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Institutional Context
Summary
Our mission is simple: we transform lives. We give people from all backgrounds the opportunity to acquire the skills, knowledge and experience to succeed.
Our research, teaching and partnerships are characterised by a focus on real world impact, informed by local, regional, and national policy priorities; addressing the cultural, economic, and social challenges facing society today. We are ambitious for our communities, our partners and our city and region. Our ambitions align fully to this agenda, evidencing the application of knowledge in partnership with business and the wider community in which we reside.
Our vision is to be the world's leading applied university; demonstrating what an institution genuinely focused on transforming lives can achieve in partnership with its location.
Institutional context
Sheffield Hallam is one of the UK’s largest universities. It sits at the heart of its region, woven into the fabric and culture of our place, driving future economies, enabling heathier lives, and building stronger communities. Our Civic University Agreement provides a framework for how we actively contribute to regional priorities, which has in turn enabled us to become the host of the national Civic University Network. In this context our ‘Transforming Lives’ Strategy is evidenced through:
CREATING KNOWLEDGE: Our research and our industry partnerships provide innovative, practical solutions to real challenges.
LEADING LOCALLY AND ENGAGING GLOBALLY: Our place at the heart of this city and region is fundamental to our glob
al engagements, extending the reach and impact between and beyond our locations.
SHAPING FUTURES: Our students are confident, creative, resilient, and responsible, and their KE experience is evidenced at all stages of their learning and employability journey.
Creating Knowledge: Our research and innovation work is characterised by a focus on real world impact across three principle themes that run through our KEF narrative: Driving future economies; Enabling healthier lives; Building stronger communities.
Delivery is through our research institutes, which comprise our world-leading research centres; Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC); Lab4Living (L4L); Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR); National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering (NCEFE); Centre of Excellence in Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence and Organised Crime Research (CENTRIC)
Leading Locally, Engaging Globally: Our place at the heart of this city and region, and our international connections, are fundamental to the reach of our research and KE.
Our commitment to our region recognises the transformative nature of Sheffield Hallam as an economic driver. We add more than £400 million to the city region economy every year, and our £220m campus masterplan will help regenerate significant parts of Sheffield city centre. In leading locally, our Transforming Lives agenda also resonates globally, connecting communities and opening the region up to new economies.
Shaping Futures: Our student-led and enterprise KE activity is a core part of our institutional make-up. Our award winning Highly Skilled Employability Plan is a key initiative that unites our KE with our strongest business and community partners. Across the institution we have more than 30,000 students, of whom:
24,000 are undergraduates and 6,000 postgraduates
40% come from within 25 miles of the university
Over 50% are the first in their family to attend university
97% are from state schools or colleges
19% are from low participation neighbourhoods
The demographic profile of our student base is highly reflective of our local and regional demography, and as such we are committed to providing opportunity to students from all backgrounds. We believe our Transforming Lives strategy enables them to have direct impact on the communities in which they live.
For further information, please send queries to innovation@shu.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
At Sheffield Hallam, our approach to knowledge exchange emerges from our values as an institution. Our Transforming Lives strategy (Fig 1.) demonstrates our belief that universities should make material contributions to the cultural, economic, social and health challenges facing society. Most importantly, we believe that the pursuit of knowledge has the power to transform lives through applied research, learning and multi-disciplinary partnerships.
Our collaborations address global and local challenges, for example, the low level of R&D and significant skills deficit in the Sheffield City Region (SCR). We take a partnership approach in responding to these challenges (Fig.2), working with the SCR Business Growth and Skills Boards, and key stakeholders including NHS Trusts, local businesses, HE providers and local communities.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Sheffield City Region: Our gateway to KE in global contexts
Sheffield Hallam University’s approach to local growth and innovation is as an active, leading institution in support of business and the economy. We collaborate across the SCR, nationally and globally. Our work with the City region, local authorities, Chambers of Commerce, businesses, and national stakeholders is structured to address policy priorities. This builds on our Transforming Lives strategy to enable partnership working to improve R&D take-up, skills development, and improved business growth and competitiveness.
We undertake KE and partnership working across key sectors, linking regional initiatives into national and international programmes, with emphasis on engagement and collaboration with end users to secure collaborative funding opportunities.
