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Institutional Context
Summary
A comprehensive, research-intensive University with a strong international focus and a founding member of the Russell Group, employing 6,000+ staff and educating 25,000+ students annually. Located in one of the world’s most important port cities, it is the second largest employer in the area and contributes strongly to the region’s economy and social fabric. The University provides research expertise for local businesses, widens access to higher education, especially from disadvantaged communities, and is an important arts centre. A report by Biggar Economics (2018) estimated that the University generates a Gross Value-Added contribution to the UK of £2.5bn/year and supports 33,000 jobs.
Institutional context
The University of Southampton is a large, civic, research intensive (Russell Group) university with a strong educational offering, and renowned for research and enterprise. Our mission is simple; to change the world for the better. The University is ranked in the top 1% of global universities, (QS World University Rankings, 2021). There are five campuses in Southampton, as well as campuses in Winchester and Malaysia.
The University updated its strategy in 2016 as a community exercise and while we are working to an interim strategy to enable us to retain focus and emerge from the current pandemic stronger, a broader refresh is planned for 2021. We remain committed to our mission to "Change the World for the Better". The University will soon sign the Civic University Charter and this will be a key feature of the new strategy.
The University sits across two LEP regions; Solent (Highfield, NOCS and Hospital campuses) and EM3 (Southampton Science Park and Winchester Campus). The Solent region ranks high in a number of key innovation criteria (research strengths of the Universities, population employed in science and technology sectors, number of STEM first degree with honours), however, there are a number of notable comparative weaknesses, such as: Percentage of enterprises introducing product or process innovations and percentage of residents qualified to NVQ level 4 or above.
The University’s Enterprise strategy is overseen by Southampton Enterprise Board (SEB) chaired by the VP Research & Enterprise (VPRE). Each Faculty has an E&I board reporting to SEB, chaired by the Associate Dean for Enterprise. SEB provides strategic direction for commercial enterprise activities as well as those associated with developing the university enterprise ecosystem and delivering impact.
Core objectives for knowledge exchange are intended to contribute locally and regionally, as well as more widely. These are to:
Grow and diversify research collaborations with commercial organisations of all sizes
Broaden the pool of staff and students engaged in knowledge exchange;
Sustain and expand our enterprise ecosystem;
Enhance engagement for social and economic impact.
In addition to adopting the principles of the Knowledge Exchange Concordat, specific objectives have been developed for our major KE activities that include:
business acceleration and incubation
consultancy
continuing professional development
corporate partnerships
enterprise units
IP protection and licensing
public engagement
public policy
spinout companies
student enterprise
Since 2013/14, income from Consultancy, Facilities, Regeneration Income, CPD and income generated from Intellectual Property has grown by £17M (39%) to £61M/year (2018/19), the second highest in the sector, and at 10% of turnover, the highest proportion in the Russell Group (source: HEBCIS). In the last 3 years enterprise activity has generated over £173m (17/18, 18/19, 19/20)
For further information, please send queries to business@soton.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
The University has a long history of contributing to the economic, social and cultural life of the area through research, educational and outreach activities as well as through employment and as a founding signatory to the Green City Charter. A Joint Working Agreement was signed with Hampshire County Council in October 2019, and we work closely with the Solent and Enterprise M3 LEPs (Local Enterprise Partnerships). Southampton and Winchester City Councils (SCC, WCC) are partners. The University will sign the Civic University Charter in 2020 which commits to development of a broad strategic framework to further define how we will work within our geography, and best achieve public benefit.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Regional Context
The University sits across two LEP regions; Solent (Southampton campuses) and Enterprise M3 (Science Park and Winchester Campus). The Solent LEP area covers a functional economic geography spanning ~600 square miles of southern Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (IoW). The area is highly urbanised in the eastern half but mostly rural in the west, including the New Forest National Park. The Solent region has 340 miles of coastline and is a globally leading marine and maritime cluster. In addition, Solent highlights low carbon technologies, creative industries and advanced manufacturing and engineering as key areas for growth. EM3 borders London to the North and Southampton to the South and encompasses west Surrey and most of Hampshire. It has a knowledge, digital and design-based economy including high value sectors such as: space and satellite; aerospace and defence; digital and cyber security; life sciences and med-tech; and 'createch' (creativity and technology, including gaming).
