Institutional Context
Summary
The University of Bath is a research-intensive institution, whose founding principle is advancing knowledge through working in partnership with others, in support of the global common good. We are in the top 10 for all three of the UK’s national university league tables and named The Times and Sunday Times ‘University of the Year’ 2023. Research, teaching and knowledge exchange (KE) activities focus on academic strengths in Science, Technology, Engineering, Management and Social Sciences around key themes of Sustainability, Digital, Health and Wellbeing.
Engagement, partnerships and collaboration are central to our mission: “Our mission is to deliver world-class research and teaching, educating our students to become future leaders and innovators, and benefiting the wider population through our research, enterprise and influence”.
Institutional context
The University of Bath overlooks the city of Bath and lies within the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES). Bath is within the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) bringing together B&NES, Bristol and South Gloucestershire. This constitutes one of the most productive regions in the UK, with an economy worth over £33billion a year, a population exceeding 1.1million, an employment rate of 79%, and over 45,000 businesses. The University actively contributes to B&NES’s economy, supporting one in every 17 jobs and accounting for around £300million GDP.
The University’s academic structure comprises Faculties of Engineering & Design, Humanities & Social Sciences, and Science, and the School of Management. Each faculty/school is engaged in knowledge exchange (KE) activities alongside teaching and research and the impact of these spans multiple sectors of the economy. In KE our model is one of partnership with academic, business, government and community stakeholders. We prioritise engagement with highly innovative projects aligned with national and regional priorities. We take a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach which aligns our strengths to real-world problems.
Externally facing centres and institutes are key to our KE efforts. Examples include Institute for Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems (IAAPS), Institute for Sustainability (IfS), Centre for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications (CAMERA), Institute for Mathematical Innovation (IMI), Institute for Policy Research (IPR), Innovation Centre for Applied Sustainable Technologies (iCAST) and SETsquared University of Bath Innovation Centre.
Our partnership ethos underpins our research, placement networks and our graduate/ postgraduate employability. Institutional KE priorities with associated bespoke faculty and school implementation plans are overseen by the University Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee. Support for the full range of KE activities is embedded across the University at local and centralised levels. KE directors based within each faculty and school, work closely with Research and Innovation Services (RIS). RIS lead the research-led elements of our KE strategy, including our technology transfer, collaborative, and consultancy support. Outward-facing examples include our Public Engagement Unit active since 2012, the Material and Chemical Characterisation Facility (MC²) offering cutting edge analytical facilities with expert support, and the local community benefit from our world class Sports Training Village. In 2018 the University of Bath and South Gloucestershire Council jointly purchased the Bristol and Bath Science Park which in 2022 welcomed the opening of the world-leading centre in advanced propulsion (IAAPS).
We are a founding member of SETsquared, an enterprise partnership and collaboration between the five research-led universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey. In 2019, SETsquared was ranked as the Global No. 1 Business incubator for the third consecutive time. The SETsquared partnership provides a wide range of highly acclaimed programmes to accelerate business growth and KE, including the Research England funded Scale-Up Programme (Connecting Capability Fund) and Student Enterprise Hub (co-funded by OfS and led by Exeter University). The University of Bath’s SETsquared Innovation Centre plays a central role in the economic profile of the city by incubating high-growth businesses, and co-ordinating regional networks in key technology innovation sectors.
For further information, please send queries to KE-enquiries@bath.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
The University of Bath’s strategy for local growth and regeneration seeks to deliver a positive impact as a local and regional anchor in those locations where the University has either a physical or programme delivery footprint.
Through our wide range of disciplines, we support the creation of smart, sustainable and inclusive socio-economic growth strategies from which we can deliver transformational programmes which draw on the University’s teaching, research and knowledge exchange (KE) expertise to generate significant sustainable uplifts in jobs, business growth and skills development.
Our partnership driven approach includes business, government and academic stakeholders. We generate and apply innovations by matching the University’s R&D strengths with external partners in addressing market demand and local, regional, national and international priorities.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Local Growth and Regeneration Strategy Overview
The University is committed to driving socio-economic and cultural development at global, national and local levels, actively engaging with partners to support innovation through knowledge exchange (KE) collaborations and partnerships that add mutual value.
