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Institutional Context
Summary
Leeds Beckett is a modern, professional university with a dedicated, diverse community. We contribute an estimated annual GBP 500 million to the economy. We support a community of more than 28,000 students from over 140 countries and employ 2,800 staff.
We believe in working hard and having a bold, industrious spirit. As a university and major employer, we nurture abilities that help to shape a lifetime for both students and colleagues alike.
We work closely with partners and stakeholders to ensure our activities have positive and lasting influences on our local community, environment and economy. This is strengthened by our commitment to student success, research, innovation, enterprise, global reach strong impact and our role in the Leeds Inclusive Anchors Network.
Institutional context
At Leeds Beckett University, the exchange of knowledge between all aspects of university life and the individuals and organisations we work with, is woven into our institutional fabric. We are proud of our 190-year history of knowledge exchange, dating back to the Leeds Mechanics Institute in 1824, through our period of technical education as a polytechnic to the proud, impactful university we are today.
At the heart of our KE is a common aim: to ensure all communities, students, staff, businesses and organisations we touch, are better after our interaction than they were before. Our Knowledge Exchange (KE) strategy, led by our Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research & Enterprise, focusses on: developing our regional engagement; supporting local skills; growing our KTP portfolio; and enhancing our Health and Wellbeing, Culture and Sustainability knowledge strengths. Our HEIF funding is used to support and deliver this strategy which is governed through our R&E Sub-Committee of Academic Board.
Over 70% of our students are recruited from the Leeds City region and over 50% of students remain following graduation. Skills Development is a key part of our strategy and we appointed a PVC to oversee our employability and degree apprenticeship programmes which are rooted firmly in our region.
Our Vice-Chancellor chairs the Leeds Anchor Network which ensures we understand and effectively discharge our role as a key anchor institution within the City of Leeds and wider region. The Network Comprises 14 organisations who together employ 1:7 of the Leeds workforce, and have a combined purchasing power of £2bn
Engagement is delivered through our many established formal partner agreements and our 80 Memoranda of Understandings/Articles, underpinning our deep and mutually beneficial relationships.
Our world-leading research is put to good use. Leeds Beckett has many programmes that directly improve the health and wellbeing of our nation and beyond. For example, Our Integrated Healthy Lifestyle programmes delivered in partnership with our spin-out company MoreLife Ltd have improved the health and wellbeing of thousands of people across the country. All its activities are systematically evaluated by researchers to inform service improvement and to add to the community of knowledge in this crucial discipline.
Working with partners in both public and private sectors, we support the region’s SMEs through innovative programmes recognised through our Small Business Charter Award. Our network of University Business Centres (UBCs) give us a physical presence in the heart of communities across the region. Since 2018, our UBCs have supported over 450 businesses, critical to the future dynamic growth of our economy.
Our reach and impact in supporting the regeneration of the local economy is delivered through over 1000 community and economic activities. These are built up through our engaged academic interventions, often involving our exceptional students in providing local speech therapy support for young children, architectural practice to regenerate community facilities, and legal advice and clinics offered to businesses. These activities are built on evidential need, identified through comprehensive engagement with communities as described above.
For further information, please send queries to c.barnes@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
Leeds Beckett University’s (LBU) approach to local growth and regeneration is built on the foundations of working in partnership and taking the lead on informed, innovative action which meets the needs of place.
We strategically invest to:
Maximise our local impact working in our extensive stakeholder networks to identify need and co-create action;
Support the economic life of place through targeted and sustained activity where we can have greatest local impact;
Support the educational growth of place by producing high quality graduates, teachers and need based skills development programmes (e.g. Degree Apprenticeships); and
Support the culture and wellbeing of a place through the application and dissemination of our academic and professional expertise working in partnership with stakeholders and communities.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Our KE Strategy, recognises the importance of place and sets out our vision of the role our university plays. We invest HEIF funding to support our activities which deliver local growth and regeneration in the places we engage.
