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Institutional Context
Summary
City, University of London (‘City’) has an international outlook in both research and education, and its mission sets out a commitment to academic excellence and to engage with business and the professions. The Northampton Institute was founded in 1894 and The City University in 1966 after being granted its charter, the university then joined the federal University of London in 2016. City, University of London is home to five different schools: Business School; School of Arts & Social Sciences; School of Health Sciences; School of Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering; and City Law School. Within the last three years City has been shortlisted for University of the Year and Outstanding Entrepreneurial University of the Year by Times Higher Education.Institutional context
Mission
City, University of London’s mission is to be a leading global University committed to academic excellence, while ensuring the insights of our research are influential through engaging with business and the professions. While global in outlook, City partners with London public authorities and is embedded within its local communities.
Academic excellence in research and education underpins the knowledge translation value chain at City. We take the view that both fundamental research and immediately useful research can be entirely compatible with engagement. Our priority is to leverage partnerships and collaborations in all forms both across academia and beyond into business and the professions, and that the opportunities to partner are stronger than ever due to our enhanced research quality, stronger ambition and brand-strengthening through membership of the University of London.
Institutional strengths
City’s academic strength comes through its distinctive Schools which generate research that is rigorous, innovative, practical, and influential. We aim to influence the intellectual and strategic agenda of current and future business leaders, policy makers as well as other scholars.
In developing excellent disciplinary-based and inter-disciplinary research, we generate robust solutions to complex problems. The university has invested in interdisciplinary research centres to provide platforms to encourage and support challenge-based research across the university. The centres play a critical part in maximising the impact from our research by providing an infrastructure to facilitate collaboration with research partners and users and the effective dissemination of our research outcomes. We continue to engage with business and community organisations by exploiting the range of dissemination and knowledge exchange routes available including (i) public engagement; (ii) policy engagement; (iii) industry collaboration; and (iv) commercialisation.
London as the geographical focus
City’s unique location acts as a bridge between the City of London, the global centre for finance and legal services; London Tech City, the third-largest technology start-up cluster in the world; and the Knowledge Quarter, a partnership of 35 academic, cultural, research, scientific and media organisations based around London’s King's Cross area. We will also leverage partnerships with policy think-tanks, City of London Corporation and with livery companies - London's ancient trade associations.
Knowledge Exchange focus
City has evolved a bifurcated approach to enterprise: academic enterprise and student enterprise. The difference in emphasis between the two is reflected across the HE Sector and is founded in the variance in ownership of intellectual property between staff and students.
Academic enterprise takes various forms: industry collaborations, bi-directional secondments, consultancy arrangements, provision of short courses and CPD courses, KTPs and provision of expert assistance in helping inventive ideas reach the marketplace through the commercial exploitation of intellectual property.
Student enterprise activities are key routes to education-based impact. In this respect, we position ourselves as sector-leading in enterprise education and will support all students with a viable project start a business should they wish to do so.
Alongside our knowledge exchange activities City operates an extensive events, outreach and adult learning programme that focus on the needs of residents and workers in the neighbouring boroughs.
For further information, please send queries to j.montgomery@city.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
At City, University of London (‘City’) we value excellence, creativity, innovation and interdisciplinarity. Maximising the impact and relevance of our work in ways that are useful to the wider economy, cultural life, public services, and policy making is at the heart of what we do.
City’s approach to local growth and regeneration is through an interrelated three-pronged approach involving research, education, and student enterprise.
City has particularly strong links with the City of London, and with the London Borough of Islington which co funds City’s new community incubator project, and with various cultural partners through London’s Knowledge Quarter.
Local economic growth and regeneration activities are led by academic champions, supported by HEIF-funded professionals, and carried out by researchers, students, and alumni.