Our research-led KE Strategy reflects this, outlining our goal of facilitating opportunities to collaborate with external organisations on high-value research and innovation projects. We target collaborations which draw on our institutional strengths; align with our research strategy; where we have both capability and capacity; and which address market demand or socio-economic need.
Local Growth and Regeneration: Strategically Relevant Geography
Our strategy for local growth and regeneration is influenced by the locations where the University has a physical footprint.
As an anchor institution in Bath we’ve always had a role in delivering and supporting the region’s economic growth ambition. In partnership with Bath & North East Somerset (B&NES) Council, we’ve worked over the last three years to deliver the socio-economic objectives of its Corporate and Economic Development Strategies. We are now working towards a mutual commitment to develop a Civic University Agreement to support the next evolution of that relationship.
Our physical footprint also extends beyond our immediate geography as demonstrated by our investment in the Bristol & Bath Science Park in South Gloucestershire, and the operation of the Hive Building Research Park at Wroughton and our iCAST project in Swindon.
Our areas of research strength also mirror the established socio-economic strengths of the wider South West in advanced engineering, digital and creative, fintech and legal-tech, sustainability, machine learning, healthcare and nuclear. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are an essential part of the economy, employing nearly 75% of the total workforce.
Local Growth and Regeneration: Strategic Identification of Need
We have a history of supporting policy development locally and regionally. Over the last three years, the Vice-Chancellor, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research, Deputy Vice Chancellor and academic specialists have been increasingly active regionally.
The University has worked with the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) on its draft Plan for Innovation, the Western Gateway on its Hydrogen strategy and CBI on its Regional Cluster Policy toolkit.
The University also chairs the Key Cities Innovation Network created as a response to a growing trend by Government and funding agencies to focus on investing in place-based innovation to address disparities and deliver on the Government’s levelling up agenda.
Bringing together the Universities of – Bath, Bradford, Coventry, East Anglia, Gloucestershire, Lancaster, Salford, South Wales, Sunderland and Wrexham Glyndwr alongside the 20 cities that form Key Cities group, the group is focussed on developing mission led solutions that can work throughout the country.
Local Growth and Regeneration: Translating Strategy into Delivery
A founder member of SETsquared we have almost 20 years’ experience supporting UK growth, driving place-based innovation to enable researchers to work with industry, particularly SMEs, to help business innovate, improve their productivity and ultimately grow. Independent assessment estimates that, between 2002 and 2022, the total GVA contribution of businesses supported by SETsquared is £15.7bn. Supported businesses have generated 15,600 full-time equivalent jobs by the end of 2022 across 1,417 operational businesses, an increase of almost 50% over the last 5 years.
Across Bath, WECA, SWLEP and Heart of the South West LEP areas we deliver a multi-million-pound suite of business innovation support programmes. These cover institutional and Industrial Strategy priorities across the afore-mentioned sectors all of which support the implementation of keynote projects designed to address regional imbalances and close productivity gaps.
Local Growth and Regeneration: Strategy Evolution
Strategically we also look to continually review and improve our approaches to delivery. As an institution we continually take account of external policy drivers such as Local Industrial Strategies and the Knowledge Exchange Framework and our own internal priorities ensure relevance to local growth and regeneration needs.
A recent development being the establishment of the University’s Bath Beacons. The Bath Beacons initiative builds on our research strengths by bringing together multidisciplinary teams to find new approaches to tackle national and global challenges. Our researchers are finding new approaches to public health, reducing the impact of climate change, and finding new ways for technology to enhance human performance. This approach is being adopted by the local Combined Authority as part of its emerging ‘Plan for Innovation’.
Aspect 2: Activity
Delivering the Strategy in Partnership
Partnership working between local and regional authorities, industry and academia has been at the forefront of our delivery of projects which have a transformational impact on our local sphere of influence.
The knowledge, expertise and research excellence of the University of Bath has supported the local and regional economy through the establishment of start-ups and the transfer of knowledge to a diverse range of companies and organisations through consultancy and other arrangements.
SETsquared is one just example of how collaboration sits at the heart of our strategy. With colleagues from B&NES, Bath Spa University, the City of Bath College and the Royal University Hospital Bath we are members of the B&NES Future Ambition Board. Sub-regionally in the West of England we collaborate with Bath Spa University, the University of Bristol and University of the West of England to deliver positive socio-economic impact. As members of GW4 alongside the University of Bristol, University of Exeter and University of Cardiff we work closely as institutions to make a difference across the Western Gateway and wider South West.