The geographic areas most strategically relevant to LBU are the City of Leeds and Leeds City Region (LCR). As an active member of “Core Cities”, we recognise that our KE can and should be applied wherever it has national impact in a localised context. This is particularly relevant when applying our key academic strengths (e.g. public health).
We systematically gather stakeholder views, map our role, and create a framework to inform strategy and evidence impact. We use this data to build partnerships and target programmes, truly improving local growth and regeneration.
We set out our strategic approach in four themed areas suggested by the NCCPE alternative framework for reporting Local Growth and Regeneration:
Strategic Investment to Maximise our Local Impact
As a significant employer and provider of high-level skills, we are pivotal in our regional economy. Our ongoing investment in our people and students underpins our contribution to the region. Further investment in new Arts and Sports buildings (GBP 125 million) has created new homes for these activities and better places for them for future contribution.
Membership in The Leeds Anchor’s Network shapes policy generation and as chair, our Vice Chancellor champions its strategic importance and actions. Our anchor role is embedded in our strategic planning and is reflected in key documents including the university’s strategic plan, estates plan, procurement plan and research and enterprise plan. (https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/our-university/).
Through Yorkshire Universities, we participated in the co-creation of LCR Local Industrial Strategy, manifesting in the funding of the West Yorkshire Innovation Network through our local Devolution deal. We strategically engage to implement this strategy, thereby supporting LCR economic growth.
Supporting the Economic Life of a Place
LBU has formal relationships (MOUs) with many of our City Region’s Local Authorities (LAs) and the Local Economic Partnership (LEP). This led to strategic investment (through HEIF and other funding) in our University Business Centres in Leeds, Halifax and Wakefield and the development of local place-based interventions supporting growth in local SMEs led by our Business School. We have senior level representation on the Leeds Business Improvement District, Leeds City Region LEP, Leeds and West Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, Leeds Innovation District, Leeds Anchors network, and Leeds Academic Health Partnership.
Supporting the Educational growth of a Place
Over 70% of our students come from the Leeds City region and over 50% of students remain following graduation. This, along with our strategic investment in the School of Education to provide the teachers of the future, makes us a significant contributor to skills in the region. We have also focused on growing our Degree Apprenticeship programme to support local businesses and third sector employers. Working with City Region sub-groups (e.g. The LEP’s Business Innovation and Growth panel) and key employers in specific sectors (e.g. Digital) enables us to focus on a sector’s educational or skill needs, which has led to several local developments (e.g. Digital skills gaps and rapid education of nursing associates). Additionally, our DVC chairs the Go Higher West Yorkshire initiative ensuring we link strategic activity into developing routes within local schools to widen educational growth through participation in higher education.
Supporting the Cultural and Wellbeing of a Place
Much of our KE activity provides benefits across cultural and wellbeing activities. We focus primarily on young people through the Carnegie School of Sports’ support for local clubs and elite athletes. We have invested in Carnegie Great Outdoors, a service that raises aspirations and resilience of all-ages through outdoor activities. Our health and wellbeing programmes delivered by students, spin outs and academics are tailored to benefit localities and improve lives. We support and invest to deliver enhanced culture of place informed by our engagement with civic and community stakeholders (e.g. our role as key patron and Board member for the Leeds 2023 European Capital of Culture bid).
Aspect 2: Activity
Our approach to local growth and regeneration is needs and evidence based, built on long term commitment, appropriately resourced and sustainable into the future. Intelligence is derived through direct intervention and by actively participating in lasting partnerships. The longevity of these relationships provides the mechanism for receiving direct feedback and the ability to continually evaluate and improve activity.
We provide evidence to support our approach set out in the four thematic areas suggested by NCCPE.
Strategic Investment to Maximise our Local Impact
Our role in the Leeds Anchor Network provides us with a collective view of the needs of our city. It also allows us to canvas opinion about the specific role our university should play. Our Anchor strategy and activities are led by our Vice-Chancellor who, through research, identified the value of the “Leeds Beckett Pound” when applied to local suppliers. As a result, we and other members of the Anchor Network changed our procurement practice to support a doubling of our spending with local suppliers, now £1bn which in turn led to growth in their businesses, an increase in local employment and a reduction in the carbon footprint of our supply chain.