Aspect 1: Strategy
London as the geographical focus
City leverages its unique location between two knowledge intensive regions of London: The City of London which is the global financial centre and headquarters of many global companies, and London’s Tech City, the cluster of high-tech companies located in neighbouring boroughs of Islington and Hackney. Additionally, City contributes fully to the London’s creative industry clusters through the Cultural Capital Exchange (TCCE) and the recently announced National Centre for Academic and Cultural Exchange
Although City has always had a close association with its local boroughs, it was in 2016 when work was underway to produce a new institutional 10-year strategy that City strongly signalled its commitment to local economic development.
For many years City has run a highly successful business start-up facility in the London Borough of Islington which is funded through HEIF. ‘The Launch Lab’ was established in 2013 as a pilot aiming to demonstrate the value of co-working incubation space in fostering relationships between academics, students, alumni and Tech City entrepreneurs and start-up businesses. The facility supports students, alumni, and non-City start-up businesses through a series of programmes and tailored support, responding to student demand for new practical skills and the government-led strategy to foster employability and enterprise in a challenging environment. Revenue generated by City Launch Lab companies is considerable, resulting in local employment opportunities and the generation of a vibrant community.
City has a disproportionate number of students from the inner boroughs of London. Our long standing commitment to spend significant amounts of HEIF on supporting student-related aspects of knowledge exchange and commercialisation fits with the aim of the People chapter of the Industrial Strategy White Paper to invest in skills to support growth and opportunity within the region of inner London.
Working in partnership for regeneration
City also collaborates on local growth and regeneration projects via KE membership organisations including the London’s Knowledge Quarter (a partnership of 35 academic, cultural, research, scientific and media organisations based in nearby King's Cross and Bloomsbury); The Cultural Capital Exchange, a network of HEIs focused on collaboration and wider engagement between the research base and the arts, cultural and creative sectors in the capital; and Capital Enterprise, the membership body for providers of enterprise support services in London. We are also an active member of London First, through which we seek to connect City’s best students and its external partners with commercial influencers and policy creators within London
City’s Institutional Vision & Strategy 2026 which contains our current Research and KE Supporting Strategy was developed following a wide-ranging consultation with stakeholders.
The process to create City's Vision & Strategy 2026 began in February 2015 with the first engagement events with staff and heads of department taking place in March. Strategy engagement sessions included a business breakfast focused on student employability and skills training attended by City’s staff, external partners (such as graduate recruiters), student mentors and City alumni. Further engagement events took place with students, alumni entrepreneurs, the local community, and City’s business partners. By May 2016, 1,422 people had attended engagement sessions of whom approx. 300 were external to City.
Knowledge exchange issues raised at these engagement events included: ‘how City influences business and the professions?’ and ‘City’s role in enhancing London’ as key elements of City’s distinctiveness; the need to leverage commercial and social partnerships within City, London (including through the University of London) and internationally; increasing creative connectiveness between research and research consumers; engagement and teaching linked to reward structures and workload models; and how should its Schools adapt their strategies to include ‘contribution to economy and society’.
Aspect 2: Activity
Courses for business and the community
Helping to produce a skilled workforce and greater earning power for all.
City’s Short Course unit provides education and skills training to around 4000 adult learners each year. Areas of high demand included Coding and Programming Skills such as Python/Excel and VBA/Java/AutoCAD and Revit/Cyber Security. Traditional Business Management courses e.g., Leadership & Management, Project Management and Event Management also attract large student numbers as does Writing & Publishing with The Novel Studio course, Writing for Business as well as related events (e.g. ‘City Writes’). The Marketing & Communications Team has commissioned research on the Short Courses market to gain a deeper understanding of the skills needs of local-residents, workers, and entrepreneurs. Outputs of regular student surveys inform both the structure and subject mix of our short course unit, ensuring we cater as effectively as possible to our ‘non-traditional’ student body
Capital Accelerate and Scale Tech Superstars (CASTS)
In March 2016, City became the lead academic institution, delivery partner and the underwriter on a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programme Capital Accelerate and Scale Tech Superstars (CASTS), taking over this role from UCL. to generate more innovative technology-focused, fast-growth companies by expanding the provision of London’s high-quality accelerator programmes. City’s contribution, as delivery partner, was from the ‘StartUX’ initiative, which is run and match funded by the City Interaction Lab, a design and innovation consultancy based within City’s Centre for Human Computer Interaction Design.