Regional Partnership Activity – Investment to Support Regional Growth;
The University of Bath continues to deliver a concerted, multi-year investment programme in identified areas of research strength at Bath which not only inspire and promote successful inter-disciplinary research but also deliver regional growth. A few examples are set out below;
IAAPS & Bristol & Bath Science Park
The Science Park is home to the Institute for Advanced Automotive Propulsion Systems (IAAPS). IAAPS will exploit the engineering and digital expertise of the University of Bath for the benefit of the UK's automotive, aerospace and built environment sectors. With the addition, from 2023 of gaseous, liquid and cryogenic hydrogen capacity at IAAPS, the Institute will stimulate over £67 million in additional research investment by 2025 creating a further turnover of £800 million for the UK and supporting nearly 1,900 new highly productive jobs.
Together with the National Composites Centre and South Gloucestershire Council’s ‘Forum’ Innovation Centre we are using our complementary strengths, expertise and networks to fully realise the Park's potential as a centre of excellence for research and development across the region.
Innovation Centre for Applied Sustainable Technologies (iCAST) in Swindon
Funded by Research England and led by the Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies (CSCT) at Bath, iCAST is a collaboration between the Universities of Bath and Oxford, the High Value Manufacturing Catapult’s Sustainability Partnership (National Composites Centre, and Centre for Process Innovation) innovation experts at SETsquared, Local Enterprise Partnerships, investors and the companies that iCAST will be working with.
iCAST operates as a research and development and collaboration hub for companies working on clean growth technologies. iCAST has already attracted 67 industrial members with collaborative projects focussed on translating sustainable chemical technology research into commercial products to tackle global challenges including the climate emergency, sustainable development and plastic pollution.
Institute of Policy Research (IPR)
In 2020, a team at the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) worked with a local consultancy, The Good Economy to produce a report and action plan for how to ‘Build Back Better in Bath’. The report was based on extensive local stakeholder consultation and made a number of recommendations for how the key institutions in Bath and North East Somerset could work towards a socially-inclusive, environmentally sustainable economy.
In 2021, researchers at the IPR led an evaluation of the Community Wellbeing Hub in Bath and North East Somerset –a multi-agency, single point of access for wellbeing services. It offers a range of advice services for local residents who need help with employment, housing and social security benefits; community-based health and wellbeing services, for physical and mental health needs; and access to essential supplies, such as food and medication. The evaluation drew on qualitative interviews with service users, providers and councillors and senior local authority and health and care staff. It made a series of recommendations for how the hub could build on its early success.
National Partnership Activity – Supporting National Growth
The University leads a £40M national Institute of Coding (IoC), to help fill the UK's digital skills shortage and attract more people from underrepresented groups into the sector. Operational for the last 27 months, the national collaboration between 56 public and private sector partners has seen the development of accredited degree schemes and short courses aimed at professionals in a wide range of industries, as well as working to widen the participation of women, returners to work and hard to reach groups.
School of Management
The School of Management (SOM) has continued to deliver the Productivity through People (PtP) programme in partnership with ‘Be the Business’ through its Executive Education division (now ExCELL). PtP is a 9-month leadership development programme for SME Leaders in the South West (and surrounding areas) within Aerospace, Manufacturing, Defence, Energy, Automotive and other related fields as part of the UK Governments Industrial strategy and has supported 37 delegates since 2020. In partnership with the West of England Combined Authority, content was refined and focused to drive sustainable growth in the region and WECA part funded 13 delegates through the programme (with help from Bath SOM) offering scholarships during COVID-19 to support businesses who otherwise could not access the programme during such challenging times.
In 2022, we have launched Bath’s Help to Grow programme, a 3-month accelerator for managers in small businesses in the local area in partnership with the UK government and the Chartered Association of Business Schools. It is expected around 70 delegates will have completed the course by Dec 2023 across 4 cohorts. In Feb 2023, University of Bath’s School of Management was awarded the Small Business Charter in recognition of how we are working with small business to drive productivity and growth in the local economy. Further financial support has been provided by the University of Bath to support executives working in the South West to undertake Help to Grow as well as some part scholarships to undertake the Bath Executive MBA.