Supporting the Economic Life of a Place
Our university has formalised its relationship with several of our City Region’s Local Authorities (LAs) through MOUs. Our work with LAs identified a need (confirmed by the HEFCE report on HEI Cold-Spots), recognising places without a university suffer disproportionately in terms of growth opportunities and access to skilled workers. As a result, our university invested GBP 500,000 in a partnership which supported the creation and sustaining of new businesses in Leeds City Region (Ad:Venture). The Investment of over GBP 300,000 from our LA partners enabled us to establish University Business Centres (UBCs) in Halifax and Wakefield to deliver the programme and provide a HE presence in these places for the first time. In the last two years, we have secured additional funding of over GBP1.5million from the City Region to ensure the sustainability of this activity. Delivered by our Business School in partnership with our UBCs, these activities are meeting needs identified by our City Region partners in relation to SME development, Women in Business and productivity improvements through management practices via mKTPs.
The evolution of the Ad:Venture programme into Accelerate (a continuation of ESIF funding) was informed by the evaluation of our activity and provides evidence of success in meeting local place based need.
Supporting the Educational growth of a Place
Our deep partner relationships enable us to identify very specific needs of key sectors in terms of educational and skills needs. Over the last three years, working with representatives from the local construction, nursing, hospitality management and digital sectors, we have invested over GBP 100,000 pa (HEIF) to develop a portfolio of Degree level Apprenticeships. This activity has over 900 students studying to meet the identified skill needs of local employers. Recognising that our programmes meet the needs of Leeds’s priority sectors, Leeds City Council transferred some of their own levy funds to enable employers to send apprentices to LBU.
Supporting the Cultural and Wellbeing of a Place
We recognise the important role that public health plays in the everyday lives of our communities. Our relationship with Public Health England identified a “Whole Systems Approach” could address the growing obesity crisis, globally and locally. Our world leading academic expertise in effective treatments for childhood and adult obesity, led to a spin-out company (MoreLife Ltd) which delivers Integrated Healthy Lifestyle Services (IHLS). We invested GBP 500,000 to establish the company and annually invest circa GBP 60,000 per annum in business development support. Morelife now provide services to many Local and Health Authorities with secured contracts of GBP 30 million and an annual turnover of over GBP 5 million. The recent extension of our IHLS contract with Suffolk County Council (from five to nine years) is evidence that the GBP 3.5 million a year contract is delivering to local defined need.
Working with civic partners, we identified a need to support the cultural infrastructure of our City. We invested GBP 80 million in a new Arts Building (opens 2021) with state-of-the-art performance and recording facilities. The building is based in the heart of the City’s Innovation District providing access to these facilities for the communities of Leeds.
Additionally, our investment (GBP 45 million) in a new Carnegie Sport Building (opened 2020) provides much needed sports facilities to meet demand from increasing numbers of students and cutting-edge research equipment available to communities from local residents to performance athletes.
Aspect 3: Results
Our approach to communicating and acting on the results of our Local Growth and Regeneration activity is evidenced through the examples below.
Strategic Investment to Maximise our Local Impact
Engagement with the Leeds Anchor Network encouraged us to maximise our local procurement. The proportion of spend with LCR suppliers has increased from 38% to 59%, adding over GBP13 million of revenue to local businesses. We capture our institutional performance as an anchor through the Anchor Progression Framework championed by the Vice Chancellor. This framework drives our activity review and is regularly referenced in staff briefings.
Supporting the Economic Life of a Place
The range and scale of our impact in business support is recognised for it’s large scale intervention across LCR:
GBP 21 million ESIF Ad:Venture programme (now ‘Accellerate’). Co-designed with partners including, LAs, Chambers of Commerce, Princes’ Trust and Business Enterprise Fund;
The support and incubation of new businesses (over 450 supported since 2018) in our University Business Centres in Wakefield and Halifax in partnership with LAs;
Direct business interventions through KTPs and our own Business Growth and Innovation Programmes and locally awarded grants.