Student Entrepreneurship
Helping to make Islington the best place to start and grow a business.
The successful student enterprise unit at City ‘City Ventures’ comprises services and facilities that help student start-ups, provide them with access to funding and to research insights from the world leading Entrepreneurship research group at the City’s Business School, and is supported by HEIF-funded KE staff. Through a range of bespoke programmes, events and services City Ventures helps students, graduates and the local start-up community to start, launch and scale business ventures to achieve success and be the change.
The City Launch Lab – the university’s incubating and co-working space – has more than 60 companies residing, led by a new wave of young UK and International entrepreneurs.
The team responsible for helping get a new business off the ground organise and host a range of activities, such as speaker series, hackathons, training workshops and product demonstrations in addition to providing workspace for new companies. These all help students to gain the knowledge and skills needed to begin working on their idea.
Courses for business and the community enrolments over several years has been stable but with growth areas across IT and programming languages suggesting that the work-related courses are meeting the needs of the residents, entrepreneurs, and workers. This is supported by the stable or increasing number of requests for invoices presented by companies who recommend City’s short courses to their employees as part of their development. The demand for IT skills has been serviced by timetabling more classes at weekends.
The City Ventures team of 12 entrepreneurial experts that support over 4000 students to start and grow their business over 10 years. Among these are some outstanding success stories which have received wider recognition in the business community and the press, include the London Mayor’s Entrepreneurs of the Year 2017: the co-founders of Twipes; as well as Trustedoctor, a second opinion medical platform for cancer patients who received significant PR when they launched, including features on the BBC and ITV.
CASTS not only helped maintain the London accelerator ecosystem’s level of excellence but also built upon it to ensure London and the UK continued to benefit from the jobs and wealth generated. It has been a highly impactful and cost-efficient project that has surpassed all its project objectives and targets for job creation, private investment and the number of SMEs supported.
Aspect 3: Results
Student Enterprise ‘City Ventures’
In 2017/18, City Ventures engaged 8,000 students, alumni, and external guests, through 77 events, 250 “one-to-ones” and 5 competitions. CitySpark offers businesses opportunities to showcase ideas and access £40,000 funding. In 2017/18 it attracted 250+ entries (up 20% on 2016/17). Five winners achieved £150,000 turnover and employ 15. LaunchLab grew exponentially over five years, 5 start-ups in 2014, 65 in 2018. In 2017/18, start-ups created 126 jobs, raised £2M investment and generated £300,000 revenue. Start-ups raised £11.2M investment (5th UK) and created 615 jobs (10th UK). [Data from 2017/18 HE-BCI Survey.]
Capital Accelerate and Scale Tech Superstars (CASTS)
The total budget for CASTS was £7,357,904 and the project kicked off in April 2016 and ran until June 2019. It was delivered by Capital Enterprise, in partnership with UCL, City and Newable; it was additionally supported by 16 London based accelerators. CASTS was part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, with match funding from the delivery partners and accelerators.
CASTS demonstrated excellent value for money with every £1 spent by the public sector, the CASTS project generated £4.90 for the London economy. The impact of CASTS was:
SMEs supported: 797
Investment raised: £142m
Jobs created: 955
New Enterprises Supported: 797
[Data source: https://capitalenterprise.org/casts/ ]
Adult and Lifelong Learning
City’s adult learning team won an award at the WPM Education conference in 2017 and 2018 for best "Outstanding Contribution Award" for best e-commerce/best payment experience.