We also invest in capital infrastructure, opening two new industry facing R&D facilities in 2019. These form an important part of the City region LEP's ambition to grow the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District and are helping to physically regenerate the Darnall and Tinsley ward of Sheffield.
Applied knowledge through research and innovation, in combination with well-prepared, skilled, and entrepreneurial students, are key features of our approach. Dialogue and relationships with partners through regional and national innovation and economic development planning has identified and informed our KE priorities:
Initiate, broaden and strengthen our partnerships with companies, organisations, universities, education providers and agencies to accelerate the achievement of our mission.
Work with partners nationally and locally to create economic prosperity, increase productivity, competitiveness, and wealth creation through innovation in science, technology, creativity, leadership, and management.
Work with communities, partners, and individuals to enrich and improve health, well-being, social prosperity, and community cohesion.
Ensure, through close working and dialogue, the University continues to be business relevant and 'in demand' in the delivery of partner informed KE and workforce development.
Develop strategic HE collaborations and be responsive to regional and national opportunities.
Use HEIF and complementary funding such as Innovate UK and ESIF, to increase collaboration, growing R&D and skills capacity to support long-term sustainability and growth.
Innovation and KE
Our innovation and KE activities are driven by three strategic research themes which galvanise high-impact multi-disciplinary research:
Enabling healthier lives: Creating innovative solutions for today's health challenges. Health is more than just the absence of disease; it is the ability to live a fulfilled and independent life. From conception to old age, the opportunities to improve and sustain health and independence through cultural and technological changes are immense.
Driving future economies: Economic models and structures are undergoing profound changes. This comes from technological developments, not least the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but also in the interplay between the economy and energy supplies, climate change, new forms of economic organisation and the future of work. Our research explores these challenges, providing solutions to increase productivity and keep business ahead of the curve through innovation, and resilience to the impact of global challenges.
Building stronger communities: We draw together and stimulate research across traditional disciplinary boundaries to support more inclusive communities for all, in response to major societal challenges at local, national, and global levels.
Meeting the needs of the future workforce
Sheffield Hallam has made a bold commitment to embed employability and enterprise experiences for every student, on every course, at every level. The Highly Skilled Employability Plan has laid the foundations for a transformative student experience, 94% of our students are in work or further study 15 months after graduating and 74% are in Highly Skilled Employment.
Aspect 2: Activity
Meeting the needs of the Sheffield City Region (SCR)
The University's Local Growth and Regeneration KE portfolio includes collaborative R&D, contract research, consultancy, CPD and workforce development, ESIF funded regeneration programmes focussing on SME innovation, skills support in the City region, and student-led enterprise.
Our innovation-led KE activity is delivered through 4 Research Institutes whose objectives are to:
promote engagement and collaboration with business to identify and resolve their needs
inform interventions through our research strengths and capabilities
have a close understanding of the external policy drivers and priorities identified by national and local government agencies
work with industry stakeholders and sector focussed industry bodies on the development of our R&D provision, KE investments, and the establishment of industry advisory boards and panels.
Approach: Research and Innovation
Enabling Healthier Lives:
The Advanced Well-being Research Centre (AWRC) brings together academic expertise across disciplines to undertake research and innovation addressing the social, behavioural, and environmental determinants of health and helping people lead healthier active lives.
The recently awarded University Enterprise Zone status has enabled the AWRC Wellbeing Accelerator to support start-ups to bring health and wellbeing innovations to market through a rolling programme running from April 2020–March 2022, supported by both Research England and the University’s own funds.
Lab4Living (L4L) is a research unit based on collaborative community of researchers in design, healthcare, and creative practice. The Unit is internationally recognised and is one of the longest-established living labs in Europe. It has gained specific recognition in user-centred design research methods that have informed award-winning products, and in 2019, was awarded a £4M grant by Research England as part of the Expanding Excellence in England (E3) scheme.
Driving Future Economies case studies:
The National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering (NCEFE) developed in partnership with the National Food and Drink Federation (FDF) and companies including Nestle, Premier Foods, and SMEs, delivers engineering led innovations to address food sector challenges. Launched in 2014, with a dedicated facility opening in 2019, the NCEFE has established itself as an industry facing catalyst for innovation, skills, and training.