Governance
Southampton Enterprise Board provides strategic direction and oversight of all Enterprise activities, including those relating to local growth and regeneration. The Board’s remit includes policy development and implementation, commercialisation and consultancy activities, facilities access, student entrepreneurship and business acceleration activities, and considers spin-out deals. It is chaired by the Vice President for Research and Enterprise.
Engagement
The University of Southampton works closely with both LEPs with a particular focus on contributing to and aligning with local industrial strategies. It is a member of Innovation South; the Enterprise M3-led consortium of more than 100 organisations including businesses, industry and partners from across the private and public sectors (https://www.enterprisem3.org.uk/innovation-south-sia ).
Our Public Engagement with Research Unit (PERu) and Public Policy Southampton Unit (PP|S) provide informal mechanisms for understanding and addressing community research needs, and the programme of platform-based engagement co-ordinated by PERu embeds a diverse set of collaborations with city and regional organisations. During 2019/20 PP|S identified, designed and delivered two PhD placements, one MSc final project and one Early Career Research secondment to support SCC policymakers.
The University is a key partner in Southampton’s City of Culture (2025) bid, the objectives of this programme are to encourage the use of culture and creativity as a catalyst for regeneration, promote the development of new partnerships, and to encourage ambition, innovation and inspiration in cultural and creative activity. This activity is closely connected to the Civic University framework development and to the overall University strategy. The University founded the John Hansard Gallery on the campus in 1980. In 2018 the gallery moved to a new location in the centre of Southampton, opposite Guildhall Square, as part of the University’s Arts strategy.
Aspect 2: Activity
There are a number of regional assets and activities that contribute to local growth and regeneration. The University of Southampton Science Park (USSP) is home to over 100 businesses, employing over 1500 people and has a strong track-record in business growth. USSP supports the long-term strategy of the University by providing opportunities for research to spin-out into enterprise activities, for student work experience and for student employment. USSP’s Catalyst Programme has established a strong track-record of transitioning technology-based business ideas into successful early-stage commercial entities and enabling their rapid growth. Southampton is a founding member of SETSquared (with Bath, Bristol, Exeter and Surrey Universities), ranked by UBI Global as the World Top Business Incubator managed by a university since 2015.
The central support for KE, Impact and commercialisation (including research and consultancy contracting) is delivered by Research and Innovation Services (RIS) including Public Policy|Southampton (PP|S) and Public Engagement with Research unit. RIS also provides a means to access university know-how and support for businesses. The Corporate partnerships programme provides dedicated leads (academic and professional services) who actively manage relationships with ~20 strategic corporate partners to benefit regional as well as national growth. They facilitate collaborative basic and applied research, experimental development; enterprise via technology development, knowledge exchange and problem-solving; and support for graduate recruitment and alumni relations.
SME engagement is facilitated through a number of mechanisms; through University-based Enterprise Units, through our Business Engagement Team, which integrates the support for a number of Knowledge Exchange programmes (including the CCF funded SPRINT and Scale up programmes), and cross-matching between academic research groups and businesses.
Sprint (SPace Research and Innovation Network for Technology ) is a £5m Research England programme led by University of Leicester with Southampton, Surrey, Edinburgh and Open University as Partners. The programme brings together SMEs and the Universities to:
Innovate and develop technologies for the space sector
Enter the growing space sector with existing and new products
Use technologies or data from space to innovate products for new markets
13 new collaborative projects have been funded involving Southampton and SMEs at a value of over £1m from the programme and the companies.