User feedback and testimony from learners include: “I had a great time learning C with you. Specific thanks for putting together the virtual class, I found this super helpful and think I actually preferred the format.” C++ student
“It’s great to be able to participate in classes from the comfort of your own home and it helps to have a small class size, so we get lots of time to talk about our work and get feedback from the tutor.” The Novel Studio student. The Novel Studio student
More user feedback and testimony from former students and learners is available here:
https://blogs.city.ac.uk/cityshortcourses/
Building on success
City Ventures has been recognised for its important contribution to the local economy by Islington Council, and wanting to capitalise on this success, City was recently successful in applying to the Islington Council Affordable Workspace programme in February 2020 to create Better Space, a co-working facility which provides services and programmes to support social enterprises in the creative and technology space. Better Space will also provide a core set of initiatives and programmes to assist with the recovery of the Borough. These programmes are focused on helping Islington residents, specifically targeting underrepresented groups such as BAME and female founders to help them launch their business or get back into employment.
Building on the CASTS project which strengthened the growth environment for SMEs in London, in 2020 Research England awarded City funding to create the National Centre for Creativity enabled by Artificial Intelligence which will deliver new AI-based services to SMEs to augment business creativity. The Centre will provide new types of service to augment the creative capabilities of UK businesses enabling them to exploit their assets and existing creativity knowledge more quickly. The Centre advocates a new form of on-demand software service – AI algorithms and interactive tools that encode this knowledge so that businesses can apply it to their digital information to create effectively on-demand.
Communicating success stories
More success stories about City’s involvement in regeneration and local growth are shared online at: https://www.city.ac.uk/news?series=enterprise-spotlight
For further information, please send queries to j.montgomery@city.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
City, University of London (‘City’) engages with many communities: academia and research, student and alumni, businesses, and charities, throughout London, the national and internationally.
Our Strategy and Vision 2026 sets out our mission of discovering, developing, and sharing knowledge, and of improving the lives of our students and those who engage with academic staff and researchers.
Through its public engagement activities City brings major educational, economic, social, and cultural benefits to our neighbouring boroughs of Islington, Camden, and City of London.
A key message from stakeholders consulted while creating City's Vision & Strategy 2026 was that ‘Partnership’ should become a pillar of our institutional strategy. This pillar is now fully incorporated within our strategy.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Existing strategy
City, University of London’s (‘City’) Strategic Plan 2026 sets out its mission of discovering, developing, and sharing knowledge, and the aim of making a positive difference to society. City is committed to making a significant, sustainable, and socially responsible contribution to the world, and to promoting health, economic growth, cultural understanding, and social wellbeing.
One of three strategic pillars is to leverage the value of our partnerships in all forms. City partners with academic, public, private and third sector institutions - within London, nationally and internationally.
Complementing these formal partnerships, City operates an extensive set of events, outreach activities and free training programmes which focus on the needs of pupils, residents, entrepreneurs, and workers in the neighbouring boroughs of Islington, Camden and the City of London. Where there had been low awareness of the University it runs campaigns in local media to enable the public to discover, understand and engage with us.
Planning process and identifying relevant public and community groups and their needs
City’s Public Engagement objectives were developed alongside its Institutional Vision & Strategy 2026 (‘V&S26’), and this greatly enhanced the range and quality of inputs into their formation.
Inputs into the V&S26 were collected from a variety of sources over 18 months including interviews with students and alumni, with visiting, honorary and associate staff who work in practice, alumni entrepreneurs, philanthropic donors, graduate recruiters and long-standing partner organisations. Alongside this, information was communicated via social media and more traditional post-it boards were displayed at all City sites. In total 1,422 people had attended engagement sessions of whom approx. 300 were external to the university.
It is easy for public to visit the campus or make contact, and there is also hold bi-annual community forums for local-residents. New public spaces on campus are well regarded by visitors, and we are continuing to invest in areas of our campus to provide our stakeholders with cutting-edge facilities and space.
The Communications Team support public engagement, using a diverse range of communication channels to disseminate the results of our research, facilitate its translation into practice, and influence policy makers, practitioners, industry, and public bodies.