Health
Researchers across the University have links with many health and social care organisations, working with them to conduct research, increase local research capacity, as well as help to translate research findings into practice. Since 2021 our Healthy Later Living Network has supported the development of new research projects with external partners including Curo, St John’s Foundation, LinkAge and B&NES, which address challenges to health and wellbeing such as digital exclusion, loneliness and social isolation, ageism, food insecurity and clinical rehabilitation.
In 2022 we signed a partnership agreement with the Royal United Hospital in Bath, to work more closely on our common interests of research, education and contribution to the local community. New projects supported by this include research to explore and improve patient and clinician experiences of remote hospital consultations, and the launch of a data sharing agreement to enable more collaboration on data analytics. Our activity with other health care organisations has also expanded over the last year, including primary and social care. Discussions with our largest local Primary Care Network in Frome have resulted in collaborative bids for research and studentships around social prescribing, and through our role in ARC West we are working on projects with the Bath, Swindon and Wiltshire Integrated Care Board, supporting their aims of developing a more diverse network of organisations and people involved in research.
Aspect 3: Results
The University stimulates socio-economic activity and growth via our operational, supply chain and wage payment spending, via the expenditure of our UK and International students and the visitors that are attracted to the region as a result. In 2019/20, the activities of the University of Bath supported:
£380 million Gross Value Added (GVA) and 5,950 jobs in Bath and North East Somerset;
£440 million GVA and 6,660 jobs in the West of England Combined Authority area; and
£1.2 billion GVA and 12,080 jobs in the UK.
Across the UK, the economic value that the University created is over four times greater than its income.
As a University, across the three Faculties and the School, we typically create over 2000 undergraduate placements per year. A significant number of these (circa 300 in 2019/20) are in the local area. Working with large companies, SMEs, and start-ups, there is a real desire to increase these numbers. Our students are high performers and make a real contribution to their organisations.
The University of Bath has delivered three European Development funded (ERDF) programmes to enable upskilling and improvements in competitiveness and sustainability for over 350 SMEs, while also leading on delivery of the Connected Capability Fund ‘Scale Up Programme’ which has enabled over 400 SMEs to collectively invest £100m into R&D activity, including attracting of co-investment. The diagram below shows how the University works through the partnership to drive an ecosystem of connected support for businesses across the region.
The Institute of Coding (IoC) led by the University of Bath, bid, and were awarded funding for National and Regional Skills Bootcamps in 2021, with 12 partners working together to recruit over 1,700 learners by March 2022. Extended and new contracts awarded in 2022 made a further 1,250 learner places available to March 2023. IoC Skills Bootcamps provide digital training to people in England looking to upskill or retrain and helps them find new employment opportunities. Training is free of charge to eligible learners.
To date, over 2,700 people have started their Skills Bootcamp training with the IoC. Learners on IoC Skills Bootcamps are not only taught new digital skills in areas such as software development, data analytics, UI/UX and cyber security, but also receive soft skills training, confidence building and pastoral and job-seeking support.
Over 200 employers have worked with our partners to ensure that courses are relevant to current industry needs. Many are actively involved in the delivery of teaching, have provided sessions on what it’s like to work in the digital industry and have offered coaching, support with CVs and mock interviews to support graduates into the workplace.
Learners who successfully complete their course are supported to secure interviews for jobs in fields related to their newly acquired skills.
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
The University of Bath has an enduring commitment to Public and Community Engagement (P&CE). P&CE is embedded across, and draws on, all four pillars of our current strategy (2021).
P&CE activities are a complementary mix of sustained work and one-off initiatives. This combination, delivered through effective partnership and collaboration, ensures that long-term relationships and trust are built and responsive to short-term need.
The embedded nature of P&CE into the University’s overall work means that support is embedded through central teams and in the faculties, school, institutes, and departments.
We ensure that our P&CE meets the needs of our communities by engaging them in an ongoing dialogue alongside focused listening exercises to inform specific activities.
Aspect 1: Strategy
The University of Bath released its current strategy in the middle of this assessment period for KEF3. It builds on the effective, collaborative working with other anchor organisations in the region (Bath and North East Somerset local authority, Royal United Hospitals, and Bath Spa University) that strengthened during the emergency pandemic response.