The Sheffield Innovation Programme (SIP), an ESIF supported partnership with the SCR Growth Hub and the University of Sheffield; and Digital innovation for Growth, a partnership with Barnsley Digital Media Centre, are examples of our programmes to support SMEs through access to expertise and facilities.
Cross disciplinary applied research is a strength of our leading research centres. For example, our Biomolecular Sciences Research Centre is working closely with the Materials and Engineering Research Institute on innovative projects bridging science and engineering disciplines across areas such as imaging, thin films, polymers and nano composites for health, and medical applications.
Building Stronger Communities:
Centre of Excellence In Terrorism, Resilience, Intelligence And Organised Crime Research
CENTRIC has global reach to both academic and professional expertise to progress ground-breaking security focussed research and KE. As an example of collaborative development, the Security Communication and Analysis Network (SCAAN) is an innovation that is helping to ensure the safety of UN personnel through a digital system developed in partnership with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), that benefits thousands of IOM staff in over 150 countries.
Approach: Skills and Enterprise
Our portfolio of Higher Degree apprenticeships is an example of where we have linked strategic alliances with industry sector skills bodies with our innovation-led KE activity for the benefit of business. We do this by:
An award winning in-curriculum employability and enterprise offer, leading to Highly Skilled Employment for our graduates.
Delivering a comprehensive portfolio of employer focused curriculum and degree apprenticeships.
Student and graduate enterprise through development of our regional enterprise eco-system to support scale-up enterprises.
Delivering student consultancy and knowledge exchange services.
Aspect 3: Results
Outcomes from our KE programmes are logged at project level with oversight through University Boards chaired by the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation. Larger scale projects, for example NCEFE, the AWRC, CENTRIC and SIP, have partnership boards and industry advisory groups to monitor progress and inform future strategic interventions.
Outcomes include businesses engaged, long-term collaborations between the University, organisations and companies, and quantitative and qualitative improvements in business performance and competitiveness.
Enabling Healthier Lives:
AWRC examples include:
Working with Canon Medical Systems specialist ultrasound to gain insight into the rehabilitation of stroke patients and the health of older people.
Responding to the COVID crisis, launching the RICOVR unit to identify what works, and what doesn’t to help people recover and rehabilitate
The AWRC’s Wellbeing Accelerator supporting start-ups to bring innovations to market. The first phase of the project received 60 applications from national and international businesses, of which 20 were invited to join.
Lab4Living has delivered over 100 research projects with over 80 academic, hospital and community organisations, resulting in creation of IP, open source collaborative tools, and product design. This includes working directly with partners to design and develop innovations, such as the Head-Up Orthosis, which sold over 1500 units in the first year through local company, Talarmade.
Driving Future Economies:
NCEFE is working with local, national and global businesses on innovations for the food sector, leveraging over £8M of collaborative R&D funding since their launch in 2014.
Key outcomes include:
Reduced energy usage in commercial kitchens with William Jackson Food Group and Dext Heat Recovery
Reduced fat by 20% and salt by 10% in baked cheese products in partnership with Greencore
Optimising oven design to reduce energy consumption by 15% with Nestlé and Spirax-Sarco.
International collaborations with Koolmill in China and India addressing waste and the reuse of the by-products of Rice Milling.
Sheffield Innovation Programme (SIP) outcomes include:
More than 200 Sheffield Hallam academics have worked with more than 300 companies across the region to provide solutions to enable business to enter new online markets, improving product and process performance.
Work during the Covid-19 pandemic, helping many small businesses to quickly adapt to meet changing customer needs and supply challenges.
Realisation of longer term partnerships, including 8 KTPs and other Innovate UK projects, as with Equi-trek, where our the work from SIP has led to new product development and the successful implementation of 2 KTPs.
Collaborations between the Biomedical Sciences Research Centre and Materials and Engineering Research institute include:
Developing IP for the development of injectable spinal implants to treat lower back pain
Collaborating with international companies such as Ionbond, Hauzer and Zimmer BioMet, enabling the development of new coatings for biomedical implants
On-going collaborations with Labskin UK Ltd, CRODA and AstraZeneca transferring technologies for non-animal testing of pharmaceuticals developed at SHU.
