifies issues of public significance and ensures engagement with relevant groups.
A major academic promotions criteria review, now in a second phase, will ensure that P&CE is more explicitly specified within knowledge exchange criteria. Annual Education Awards recognise staff contributions - the Better World Award celebrating positive impact in our local community and beyond, including where community engagement has been built into the curriculum. Sussex launched the Spirit of Sussex Award to recognise students’ extracurricular and volunteering achievements. A dedicated Instagram page promotes the award, and individual achievements are celebrated through our social media channels and press releases.
Aspect 3: Activity
Our P&CE covers a breadth of activities:
A University of Sanctuary supporting Brighton & Hove’s City of Sanctuary status.
Establishing a strategic COVID Research, Equipment and Supplies Taskforce, working with the local resilience forum, councils and government to serve our local communities during the pandemic.
Collaborating with community partners to impact policy through campaigns and hosted events in Parliament (e.g., a high profile 60th Anniversary celebration).
Academics working with external partners on imaginative and interactive public engagement (e.g., Science Projects specialising in engaging the public with science).
Sussex students and staff, through Brighton & Hove Citizens group, collaborating with local community organisations to co-create and support campaigns on local issues.
The depth of our P&CE work is illustrated with examples across the three strategic pillars.
Engage for Change - meaningful and pro-active public and community engagement
In having a Human Tissue Authority Public Display our Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) aims to enable medical and allied healthcare student education and public understanding of health and disease. In 2020, BSMS received the first UK donor to consent for use during public workshops. Led by Professor Claire Smith, twelve workshops (n=800 students) explored the journey of cancer. The team worked with the family and 121-Productions to create the documentary My Dead Body for Channel 4 (over 1.5 million viewers). On Twitter, #mydeadbody peaked as the 3rd top trending hashtag. The HTA ran a poll on Twitter - 62.2% of respondents were more likely to donate their body to medical science as a result of watching the documentary. The impact of our donor’s generosity is profound in enabling the public to engage with challenging health issues.
As a valuable partner in initiatives led by our region’s organisations and communities, we have contributed to the Brighton and Hove ABCD plan for Cultural Recovery, with a vision to stimulate inclusive, collaborative and sustainable recovery of the region’s creative and cultural sector (post-pandemic). Our work on the social and economic contribution of the creative and cultural sector within Greater Brighton informed the recovery plan. Professor Kate O’Riordan Co-Chairs the Governance Group, overseeing recovery plan implementation, and the University commissioned partnered research into a Creative Worker Income Guarantee pilot scheme. We have a lead role in the next phase of thinking about ambition for the city - facilitating a Culture Alliance. We have promoted our creative and cultural sector through the Festival of Ideas (including the ABCD Recovery Plan), and our associated educational partnership with the Brighton Festival.
Research with Impact - bringing value in addressing issues with societal impact
Contributing to achieving environmental sustainability, Sussex researchers lead on the Sussex Kelp Restoration Project, as a key part of the GB10 pledges to tackle the climate emergency. The project, captured on video for the Kelp Summit, aimed to engage the public in understanding how impactful a healthy seabed is for coastal communities through, e.g., sustainable nature-based economies. Sussex researchers, contributing to the region’s Net Zero agenda, established and ran an Innovation Forums series, connecting regional communities and businesses and creating spaces for discovery of innovation solutions that deliver the Greater Brighton Water and Energy Plan.
Sussex researchers work to educate and co-create with the public and communities on Healthy Ageing. The Brighton Brain Bus engages the public in understanding dementia and the steps they can take to keep their brains healthy. The Goodbye Breasts project uses creative arts to open-up discussions about breast cancer and life-changing treatments. Other work draws together multiple stakeholders in developing a solution to tackle inequalities in digital healthcare.
Learn To Transform – facilitating our students to engage civically
The Spirit of Sussex Award celebrates our students’ co-curricular and volunteer activities and achievements – encouraging them to build transferable skills and engage in opportunities to bring about impact on issues that matter to them. Since its launch in September 2020, more than 1,200 students have engaged in the award.
Our academic Schools work with the Widening Participation team and the local community to engage local schools and colleges in economically and societally relevant issues. For example, an Economics Summer School engaged post-16 students in discussing the role of economics in achieving EDI in education and society, focusing on the contribution of four economists from underrepresented groups (people of colour, women, LGBTQI, and people with disabilities). Our award-winning all-ages podcast The Rez, now launching its second season, highlights the importance of adolescent wellbeing. It is the first podcast to be accredited for teaching in schools, receiving ground-breaking accreditation from the PSHE Association allowing its use in schools as part of the personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) curriculum. More than 100 schools have asked about integrating the podcast into their lessons.