The Scale-up Programme provides world-leading support to innovative SMEs with strong growth ambitions, 10+ employees, a current track record of year on year growth of 20%, and utilises the knowledge base of the University SETsquared partners plus Cardiff University across Health and Wellbeing, Environmental sustainability and marine and maritime, digital innovation and advanced engineering and manufacturing sectors.
The Highfield campus is home to 8 Enterprise Units (~100 staff & £10m turnover) that have helped people hear for the first time, won Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Innovation, as well as being the ‘go-to place’ for engineering consultancy with a strong local customer base. The Wessex Institute based at USSP employs more than 200 staff and has an annual turnover of more than £15m. The Future Worlds start-up and business accelerator offers training, mentors and access to venture capital to help researchers commercialise their research. The Solent LEP-funded Z21 innovation programme supports students (and staff) to accelerate web start-ups towards rapid growth and create high-tech jobs in the south of England. 10 companies have been formed out of this programme, three of which have raised significant external funding (plus one out-of-region)
TopMD 600,000 euros to lead molecular phenotyping for COVID-19 advanced diagnostics
BOON long-term deal with retailer Ann Summers
Ventoura 50,000 euros Accelerator Investment
Aura Vision (out of region) named in the Top 50 Retail Companies
The Future Towns Innovation Hub at Southampton Science Park is a strategic initiative to work with businesses, academics and EM3 towns to help transform them into connected centres of smart mobility; sustainable, energy-efficient housing; and the circular economy where extraction, disposal and waste is replaced with restoration, regeneration and recycling. The hub is co-funded by the Enterprise M3 LEP (£3m from the Local Growth Fund), Research England (£1.5m) and the University (£9.5m). Impacts will include 250 jobs created across SMEs and large companies in the EM3 area; 25 new engineering related businesses; 40 new business relationships between EM3 based SMEs and large national/international engineering companies; £70 m+ of private sector investment to the LEP area by 2030.
The University’s strategic research institutes (Institute for Life Sciences, Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute Web Sciences Institute and Zepler Institute) engage in a number of enterprise activities, stimulating interactions with business and other users of university research.
Enterprise is embedded in the undergraduate curriculum to hone essential employability skills such as creativity, negotiation, problem-solving, decision-making and commercial awareness and through projects, placements, internships, student exchanges and voluntary work. The Social Enterprise module run by the University of Southampton Social Impact Lab is available to students across most programmes of study.
Outside the curriculum, the Student Enterprise Team awards SEED Startup Funding to help support the growth of business ideas, delivers funded Founderships to develop businesses, team business challenges for startups, StartUp weekends and workshops and 1:1 coaching to students. The Student Enterprise society, Fish on Toast runs talks covering business essentials and socials providing a community that nurtures entrepreneurial potential in students.
Enactus Southampton allows students to create social enterprises focused around environmental, economic and social sustainability. In 2020 Enactus Southampton achieved 2nd place out of 60 university teams in the national competition, were winners of two national Individual Topic Competitions in 2020, were one of only 14 winners in a global Ford-Enactus Covid-19 response challenge in April 2020, and were the winning UK Enactus team for summer action projects in September 2020.
The University has a growing programme of Continuing Professional Development. Income from CPD course grew by 42% between 17/18 and 18/19 with over 67,000 learner days delivered in 18/19.
Connecting Culture is a consortium project initiated and led by the University, with the aim of privileging the voices and experience of children and young people (CYP) and communities in Southampton to contribute actively to their city’s development and cultural ambitions including the City of Culture Bid in 2021 and influencing policy at local and national level. Local artist facilitators have been trained and co-developed workshop plans in line with the research questions; ‘Culture Mapper’, the online data tool is being user tested by the team and consortium partners.