School-based HEIF-funded Business Development Managers are contact points for all matters pertaining to public engagement with research as well as the point of contact for those who want to enter a contractual collaboration.
Aspect 2: Support
Engaging with our research – developing the supply side
We focus on nurturing a pool of current academics to give greater visibility to their work outside of the academic community. New recruits are added to the pool by reaching out to new starters and by sourcing their new research outputs to showcase in media and at public events. The Communications Team publicised 97 research outputs in 2019/20. As well as nurturing individual relationships with academics the team also monitors City’s open access repository to identify topical academic research that the public might find interesting.
Public Affairs & Government Engagement
The Communications Team monitors parliamentary mentions of City, its academics, and their research, and recently employed a monitoring agency to help with this. The Team also worked on a specific project with a public affairs consultancy in 2019/20 to raise parliamentary awareness of, and increase engagement with, research with national policy relevance from across all five schools of City.
Most new research outputs that have policy relevance are shared with parliamentarians - individuals in government, opposition, and the minor parties, and with selected other interested groups such as think tanks and policy institutes.
Building awareness of the University as a forerunner to engagement
People can learn about City by viewing ‘Campus Life’ news pages which provides a rich source of content that tells the story of City. Photos are taken around campus and posted to twitter, Facebook and Instagram to showcase campus life as it happens. During key university events, photos and videos are also posted to Instagram Stories, which become part of a ‘story’ or slideshow that lasts for 24 hours. Facebook Live and Instagram Stories have been a particular success. City has 30.5K Twitter followers across its different accounts.
Recognition of Public and Community Engagement work
City’s HR Academic Framework sets out expected contributions to ‘community’ by staff wishing to be considered for promotion. Those aspiring to be Professor should provide evidence of strong and sustained evidence of industry / community engagement with proven benefits to both the university and the external community:
Now in their sixth year the University President’s Prizes are institution-wide awards for excellence in nine categories including: ‘Outstanding Research Engagement - Media and Outreach’, ‘Outstanding Engagement with Business and the Professions’, and ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Local Community’.
Aspect 3: Activity
City organises numerous public and community events on campus: public lectures, panel discussions, book launches, sector-specific events, music performances, and heritage celebrations.
In addition, City’s staff engage in a wide range of community and people-based activities off-campus such as, giving invited lectures, volunteering, and offering pro-bono and reduced-priced professional services for the community.
Pro-bono Legal Centre
City Law students, supervised by academics and practicing lawyers, get real-life legal practice alongside their studies. Pro bono helps them to develop a range of transferable skills whilst helping the community.
City Sight
City Sight offers eye care services to the general public and local businesses in state-of-the-art facilities. Tests are carried out by City’s Optometry students supervised by a qualified optometrist enabling the latest generation of optometrists to receive the vital training they need.
Educational help to local schools
City initiatives help local school achieve Outstanding Ofsted score via Spotlight Days and Summer School, thus helping community from low income background.
Concerts
The Department of Music hosts public concerts, seminars and conferences throughout the academic year, presented by visiting international researchers, composers and performing musicians, alongside our talented students and staff. Most events are free to attend.
Participation in Clerkenwell Design Week
Clerkenwell Design Week showcases leading brands and companies in a series of showroom events, exhibitions and special installations. City’s Engineering School has participated since 2017 by giving talks, meeting school children and judging an essay competition.
Social Enterprise Festival
City's Social Enterprise Festival offers a range of workshops, keynotes, networking opportunities and competitions for everyone, and targets those interested in social entrepreneurship, social innovation and more broadly social responsibility of business.
Charity Talks
These events are led by a leading figure in the sector of a current issue facing people in non-profit organisations. Charity Talks has had 10,000 attendees since they were founded 25 years ago.