Our multifaceted multi-channel campaigns inform and provide educational opportunities for external audiences. For example, research demonstrating that garden pesticides partly contribute to garden birds decline reached mainstream media (e.g., The Guardian, The Express and The Herald) and relevant targeted audiences (e.g., BBC Radio Kent’s Sunday Gardening Show).
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
We applied an institution-wide methodology to evaluate our P&CE approach. Internal assessment during the Knowledge Exchange Concordat process identified gaps in our approach (based on the 8 principles of the concordat). The subsequent NCCPE review (using the NCCPE EDGE tool, including a campus-wide survey) constituted a major review of our work and the final report provided a blueprint for strategic and operational development, identifying a 7-point plan, which we are progressing. This evaluation was complemented by a regional community survey reviewing awareness of our P&CE activities, determining priority areas for the public, and providing evidence of how we can better engage with our communities. We also conducted a focus group to inform our future work and efforts to co-create a Civic University Agreement with local partners.
Targeted evaluation of institutional initiatives was valuable. The Spirit of Sussex Award evaluation report evidenced the success of the award in, and recommendations for further, engaging students. Employing innovative evaluation methods provided rich insights into institutional initiatives. For example, we applied Outcomes Harvesting to assess our ESRC IAA programme, revealing the nature of support that academics benefit from in building engagement and evidencing the impact of the P&CE work by our Social Scientists. The Knowledge Exchange Steering Group is an important part of our governance to ensure that learnings from evaluations inform institutional strategy and practice.
We have well-established processes for evaluation of public events and dissemination through all media channels. Each public and community engagement event is audited (e.g., via feedback forms) to ensure event objectives are met. Our press release and media activities are tracked to evaluate reach including: overall size of audience reached; types of audience; audience engagement (e.g. retweets, comments etc.). Such evaluations inform future activity.
Aspect 5: Building on success
Our P&CE aims are realised across three strategic pillars of Sussex 2025:
Engage for Change
As an anchor institution we have worked with our region’s organisations to promote a healthy economy and public service provision, sponsored important regional events and opened-up our campus as a knowledge exchange resource. We have strengthened our public commitments to P&CE (e.g., NCCPE Manifesto and Civic University Agreement). Notable achievements include supporting: the City of Sanctuary and achieving University of Sanctuary status; creative and cultural communities through Culture in Our City; efforts to tackle Modern Slavery; the region’s Covid pandemic response, and; the public to engage in national level conversations about cancer.
Research with Impact
Sussex researchers have achieved impact with community significance, and engaged the public in understanding of and co-creating resolutions to those issues. For example, environmental sustainability and healthy ageing work contributing to regional plans that affect our communities, e.g., Greater Brighton Water and Energy Plan and evaluating digital health services within the NHS.
Learn to Transform
The Spirit of Sussex award evaluation evidences its impact on our students in developing the confidence, knowledge and skills they need to be civically and politically engaged citizens. Our widening participation work included initiatives to engage children and younger adults in conversations about issues of relevance to them and their futures (21,368 participants in 1,087 activities, involving 250 institutions).
Evaluation of our institutional strategy and operationalisation culminated in the NCCPE report and embarking on an action plan. Learnings from targeted evaluation of institutional initiatives fed into our Knowledge Exchange Steering Group (reporting to Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee and hence Senate). These evaluations directly informed our: Knowledge Exchange and Impact Strategy and forthcoming institutional strategy implementation programme; Academic promotions criteria review; capability-building in innovative participatory research methodologies. We have invested in building targeted support (e.g., Policy@Sussex). Our EDI commitment has been strengthened by the appointment of a PVC Culture, Equality and Inclusion and a new underpinning strategy – Inclusive Sussex. The impact of P&CE activities are reflected in staff objectives, monitored annually by managers, and the institutional strategic KPIs (monitored by the University’s Council).
We inform and educate the public and communities on issues of significance to them through a comprehensive programme of media, internal communications and political engagement. We have provided examples and many more are available on our news pages. Our website’s Community pages provide a local community engagement portal, demonstrating our work and enabling our community to share their views. Internally, we celebrate the success of public engagement and community activities in our weekly staff bulletin and the Vice Chancellor’s Open Forums.
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