We have supported over 1000 Leeds City Region SMEs in the last three years in programmes that evolve, acting on the feedback of participants and stakeholders.
Supporting the Educational growth of a Place
Our careers and employment teams, working with businesses and Leeds City Council have developed interventions for local demand in digital skills engaging more women in STEM subjects. Examples include Digital Leap, a 10-week programme providing software development and web training for students from any discipline and an “Explore Enterprise” course delivered in partnership with The Princes’ Trust. The impact of these programmes, disseminated and promoted directly to our students, resulted in a 50% increase in enquiries for employment related programmes in the last two years.
Our Degree Apprenticeship (DA) programmes have been set up in rapid response to emerging skills need. We responded to demand from local HNS trusts for Nursing Apprenticeships at the start of the Covid pandemic and, starting September 2020, have a cohort of 103 students. Our DA programme successfully recruits by tailoring the capacity for places to demand informed by local sector groups in Construction and Healthcare. We remain the only university in our City Region to be able to deliver Apprenticeships to non-levy paying SMEs, again, acting to meet local demand.
Supporting the Cultural and Wellbeing of a Place
Our work in Integrated Healthy Lifestyles has contributed to a real step change in healthy living. We provide services supporting over 14,000 people a year (60% of clients from the 40% most deprived communities) with an average 5% weight-loss in addition to other benefits (reduced smoking and alcohol dependency). Results are evaluated through a comprehensive PhD research programme, fed back to our commissioners and service improvements are implemented.
Our Architecture Live Project (students working directly with communities to meet design needs) resulted in the renovation of a community building in a deprived area of south Leeds meeting local need.
Our approach to supporting culture is open and inclusive, enabling engagement through the medium of technology. For example, our Cultural Conversations series in partnership with Leeds City Council and Palgrave Macmillan; and our Inside Out Lectures. Many of our cultural place based engagements are celebrated through our external web pages. (see: 50 years and LBU Together)
More comprehensive details of these and other activities are included in a summary table here.
For further information, please send queries to c.barnes@leedsbeckett.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
Leeds Beckett University’s approach to community and public engagement is shaped through our strategic plan, our role as an anchor institution in the city of Leeds and our long history of partnership work.
We provide practical support for public and community engagement and our Schools and Support Services work together to identify and support the public and local communities’ ability to engage with us.
We use our knowledge, skills and expertise to make a positive difference to people, organisations and communities and measure our success based on the difference we make.
We recognise that we are accountable to the communities were engage with and regularly seek feedback so that we can continue to improve our community and public engagement.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Our strategy for public and community engagement is informed through our role as an anchor institution in Leeds and the wider Leeds City Region and through our own Strategic Plan which sets out that we will use our knowledge, skills and expertise to make a positive and decisive difference to people, organisations and communities. We work closely with employers and partners to help our graduates become ready for work and ready for life.
Our Research & Enterprise Strategy focusses on three innovation areas: Health and wellbeing, Sustainability and Culture. Our research is frequently co-created with users and focused around the REF Units of assessment which broadly map to schools and led by Directors of Research who have responsibility to grow research and innovation, KE and public and community engagement.
Our city campus is based the heart of Leeds Innovation District and is fully accessible to public. Our new Leeds School of Arts building is due to open at the end of 2020 and will include a number of specialist facilities that will available to students, staff and the public such as: a 184-seat performance theatre; state-of-the-art TV and film studios; and spaces that will foster inter-disciplinary collaboration, creative talent and knowledge sharing. Our Headingley Campus is home to our Carnegie School of Sport building, which will provide a focus for the School’s undergraduate, postgraduate and research and enterprise programmes, and it will also act as a hub for elite athletes, sports and industry partners, and the general public.
We have a long history of partnership working which is a core part of our strategy. Examples include partnerships with: Public Health England (PHE); BUPA UK; Leeds Community Healthcare Trust; West Yorkshire Police; Ministry of Defence; Rugby Football Union; Yorkshire County Cricket Club; Leeds Rugby; HM Prisons; the Royal British Legion; the Youth Hostel association; and a number of local authorities in the Leeds City region.