At larger events attendees are asked to complete a quick evaluation survey. At discussion events attendees can tweet about the event to their followers and these comments are monitored by the Event Organiser. At high profile events selected attendees are interviewed and their comments are included in the write-up for the web site and if they consent may be contacted afterwards by a member of the Events Team.
Aspect 4: Results and learning
City Law School Pro-bono Centre has helped a wide range of neighbouring community organisations including the National Centre for Domestic Violence, Amnesty International, the Blackfriars Settlement Clinic, the Environmental Law Association, the Islington People’s Rights, the Golden Lane Legal Advice Clinic, and the Liberty Letter Writing Clinic.
City Sight has treated over 3,000 patients in the past six months alone, in one of 23 clinic rooms and four diagnostic rooms, the clinic also provides a vital role in a thriving community while also offering Occupational eye tests for the London Fire Brigade and other emergency services.
Feedback about the 2019 Social Enterprise Festival included:
“The journey from City Ventures to the Social Enterprise Festival has been incredible. I am much more confident in my pitching and speaking since I have been a part of the Launch Lab.”
“At the last competition I was one of the youngest to compete, but a lot has changed since then and I now know how to clearly explain my story. With advice from the team I use a real example of a child called John, who inspired me to create Bubble Mind.”
Larger scale activities are evaluated using feedback forms and online surveys of attendees. Smaller scale events and individual engagement activities are difficult to evaluate even though they can be just as successful if assessed by depth or duration of the engagement.
Funded community engagement activities are more likely to be evaluated than unfunded events. As are activities that are associated with potential REF Impact Case Studies because resources are made available to enable follow-up activity.
The benefits of public and community engagement to City are that they enhance our charitable purpose of Education and Research.
Public engagement enhances research because it can help researchers explore new perspectives and new research angles and can increase awareness or support for a particular research area. It also contributes to the production of better quality and more successful research grant applications which in turn makes research affordable. For the future we are working to embed engagement in all research and to include communities in research design wherever plausible.
In Education, public engagement enables the development of new skills and can help emerging academics mature into better communicators. It can also be a good source of visiting lecturers who can make courses more relevant, and it inspires students to want to give back to their community.
Aspect 5: Acting on results
The extent to which residents engage with City is limited by their lack awareness of what City does. To address this, we are raising awareness and understanding of the University by for example building more active working relationships with the two local newspapers covering the University’s location – the Islington Gazette and the Islington Tribune. Together we are publishing one story each month in these outlets showcasing events or some aspect of University life such as scholarship recipients, research breakthroughs, or successful collaborations.
Building on the strength of its links with its neighbouring boroughs and with the desire to do more City has signed a Civic University Agreement to demonstrate its commitment to the economic, social, environmental, and cultural life of our local communities
Bi-annual community forums for local-residents are held and have invited resident leaders on a tour of the new main entrance and to Open House London, held during September. Several actions have been taken in response to comments made at the forums. These include:
Continued to print ‘building works’ newsletter to keep residents informed about progress
Continued with the community gardening project for staff and students alongside St Luke’s Community Centre and Islington Council
Hosted events for local charitable organisations including the Peel Institute and Finsbury and Clerkenwell Volunteers
Many engagement events are written up to create compelling content for the News section of the university website: https://www.city.ac.uk/news
The Communications Team produces an Annual Report including public and community engagement events for the Executive Team – Deans of Schools and Directors of Professional Service Teams. Links to the News web site stories along with more internally facing stories of engagement events are shared on the Staff Hub, in Schools’ Newsletters or on our social media channels.
A recent success story shows the value to sharing engagement events internally. Feedback from a Charity Talk event at the Business School showed that charities often lacked awareness of information and communication technologies and this was holding back their ability to build relationships with those who rely on their services as well as with donors. On hearing this, the School of Engineering organised a STEM focused event (in association with the Business School) for charity executives so they could learn more about relevant research and training related opportunities in their neighbourhood.
For further information, please send queries to j.montgomery@city.ac.uk