Aspect 3: Results
Income from Consultancy, Facilities, Regeneration Income, CPD and income generated from Intellectual Property was £61M/year in 2018/19, the second highest in the sector, and at 10% of turnover, the highest proportion in the Russell Group (source: HEBCIS). In the last 3 years enterprise activity has brought in over £173m (17/18, 18/19, 19/20)
Our connections with corporate partners have led to high-impact collaborations. Recent examples include a 5-year multi-million-pound collaboration with BAE Systems and Lloyds Register, funded by an EPSRC Prosperity partnership ‘Intelligent Structures for Low Noise Environments’, allowing Southampton, BAE Systems, Lloyd’s Register and the University of Nottingham to develop new materials to reduce ambient noise in maritime environments and its effect on marine life. The project will exploit the technology to address societal noise, which is all pervasive and problematic in workplace and home environments.
The USSP Catalyst programme has incubated 57 start-ups, 80% of these companies are still trading and 14 companies have become paying tenants.
Catalyst companies have raised:
> £5.0 M in grants
> £15M in early stage investment
Current Southampton University spin-outs benefitting from the Catalyst programme include Renovos (secured Innovate UK grants and angel investment) and Audio Scenic (secured investment from IP Group). One notable success from 18_19 was Signly, a company that provides technology to enable organisations to make their web sites accessible to the deaf community (through BSL pop up website translation). After piloting, Lloyds Banking Group launched the technology, and Network Rail committed to Signly-enabled campaigns. Brytlyt, who participated in a 19-20 cohort, develops ultrafast database search systems, secured a $4M series A investment in April 2020 after completing the Catalyst programme.
The SETSquared partnership started in 2002, with Exeter joining in 2011. It has successfully supported new companies, facilitating university-to-business technology transfer and supporting academics, student and businesses. The infographic shows figures from the partnership in the last 3 years:
The University continues to lead the ICURe (innovation to commercialisation of University Research) programme and has provided leadership to two new regional franchises since 17/18: North by North West, and the Midlands. The programme objectives are to improve the entrepreneurial skills of ECRs and strengthen links between academic and industrial communities. To date 342 teams have successfully completed the programme (of whom 28% entrepreneurial leads are female); 111 new companies have been created, over 20,000 business contacts made, 500 + jobs created and the programme teams have attracted more than £200m of additional funding, both public and private investment. Over 50% of teams participating from our region in the last 3 years have created new companies.
Future Worlds, the on-campus start-up accelerator, nurtures aspiring entrepreneurs to move technologies to commercialisation. It has supported 150+ projects, launching 50+ student/staff start-ups. These have raised £7M+ equity investment at a valuation £40M+ and employ 100+ people.
One current example of collaborative working across the city/region was the rapid response to the Covid crisis. The University led a pilot ground-breaking non-invasive large-scale weekly saliva testing programme for COVID 19 in partnership with SCC and the NHS, funded by DHSC (Covid testing programme). Following successful delivery and follow-up on 14,000 tests, Phase 2 is evaluating the use of regular coronavirus saliva testing in educational settings, such as schools and our own university. As such, all students and front-line staff are being offered weekly (non-invasive) Covid tests.
For further information, please send queries to business@soton.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
The University of Southampton recognises public engagement as vital to its role locally, nationally and internationally, and has a track record of excellence. Our Public Engagement with Research unit inspires and supports high-quality engagement across all disciplines, collaborating closely with Public Policy, Research & Innovation Services, Widening Participation and Patient/PubIic Involvement teams. A spectrum of opportunities and high quality platforms (Human Worlds Festival, Science & Engineering Festival, Research Café, ‘Bringing-Research-to-Life’ Roadshow) provide a framework for participation from students, staff and community partners. Our Public Engagement Network, Community Hubs, annual seed-funding and an ongoing focus on evaluation and continuing professional development provide a maturing infrastructure within which engagement can thrive. The Engaged University Steering Group (EUSG) provides strategic oversight.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Southampton’s strategic approach to P&CE developed out of local research with Southampton-based Training for Work in Communities (TWICS). Subsequently, within RCUK Catalyst Seed Funded work, we developed and formalised a set of guiding Principles for P&CE culture change, based on best practice and learning accrued by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE); and established a Public Engagement with Research unit (PERu). Endorsed by the Engaged University Steering Group (EUSG), which provides governance for all the P&CE strands, the Principles focus on building capacity and quality, with targeted activity development, via:
Advocacy and championing;
Facilitating networks and brokering partnerships;
Partnering with other internal & external teams and strategic projects;
Supporting professional development, training and toolkits/resources;
Institutional awards, reward & recognition;
Seed funding to develop engagement projects;
Providing easily accessible ‘platforms’ for engagement
These Principles inform the composition and activities of PERu in its mission to inspire and support high quality public engagement across all disciplines. Originally hosted by a Faculty, PERu now sits alongside Public Policy/Southampton as a core strand of Research & Innovation Services, reporting to its Director. At least one Faculty now has a formal P&CE Lead in post to champion and coordinate engagement across research, education and enterprise remits; others are encouraged to follow suit.