Aspect 2: Support
Our Communications team leads on internal and external communication and public affairs. They lead initiatives for public and community engagement, including:
Transform programme which promotes how our academics inspire, challenge, listen and innovate, inspire students and demonstrate how our research impacts the way we and our community lead our lives;
LBU and the city initiative which provides news articles on how the University engages with the city of Leeds and its community;
Members of the public can contact relevant academic experts directly via our media centre.
Our University has also launched a new external website that improves our interaction with students, partners, public and the wider community. Our social media activity promotes and communicates to a wide range of stakeholders as evidenced via 50 years and LBU Together.
Resources to support engagement are provided to schools. All quality related research funding (QR) is managed by Directors of Research in each school and is used to resource public and community engagement relating to research and its impact. Much of our research is user led and examples include: our work with Public Health England (PHE) supporting the uptake of community-centred approaches to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities; and our work with charities and local organisations who support people affected by dementia.
Our Business Engagement Team supports student employability and through careers and training and events matches our best student and graduate talent with business needs.
The University established an External Advisory Group in 2018 with representation from a number of partners from a broad cross section of the community including Leeds City Council, Leeds Civic trust, East Street Arts, major key employers, secondary schools and Leeds Beckett Board of Governors. Members are regularly presented with updates on our university’s activities and asked for feedback. The group also have a remit of discussing collaborative opportunities to link into the Leeds Anchor Network and other common objectives. Key senior colleagues from across the university are in attendance enabling the resourcing of agreed activity.
Members of staff from the University sit on number of local and national advisory groups (e.g. Our Professor of Healthy Communities is an expert advisor for Public Health England and our Professor of Exercise and Obesity sits on the Strategic Council of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity).
Recognition and reward of our staff contributions to public and community engagement are delivered through a range of measures including:
Encouragement of community engagement being supported through deployment allowances and reported to school management teams;
Agreement of objectives recorded in annual performance and development reviews;
Allocated time to undertake voluntary activities in the community (e.g. working as a Magistrate and local and community volunteering projects) all of which enrich our organisation through the experiences and diversity of our staff;
Our Vice Chancellor regularly updates staff and students at the University about our public and community activity and formally recognises the work undertaken by our colleagues.
Aspect 3: Activity
The focus of our approach to public and community engagement is set out in our University’s mission to use our knowledge, skills and expertise to make a positive and decisive difference to people, organisations and communities. A significant proportion of our research is user led and includes a high level of public engagement activity, designed to meet the needs of the groups we are working with.
We run an annual guest lecture series open to businesses, professionals, students, alumni and staff. Industry experts, leading business figures and entrepreneurs are invited to speak across a range of subjects including business and management, leadership, marketing, PR, economics, finance, accounting, and human resource management.
Key public and community engagement programmes are often co-designed with the communities involved to meet local community need. Each example below includes a link to a case study with full engagement details.
The aim of our MoreLife programme was to “Be the Healthy Lifestyle Provider of Choice in Suffolk” and reduce health inequalities in Suffolk and to mirror the County Council’s ambition to be the ‘most active county’ in England.
Our collaboration with PHE has supported national and local public health systems to undertake community engagement, build social connectedness, and help people and communities have greater control over their health and lives.
We have worked with charities and local organisations to support people affected by dementia, evaluate their work to attract impactful investment in capacity and resources and to assist them to develop evaluation capabilities over the longer term.
The Story Makers Press: programme encourages children and parents to create stories together, through an interactive online community. It reaches out to people, building confidence, communities, and a bridge to a lifelong enjoyment of storytelling, learning and development.
The project championed an arts-based approach to active ageing delivering cultural, social, and well-being benefits for participants who created live film and theatre projects between 2015 and 2020. They demonstrate how creative practice mobilises minds, renews autonomy and emotional connectedness.