Novel methodology for the detection of biometric and life-style information on suspects from fingerprint evidence is being carried out in collaborative projects with West Yorkshire Police and DSTL.
Building Stronger Communities
CENTRIC outcomes include:
VR-training for incident first-responders, including police and paramedics
SCAAN: A safety and security intelligence dashboard and mobile app which is currently used by UN staff worldwide
MIICT: deploying tools that address the challenge of migrant integration
Award winning Cyber security simulation and serious games for SMEs Yorkshire Cyber
CRYPTOPOL: jointly developed with Europol, an interactive product for cryptocurrency investigation with Europol.
Skills and Enterprise
We work with employers to address national and regional skills gaps through an exceptional portfolio of Degree apprenticeships with over 400 employers and 1400 apprentices,
The Highly Skilled Employment programme is a major institutional initiative, resulting in:
New work experience modules to facilitate knowledge exchange; growing student involvement in external consultancy projects from 2,719 in 2016/17 to 3,818 to 4,500+ in 2019/20.
Students working with organisations, including Asda and McLaren, a wide range of SMEs, and voluntary bodies including Sheffield Young Carers and the Royal Society for the Blind.
An internship scheme to support graduates into highly skilled employment and support SME growth, placing 400 graduates with regional SME’s.
Growth in student enterprise interactions from 1,600 in 2016/17, to 4,000 in 2019/20, and a rise in graduate start-ups from 30 in 2016/17 to 56 in 2019/20.
Launching Scale up 360 in 2019: a partnership with Barnsley, and the Chambers of Commerce in Doncaster and East Midlands aimed at high growth STEM-based enterprises. Year 1 has supported over 100 new businesses including many transitioning their business models to a post Covid-19 world.
Relaunching the University’s start-up service, including a dedicated space (Hallam i-Lab) for up to 200 student and graduate businesses.
Growing our partnership with Santander to fund graduate start-ups and support Santander backed STEM internships.
For further information, please send queries to innovation@shu.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
Sheffield Hallam’s Transforming Lives strategy sets out our clear ambitions as a university at the heart of its region. Through our commitment leading locally and engaging globally, we already have a strong track record of meaningful, constructive and impactful activity across the region, as well as on the national and international stage.
Our approach is to work with government, regional and local partners to ensure that the university’s geographic role and responsibility is used more effectively as an agent to drive positive societal change, economic growth, and educational attainment. This is particularly important given the economic and social challenge presented by Covid-19, where our role as an anchor institution in our region is critical to recovery.
Aspect 1: Strategy
SHU’s role as an anchor institution and a key collaborative partner is at the heart of our Transforming Lives strategy. We actively support our staff, students and stakeholders through our Civic Agreement, reflecting our role in hosting the national Civic University Network (CUN). The Network enables us to support over 60 universities to:
“develop and embed civic aspirations at an institutional level, as well as working with government and strategic partners to ensure that a university’s geographic role and responsibility is used more effectively as an agent to drive positive societal change.” CUN Mission 2020
We are a creative and constructive partner, enhancing economic growth, educational health, and the quality of life in our region. Our global engagement links Sheffield to the world and the world to Sheffield, through for example our partnership with LaTrobe University, Australia. We work with like-minded partners to enhance our impact and reach, developing a culture for excellence and innovation that contributes to regional and global challenges of the 21st century.
Our planning approach: To engage, invest and have impact
To plan for our public and community work we have established five Engagement Groups to focus on civic and partnership development; shared delivery oversight; resourcing and management; communication and engagement; and equality and diversity.
We developed our strategy in collaboration with stakeholders through a range of mechanisms including identification of public and community organisations representing key focus groups. We have committed to establishing joint advisory panels and working groups, as well as public seminars, symposia, and community intervention programmes led by stakeholder groups themselves.