The effectiveness of this collective working was reflected in the new strategy, with Working in Partnership being one of the four pillars of the strategy. Partnership is key to all aspects of the University Strategy, including Public and Community Engagement (P&CE). P&CE is deeply embedded into the University of Bath, meaning it is both ongoing and episodic, and central and distributed, and features in our research, teaching, and how we run our facilities.
This commitment to working in partnership to support local needs is reflected in the University being a core member of the Future Ambitions Board (FAB). The FAB is a partnership, led by the anchor organisations, to deliver, and speak up, for the region. Our Vice-Chancellor represents the University of Bath on the strategic board of the FAB. Overall leadership for P&CE is held with the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost, responsibility for local partnership working is distributed across several roles: Chief Marketing Officer, Director of External Engagement, Director of Communications, Head of Learning and Teaching, Head of Public Engagement, and Head of Regional Development.
A reflection of the reinvigorated commitment to P&CE at the beginning of this KEF assessment period saw a new role being created: Head of Community Engagement. The Head of Community Engagement is responsible for developing the University’s community and civic engagement, supporting collaborative work between the University and local organisations, and raising the profile of P&CE.
Aspect 2: Support
Reflecting the embedded nature of P&CE we have a network of support which takes many forms including: opportunities to get involved, training, reward and recognition, and communicating clearly about P&CE. The teams involved include: Public Engagement Unit, Community Engagement, Research and Innovation Services, Students Union, Sports Development and Recreation, Centre for Learning and Teaching, Development and Alumni Relations, Communications, Widening Participation, Student Community Partnership, Library, and Corporate Engagement.
Programmes to get involved
In this KEF assessment period, we have collaborated with local organisations Natural History Consortium, Kilter Theatre, Stellaria Media, the Holburne Museum and the Museum of East Asian Art to deliver tailored activities for multiple communities. We deliver our Minerva lecture series with local partners who have shared interests with our academic speakers. Internal funding (e.g. Engage Grants, Impact Acceleration Account) is used to mobilise individual-led activities. The Students' Union Volunteer Department supports students to volunteer locally, contributing over 3,000 volunteer hours per year. Our Gold Scholarship programme supports prospective students from disadvantaged backgrounds and embeds local volunteering opportunities for the 50 Gold Scholars annually.
In September 2021, the Widening Participation team created an Outreach Manager role to support staff wishing to do schools outreach and created a network of staff with approximately 200 people in it.
Building capability
Training, in the forms of workshops, online modules, one-to-one advice, and mentoring, is available for all staff and students and is delivered by the teams that support P&CE. In the academic year 2021/22 a new Impact & Knowledge Exchange Fellowships programme was launched which focused on the skills needed for all types of knowledge exchange, including P&CE.
Reward and recognition
There are formal and informal reward mechanisms for participating in P&CE. The Vice-Chancellor's Engage Awards for Public Engagement have been running since 2012. In 2021 a new category of “Local and Civic Engagement” was introduced. To run in alternating years to the Engage Awards, the Widening Participation team established the Vice-Chancellor’s Outreach Awards in 2022. P&CE is in promotion guidance for academic staff. Activities such as Human Library, showcases, and news stories in the local press celebrate those undertaking P&CE.
Physical spaces
Our physical spaces, such as The Sports Training Village (STV), offer world-class facilities and host major sporting events for the region, such as the Netball Superleague.
Evidencing value
The teams enabling P&CE collect evidence of the impact from the activities. This information is used for continuous improvement: ensuring that all parties understand the merit and worth of these activities, that they remain relevant, and continue to contribute to the strategic goals of staff, students, the University, and external communities. Guidance for evidencing impact is available through all the teams responsible for delivering P&CE.
Equality Diversity and Inclusion
Fostering an Inclusive Community is one of four pillars of the University strategy. We deliver accessible and inclusive P&CE that reflects the needs of broader society. We produce access statements for in-person and online events, and we use inclusive facilitation to ensure that all participants in an activity can contribute meaningfully.