A number of engagement ‘platforms’ offer accessible opportunities for members of the public (individuals, families, groups) to engage with University activity (research/teaching/learning); see Aspect 3 for detail of this distinctive aspect of P&CE at Southampton. These are promoted via a ‘Festivals’ mailing list, PERu social media, web, print and broadcast media, and our stakeholder/partner channels.
Our strategic approach has always fostered work which plays into wider institutional objectives, notably: collaborative schools-university partnership projects (with Outreach & Widening Participation, to develop training, create resources and map institutional activities); deliberate integration of P&CE within the Arts & Culture Strategy to energise collaboration, including a City of Culture 2025 bid aligned with our other local HEI, Southampton Solent University; a Memorandum of Understanding with Winchester Science Centre.
The Engaged University Steering Group has recently opened up an institution-wide conversation about Southampton’s ‘Engaged University’ vision and P&CE strategy for 2021 onwards. This consultation is running in tandem with work to reframe the wider University Strategy, alongside scoping work for a Civic University Agreement, and the University’s strategic response to COVID19 and post-pandemic challenges.
4 = Fully developed and implemented in most but not all areas with outcomes and impacts becoming apparent
Aspect 2: Support
The University’s Public Engagement Network supports engagement activists across the institution via regular newsletters, informal gatherings and celebration events. Themed Public Engagement Hubs bring together those with shared interests from inside and outside the University for collaborative activities; the themes reflect local and regional research needs. A PERu-initiated Regional P&CE Consortium connects local HEIs and organisations to foster collaborative relationships. The PERu Associates Scheme brings colleagues into closer relationship with PERu for mutual benefit.
Annual seed-funding supports innovative engagement projects which are subsequently showcased and contribute to Case Studies.
Seed-funded project: Getting #handson with upper limb prosthetics
Additional ad hoc funding supports strategically important activities to increase P&CE alignment with wider Civic and internal drivers.
PERu coordinates training/development opportunities to prepare and support students and staff, administered via institutional booking portals. Expertise drawn from PERu, other colleagues plus some external contributors provides a mix of general/introductory and more targeted sessions. PERu partners with the Centre for Higher Education Practice and the Doctoral College to enhance the broader researcher and staff development offer.
We maintain a variety of digital channels for individuals and community organisations who wish to engage with us. Our Twitter and Facebook accounts keep people up-to-date about events/opportunities and support direct enquiries. The PERu website is designed to serve a mixed (internal/external) audience but for our high-profile Festivals we have additional websites especially for our visitors (repeat/regular and new). Accessibility and the need to cater for diverse expectations have informed their design; see for example these FAQs. The festival@soton.ac.uk email provides groups and individuals with direct access to the event organising team, and for broader enquiries peru@soton.ac.uk is available.