We allocate resources for all our public and community programmes based on a commitment to inclusivity and added value. We ensure a fair and transparent commitment to the use of public funds and recognise the true cost of public involvement as an essential component in our work. We provide internal funding dedicated to public engagement across the University, supporting staff, training, widening participation, and our marketing and communications.
Aspect 2: Support
The support we have put in place for public engagement is informed by the needs of external partners, aligned to fit with the civic mission of the University.
Our principal mechanisms to support and underpin engagement are:
Professional practice commissioning groups such as in Sheffield Institute of Education
Established festivals and public programmes such as Games Britannia and the Festival of Science and Engineering
Public and industry lectures
Staff volunteering and peer mentoring programmes
Public intervention programmes such as South Yorkshire Futures
Career progression and time-allocation that recognise and promote civic engagement for example the schools’ governors programme
Student work experience programmes in public, industry, and community settings
Key examples:
Enabling Healthier Lives: The Life Café
Marie Curie commissioned Lab4Living and Cambridge University to radically rethink how palliative and end of life care can be delivered and improved. Key findings included the identifying a lack of opportunity for people to talk about what was important to them and how they gave and received care, a key barrier to good care.
To address this Lab4Living developed the concept of a Life Café, using collaborative design and co-creation to work directly with the communities affected. A total of 141 people were recruited for a study that created the Life Café toolkit.
Life Cafés have had an overwhelmingly positive impact on the quality of care. Marie Curie use them across their provision and the toolkit is also utilised by a range of organisations nationally and internationally, including a 1000 bed care home provider in Sheffield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.
Driving Future Economies: Hallam Guild
We prepare students for work in target SME businesses, enabling industries and social enterprises to optimise internships to tackle key challenges. In this way students gain the competencies and skills through a highly engaged curriculum, real world experience, and an understanding of how knowledge impacts on society and the economy.
Building Stronger Communities: Refugee Law Clinic
The Clinic is based within the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice and has supported over 190 family members from all over the world in making applications to join loved ones in the UK. Each case presents an incredible, unique learning opportunity for our students, and every case is life-changing for the refugees themselves.
The Clinic trains undergraduate and postgraduate students to work alongside qualified Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner (OISC) registered immigration and asylum specialists, directly helping refugees navigate the complex processes and procedures for family reunification.
Aspect 3: Activity
We are building and refining our co-creation models. We are learning from our successful outcomes that our planning, delivery, review and impact are best designed with users and stakeholders from the outset.
Examples of our public and community delivery:
Healthier Lives: Meeting the needs of changing populations
We have a wide range of health programmes that have informed the development of our Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC). The Centre builds on strong foundations of health, sport, and engineering research. collaborating with the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine co-locating NHS services with physical activity facilities, the Sheffield Children’s Hospital Charity, and businesses including Canon, Westfield Health and parkrun.
Project delivery involves patient and community user groups at the interface between research and public need. Activities are informed by a Public Involvement in Research Group (PIRG) which invites consultation on future collaborative projects and the review of ongoing research, funding applications, and ideas and products.
Current projects include:
RICOVR - helping people recover and rehabilitate from Covid-19 and manage longer term impacts;
Healthy and active 100 — research and innovation that supports people into 100 years of healthy and active life
Digital innovations to support independent living
Living Well with Chronic Disease — exploring the management and treatment of chronic disease, through physical activity as a therapy
Future Economies: Meeting the needs of lifelong learning
Sheffield Institute of Education (SIoE) acts as a key research commissioning group and trains over 800 teachers a year (60% of whom will find employment in the Sheffield City Region), an important link between our activity and the educational improvement of the region. The Institute has an extensive range of KE activity, including developing knowledge informed professional practice. Our national partnership with the DFE considers issues relating to the recruitment and retention of teachers. Collaborative work addresses challenges including improving early years speech and language provision, integrating English into the curriculum and optimising the role of teaching assistants.
Stronger Communities: Meeting the needs of disadvantaged people and places
As a leading UK policy research centre, the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) seeks to understand the impact of social and economic disadvantage on places and people and assess critically the policies and interventions targeted at these issues. Clients include government departments and agencies, local authorities, charities and foundations, international organisations, and the private sector.