Aspect 3: Activity
The embedded nature of P&CE at the University of Bath means that much of our work started before this KEF assessment period and will continue into the future. We want to give a flavour of some of those initiatives here as they provide evidence of our ongoing commitment. The second part of this section will highlight some of the one-off initiatives delivered during this assessment period.
Sustained partnership-based engagement
1: Student Community Partnership (SCP)
The SCP is a partnership, established in 2002 between the University of Bath, Bath Spa University, Bath College and their three respective Students’ Unions, Norland College and Bath and North East Somerset local authority. It supports student residents and permanent residents in coming together and living in the community of Bath. The SCP campaigns for neighbourly relations, safety, sustainability and other aspects of community awareness. The work of the SCP includes: monthly litter pick, a Community Warden who does daily rounds across five wards in the city, and seasonal campaigns when students move in and out. The two-week Moving Out campaigns in 2021 and 2022 covered 96 streets, 3,247 properties, spoke with 1,629 residents across nine wards. Through the SCP the number of resident issues that have been successfully resolved has increased over this KEF assessment period from 150 in 2019/20 to 303 in 2021/22
2: Natural History Consortium
The University of Bath has been a member of the Natural History Consortium since 2016. The Consortium is a charitable collaboration of 14 organisations working together on a shared mission: to develop, test and disseminate best practice to engage everyone with the environment and natural world. The partners deliver joint projects for live and digital audiences, an ongoing programme of research and evaluation, and sector-facing initiatives to bring environmental communicators together to share best practice.
As a member, 100 researchers have participated in P&CE events and activities, including the Festival of Nature, City Nature Challenge and pilot or one-off events such as the Green Prescribing network, and a workshop to develop the regional response to the ecological and climate emergencies. These local activities have collectively reached over 13,000 people who report valuing the opportunity to meet practising scientists, find out about research happening in the region, and be motivated to get involved with research at the University.
3: The Sports Training Village
Catering for sport at all levels, our Sports Training Village (STV) is
one of the most vibrant sporting complexes in the UK and attracts well
more than one million visits per year. The STV has fantastic facilities,
including two gyms, a 50m swimming pool, an athletics track,
multi-surface pitches, and indoor tennis courts. The STV is open to the
wider community; over 3,000 use the facilities weekly. Schools can
create bespoke visits for any year group providing inspirational
experiences with athletes and activities. Over 75 visits are delivered
each year, supporting thousands of pupils. 
Figure 1 School children visit to find out more about the sport science at the University of Bath
As one of only six UK Sport-accredited Elite Training Centres, and as host to national squads from six sports as well as 250 international athletes, the STV has made a significant contribution to Great Britain’s success at Olympic and Paralympic Games over the past two decades. This contribution is greatly valued by the local population as evidenced by two recent surveys that found between 79% (UK Sport) and 87% (UoB survey) of all local and regional respondents are strongly aware/proud of the University’s contribution to, and excellence in, sport.
4: Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs)
VIPs are research-based projects that enable students and staff to collaborate on long-term, real-world issues that local organisations are experiencing. They create sustained relationships with these organisations and offer under- and post-graduate students the opportunity to gain applied learning experiences and professional skills.
Farrington Guerney village is working with the University VIP, the local council, Community Fridge, and the Climate Action Plan to deliver a carbon neutral community and increase biodiversity.
The InterPromoting VIP is working to develop age-friendly communities through surveys, peer research and interactive workshops and activities.
One-off initiatives during the assessment period
1: COVID-19 response
Figure 2 Working on PPE in the Engineering Department
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, key organisations and the University came together to work for the benefit of the city and region. The responses included commitments to providing space for a field hospital if needed, production of 400,000 items of PPE for NHS workers, accommodation for isolating key workers, training for local charities, hosting a testing centre in University buildings, and research collaborations.
As the pandemic has continued during this assessment period, the University has continued to engage more widely. Three researchers have contributed significantly to the wider public’s understanding of COVID-19, vaccination, transmission, and mitigation. Our media monitoring tells us that Kit Yates, Andrew Preston, and Ed Feil have reached millions of people locally and around the globe through media interviews, social media engagement and being part of more formal responses to the pandemic.
The contributions made by the University in response to COVID-19 have been recognised in a letter from Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Somerset which noted “how the University has risen to challenges placed upon local resources and local hospitals” and that “the broad spectrum of response is very exciting and... very awe inspiring too!”