There are a variety of options for rewarding/recognising P&CE. For academic staff, ‘outreach and public engagement’ is now in the contribution matrices used for promotion. P&CE is included as a theme within a number of award schemes: Dean’s Prizes presented to early career researchers; the (PGR) Doctoral College Director’s Awards; and the annual Vice Chancellor’s Awards for which any staff team or individual can be nominated. Within our two Festivals, exhibitor/participant contributions are recognised by awards presented at a celebratory event, with groups/individuals from the external community increasingly included among the recipients. The LifeLab programme recognises the achievements of participating pupils/schools at its annual Showcase; and other projects are adopting this approach, for example the seed-funded ‘Dark Energy Pilot’ showcased poster/film outputs to participants’ families/friends and presented CREST Awards.
5 = Fully developed and embedded across the institution to an exemplary level, with a culture of continuous improvement and good evidence on outcomes and impacts
Aspect 3: Activity
Southampton has made a distinctive strategic commitment to develop our P&CE ‘platforms’ as core activities. They all share a focus on accessibility to exhibitors and publics; high quality content; broadening scope (range/nature of content) and reach (diversity of audiences).
Southampton Science & Engineering Festival (SOTSEF), our most established annual event, opens up our campuses to a wide range of people to access STE(A)M research and teaching facilities, with high quality interactive activities in a multi-generational family experience. SOTSEF has strong exhibitor and visitor bases, each with high expectations of quality and content. Our Human Worlds Festival mirrors the SOTSEF approach and infrastructure but with a largely Arts and Humanities focus. Strategic partnership with city centre arts venues and Southampton Solent University has enabled collaborative hosting of events, using public spaces to bring in new visitors. In 2020 we responded to COVID19 limitations by adapting face-to-face Festival content to an on line format SOTSEF goes Digital and worked with our schools-university partnership colleagues to provide physical material, mitigating local digital exclusion. Activities are also run annually for the ESRC Festival of Social Science.
The Bringing Research to Life Roadshow tours every spring/summer, visiting a mix of local, regional and national events. Enabling 20,000 public interactions per annum, it provides a supportive experiential-learning environment for researchers/students to hone their engagement skills, connecting across disciplines and sharing cutting-edge research and its applications with mixed audiences.
Our Research Café format enables researchers to test and refine conversation-starters about their work, to initiate discussion and gain new insights/ideas/perspectives from the public(s); who in turn can ask questions and shape the conversation in line with their own interests. 91 researcher contributions/topics have been discussed since Cafés began in 2014.
Research Café conversations helped to shape the Public Engagement Hubs that are bringing together members of the University and the wider local community around shared interests, creating local benefits through coordinated P&CE activity. The current Hubs align with Southampton City Strategy 2015-2025 around three themes: Health &Wellbeing; Nature & Biodiversity; Future Cities. Hubs are contributing to make Southampton a ‘city of opportunity where everyone thrives’, addressing key objectives: fostering pride/community capacity, delivering whole place thinking and innovation, improving mental health, and tackling poverty/inequality.
Many other University teams have developed high-quality P&CE activities, often with a strong focus on school/university partnerships such as LifeLab (placing young people at the heart of activities to discover information about their health and healthy choices); or as an outcome of PERu seed-funding (activities within 50 projects from a range of disciplines supported in the reporting period). PERu maintains an overview via our Mapper tool and the Associates scheme.
4 = Fully developed and implemented in most but not all areas with outcomes and impacts becoming apparent
Aspect 4: Results and learning
Our Festivals are aligned with national programmes, i.e. SOTSEF with British Science Week and Human Worlds with Being Human festival of the humanities; we contribute evaluation data to these wider initiatives. Individual exhibitors are expected to embed their own evaluations within these frameworks, informed by their own purpose(s) and drawing on our planning and evaluation guidance/toolkit. We track trends/changes in our Festivals visitor-base using demographic data from our booking system. As we seek to diversify both audience and content, increasingly co-curating with local organisations/groups and via the Public Engagement Hubs, we are working on a more nuanced evaluation of our Festivals, to evidence success more strongly and embed a reflective cycle.