Our TEDx event aimed to evoke and inspire discussion about our changing world. Four academics offered transformative ideals and impactful research that explored prejudice, stereotypes, use of language and identity
Research into Caribbean Carnival Cultures: has engaged the local African-Caribbean community with the University.
We brought LGBTQ Heritage into the Mainstream through our research that shifted policy and practice of national history organisations and actively engaged thousands of people in identifying and preserving LGBTQ heritage.
Our partnership with CLG, National Trust and housebuilders Redrow and Bryant Homes increased energy efficiency in homes and lead to Building Regulations changes to reduce heat loss from homes. These changes have saved 5 million tons of CO2 and resulted in lower fuel bills for hundreds of thousands of new build homes.
Multidisciplinary research work conducted by us with organisations including Malawi Polytechnic, Innovate UK, Mantic, and the Government of Malawi, has improved water supplies for 10,800 rural people in southern Malawi.
Our collaborative approach to research supported neighbourhood groups in England to change statutory planning policy and transform deprived areas of their inner city.
A further list of over 30 of our public and community engagement, including full details, can be found via the following link.
Aspect 4: Results and learning
We use knowledge, skills and expertise to make a positive and decisive difference to people, organisations and communities and how we measure and evaluate our efforts are based around the difference we make. The 3 KPIs embedded within our Research and Enterprise Strategy (number of staff with research responsibilities, number of PGRs and amount of income) measure our ability to engage in all activities including public and community engagement.
We take an impact-led approach which underpins our philosophy of making a difference and measure each of our programmes and activities independently against this.
Through our spin out company, MoreLife Ltd, we engage with communities around the UK and beyond delivering obesity treatment to 14,000 clients per annum. Clients achieve on average 5% (clinically significant) weight loss, and 60% of clients are the 40% most deprived communities.
Our Professor of Healthy Communities is currently on secondment to Public Health England (PHE) as an expert advisor on community-centred approaches for health and wellbeing which has led to their strategic approach to community engagement in health. Recently this has resulted in more than 30 local UK councils developing community-health strategy documents.
Our engagement across a number of health and social care communities resulted in the defined national quality criteria for training as evidenced in Health Education England’s Dementia Training Standards Framework.
Engagement with patient groups has led to the first fertility preservation (FP) decision support intervention in the UK (Cancer, Fertility and Me) and Australia and has empowered women with cancer to make FP decisions.
One of our social history projects left a lasting impact on LGBTQ heritage through partnerships and engagement. In addition to an extensive social media programme, managed via a website, the project mobilised the public and historians to crowdsource LGBTQ heritage through “Pinning Parties”. There was a huge positive response, e.g., Ronald Wright, prominent in the 1950’s London gay scene, said: ‘So many of our traditions are disappearing. If it wasn’t for something like this … the nation would be poorer in years to come”.
Participants in our Community learning course enjoyed learning new things, meeting new people, and experiencing the university experience. Six participants enrolled as students and one has completed her degree. Others have gone onto college study, apprenticeships, or become community advocates.
Aspect 5: Acting on results
Leeds Beckett actively seeks feedback from stakeholders, partners and staff involved in our public and community engagement activity. We recognise we are accountable to the communities we engage with and regular feedback and continual improvement is a key part of our engagement strategy. A new Strategic Plan is due in 2021/22 which will be informed by a systematic consultation of public and community partners.
Annually, each school and service provide a report to the University Executive Team detailing their activities, which includes all engagement programmes. Supportive feedback is given to allow year on year improvements in our ability to deliver effective public and community engagement.
A new website was launched in September 2020 which has improved how we interact with our students, partners, public and the wider community. A key part of the development process was individual consultations with around 50 stakeholders to gain a clear view of the external needs of the website.
Our social media activity actively promotes the public and community engagement of the University which can be evidenced via 50 years and LBU Together. We communicate with and provide feedback to staff, students and the public, through our website and via social media. We disseminate our Research & Enterprise newsletter to staff and students and each academic School has a section on their homepage reporting on the impact of their external engagements.
For further information, please send queries to c.barnes@leedsbeckett.ac.uk