CRESR’s research portfolio includes welfare reform and labour markets, housing, the voluntary and community sectors, and a substantial body of work focused on vulnerable sections of the population including: homeless rough sleepers and the 'hidden homeless'.
Aspect 4: Results and learning
Our public and community engagement activities are co-designed with our stakeholders and regular review and evaluation is part of our project management approach. We emphasise capturing data and evidencing the range, of outcomes for our public facing activity in order to share the impacts more widely.
Examples of how we evidence impact and what we have learned:
Healthier Lives: HIV Nursing
This project has led to a radical restructuring of HIV nursing in Sheffield that cares for a cohort of 1000 patients/ service users. It has extended roles and improved service provision for the most vulnerable patients at the highest risk of morbidity and mortality. The work has informed national guidance documents and influenced workforce planning across the country. It has also shaped specialist advanced training initiatives and stimulated quality improvement projects in HIV services.
Future Economies: South Yorkshire Futures
SYF is our flagship social mobility partnership, committed to improving education and raising aspiration for young people in South Yorkshire. It has engaged more than 60,000 young people from over 350 schools and colleges, holding a range of interventions about further and higher education to develop crucial life skills and valuable routes to employment.
SYF has worked with schools and stakeholders to expand the Children’s’ University programme evaluation framework measures impact through overall improvements in education and progression. This is the next phase of development for this important work.
Stronger Communities: Centre for Regional & Economic Social Research (CRESR)
CRESR has undertaken 37 commissioned studies in the last 3 years and delivers network programmes and conferences which provide an evidence base to inform debate and bring about significant change to public policy.
The impact of this work has directly informed policy and delivery decisions for partners. Examples include work on understanding the impact of welfare reforms with partners including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Oxfam the outcomes of which were debated in the House of Commons and delivered to UN committees. Work on ‘Energy Invisibility’ is leading to further work on fuel poverty with the International Energy Agency and the evaluation of the Talent Match Youth Employment Programme creating an evidence to help support over 25,000 youth unemployed.
Aspect 5: Acting on results
Communicating and acting on the results: Some key factors
Leadership: Influence and recognition
Public and community engagement is a shared responsibility of the University Leadership Team, and key to leveraging partnerships, investment and critical alliances. Relationships with senior counterparts in public, private and governmental arenas are instrumental in joining forces on regional and national strategic ventures around important societal challenges.
Next steps: Develop larger consortium propositions that respond to the government focus upon ‘place’ and the ‘levelling up agenda’.
Co-design: Involvement at the outset
A strong theme of our public and community engagement activities is cross disciplinary and collaborative working at the outset. This informs project design, sets methods and practices, and enables monitoring and evaluation of outcomes and impacts.
Next steps: Ensure that we adopt good Co-design practise across our portfolio and consider how this might enable communities to commission their own research
Results: Sharing outcomes and impacts
Collaborating with our industry advisory boards, festivals and public events, and community partners, we have established a confidence in engaging effectively with our communities. We have gained awards and recognition of our translational work with public bodies and their communities. We can evidence the voices of participants (Life Café) and the impacts witnessed in the adoption of new ways of working and living (Justice for Her).
Next steps: Enable the outcomes of our work to be more easily accessible and readily utilised by communities who may not always have access to technologies.
Areas for improvement: The academic perspective
We aim to develop greater accessibility to the outcomes and evidence for our public and community engagement activities. Building on the Civic University Network and our close relationship with regional consortiums such as the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA), we are exploring how data observatories might empowering business and the wider communities with the evidence they may need to affect improvements and policy reform.
Next steps: We believe two large scale consortium bids to the Comprehensive Spending Review will be the catalyst for greater engagement in societal challenges and respond solidly to the call for the levelling up and place based agendas of government.
Areas for improvement: The public & community perspective
We have been successful in establishing research and engagement with the public and key communities, and specifically to impact upon health, education and public policy. Building on the work of our public commissioning research centres and institutes, we wish to focus in upon establishing ‘Living Laboratories’ deeply rooted in the communities we serve.
Next steps: Extending the work of Lab for Living and our AWRC to address new community challenges locally and nationally, scaling up and replicating our existing models in new international contexts.
For further information, please send queries to innovation@shu.ac.uk