The Bringing Research to Life Roadshow maintains qualitative visitor and researcher logs which testify to the quality and creativity of the exhibits:
‘What a fantastically interactive tent!’ New Forest & Hampshire County Show 2019
and to the exhibitors skills:
‘Some very clued-up communicators – broke the ice in communicating their vital subjects across the generations in my family!’ South Downs Green Fair May 2019
The established format of the Roadshow enables us to monitor effectiveness in new venues/destinations, e.g. trialling Southampton Pride in August 2019.
Our P&CE Hubs are helping to develop and extend social networks, generating a platform where everyone’s voice is heard and valued equally, and stimulating a culture of knowledge exchange and understanding.
Hub Feedback
Evaluation and review methods reflect the informal, networking nature of the Hubs, e.g. the desire to reconnect with and support Hub friends through COVID19 led to online ‘self-care’ sessions and an open forum to share and discuss common issues and collect feedback.
Seed-funded projects are required to evaluate their activities and evidence impact/success within final reporting. Many continue to bear fruit, demonstrating substantial success beyond initial funding; for example ACoRNS network, an innovative co-constructed research-practice partnership between researchers and the autism community. ACoRNS’ subsequent expansion, range of outputs and ongoing work is testimony to the success of their embedded participatory approach.
From their mature programme base, the LifeLab team are contributing to a wider collaborative piece looking at key vulnerabilities in young people across the city during COVID19, using an established ‘young people as researchers’ model to collect and share findings on the effects of the pandemic on e.g. attitudes to exams/careers/future plans.
4 = Fully developed and implemented in most but not all areas with outcomes and impacts becoming apparent
Aspect 5: Acting on results
The relocation of PERu into Research and Innovation Services occasioned a timely review of P&CE KPIs. Internal reports on KPIs are expected for: P&CE platforms, Development Fund, Community Engagement Hubs, training/CPD, and researcher interactions. The Hubs KPI includes examining external community views on research priorities, feeding into Research and Innovation Services reporting.
Online Case Studies from seed-funded projects inspire and share learning across and beyond the institution. We are building a longitudinal overview of these projects to track their legacy.
Medicine Faculty provides a good example of our integrated approach acting on programmes to continuously improve. In response to P&CE reports/papers presented to the EUSG, Faculty leaders appointed a senior researcher (a PERu Associate) as Head of Engagement. Supported by an Engaged Medicine Steering Group, they are co-creating a strategy to engage internal/external stakeholders with the Faculty vision of innovative learning and discovery for better health across the lifecourse. If this approach proves effective it will be rolled out to other Faculties via EUSG.
Reports on our activities/contributions within national programmes (RCUK SUPI/Catalyst Seed Fund, UKRI SEE-PER) are published via NCCPE.
We are the only HEI to recognise the value of the RCUK SUPI programme (2013-2017) by resourcing a Schools-University Partnerships Officer to continue capacity-building, connecting the PERu core team with the Education School, Widening Participation team and regional schools/colleges.
This long-term commitment is evidenced in the legacy of Southampton’s UKRI SEE-PER project (addressing the challenge of ‘tackling barriers to P&CE professional development). Wide consultation across the institution delivered a training approach with enough ‘buy-in’ to continue beyond the funding period.
The PERu team are active in their field, making regular contributions to sector reviews/events and peer-reviewed publications e.g J.C.Spurrell, ‘A collaborative approach to schools engagement training for university staff’, Research for All, Vol4, No1, Feb 2020.
Strategic integration of P&CE and Arts&Culture enables us to collectively explore, share and respond to community needs and aspirations. For example the ACE-funded ‘Connecting Culture’ project to enable/improve children and young people’s access to the arts plays into the broader engagement sphere.
A strongly place-focussed (COVID) Bridging Strategy and emerging Civic University Agreement will support long term collaborative relationships with local groups and organisations, to shape and refine our P&CE for mutual benefit. Local partners/stakeholders will be invited to contribute to our consultation on a new strategic framework for P&CE.
4 = Fully developed and implemented in most but not all areas with outcomes and impacts becoming apparent
For further information, please send queries to business@soton.ac.uk