2: RATLab
RATLab is an award-winning interactive show about bio-mechanical engineering for 7-11-year-olds. This highly innovative show is a collaboration between Green Ginger and engineers from the University. Green Ginger’s pioneering puppetry work was a natural way to showcase and explore the bio-mechanical engineering from the University in a way that resonated with the audiences of young people. In its first tour, RATLab has reached 678 children (223 eligible for Pupil Premium – a proxy for low-income families) and 54 adults.
3. Understanding Food Insecurity
Building on the Our Shared Future initiative reported in the last submission, this collaborative work between Bath and North East Somerset (B&NES) local authority and the University has looked at the factors contributing to food insecurity in the region. The work was undertaken to inform the B&NES regions’ Food Equity Action Plan, which involves using hyper-local media to share information about where to access food through the Affordable Food Network as well as highlighting the broader social issues that exacerbate food insecurity, poverty and crisis.
4. Judo: A Cultural History of Martial Art
A collaboration with the Museum of East Asian art, this exhibition displayed artefacts from the University’s archives on the history of Judo. Approximately 2,500 people visited the exhibition, with evaluation showing the exhibition and accompanying talks were “interesting”, “well presented”, and at times “hilarious”.
[1098 / 1100]
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
As with our delivery, our approach to evaluation is both ongoing and distributed, and episodic and centralised.
The ongoing and distributed P&CE activity is monitored and evaluated by those teams delivering the activities and is used primarily to inform future iterations of work. This distributed monitoring and evaluation also contributes to the University’s return to the Higher Education Business and Community Interaction Survey (HE-BCIS). Our P&CE submission for HEB-CIS is one of 12 University-level Key Performance Indicators used by both governing bodies of the University, Council and Senate, to ensure the University is delivering against the overall strategy.
Episodic evaluation of our institutional P&CE is delivered centrally. In 2021 BiGGAR Economics were commissioned to produce an Economic Impact assessment for the University of Bath. This assessment included social, cultural, and environmental impacts alongside the economic benefits to the region. The report highlighted how the university’s staff, students, operations, and estate all contributed to P&CE. BiGGAR highlighted how:
student volunteering with over 50 local charities, environmental projects and safety initiatives all contributed to the wellbeing of the local community
operational decisions for example, spend on goods and services from companies in B&NES was £4.6 million in 2019/20
Support for monitoring and evaluation is distributed across the teams that enable P&CE. Alongside those teams, monitoring and evaluation guidance is also provided centrally through the Research and Innovation Services team (RIS). RIS and the Public Engagement Unit both provide online toolkits which enable staff to take a step-by-step approach to developing and evidencing the impact of all their Knowledge Exchange activities (which includes P&CE). How to do effective monitoring and evaluation and how to be a reflective practitioner feature in the compulsory training for all staff on probation.
Aspect 5: Building on success
The Public Engagement Unit (PEU) was established in 2012 is a well-respected team within the consortium of teams that support P&CE. Here we present the PEU as one example of our culture of continuous improvement for P&CE.
As a central team, the PEU’s underpinning approach is one of listening, learning and reflective practice. This means that we build up general insight into our communities’ needs and we are able to share that insight through our everyday work that directly supports P&CE and through our contributions to other, related, programmes and initiatives such as our contributions to Researcher Development, Research Culture Working Group, and the Research and Knowledge Exchange Community of Practice and Working Group.
The PEU periodically undertakes focused listening exercises, and we provide our most recent example here to illustrate our overall approach. In 2022 we carried out a listening exercise to inform our approach to P&CE, Participatory Research, and Public & Patient Involvement. The key findings from this exercise told us that many communities have limited understanding of what a university does, and specifically what research is and how it works. Those who had previous experience of being involved with research told us it could feel extractive and inflexible due to short funding cycles. Through this exercise and others, our communities have told us they would like:
Clear ‘front door’ with a person welcoming them in
Opportunities to build relationships rather than doing projects
The University being seen to get involved with what’s happening in a community
Access to knowledge that is held by the University
As with all our learning and evaluation work, these findings are used across the University including the team who are redeveloping the governance of research ethics, those leading on research culture, and the Researcher Development Team.
[294/300]
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)