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Institutional Context
Summary
Whether developing new drugs and technologies or engaging in cultural and social activities the University of York believes that partnerships between the University, public sector, civic and business organisations are essential for ensuring that University research can be used to benefit society and the economy.
Our values and commitment to the public good have never been more important. As well as contributing to the national widening participation landscape, our ambition is to be a major local and regional force for encouraging aspiration and achievement.
Across the University, we work collaboratively with external organisations to mobilise our knowledge, our people and our resources to co-produce solutions that help tackle the immediate and long-term challenges faced locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
Institutional context
The University of York is committed to world-leading positive external impact as a strategic objective. Key aims of our new institutional 2030 strategy are that
York engages in research, teaching and knowledge exchange activities that result in a new generation of future civic and sustainability leaders,
researchers, entrepreneurs and professionals equipped to meet the complex challenges of a rapidly changing world and
our research and actions transform the future of our society economically, socially and environmentally.
Social and environmental sustainability is integrated throughout our research, teaching and operational activities. This applies not only to our carbon footprint and our equality and diversity policies for example, but also to the types of partnership we develop, and to the way we develop and engage our students and staff so they have the skills and understanding to tackle local, national and global challenges.
Much of our public engagement targets children and families and many of our events are free to ensure there are no barriers to participation.
Our influence extends locally, regionally, nationally and internationally and this is reflected in our partnerships with universities, businesses, NGOs and governments. The focus of our KE work is with those organisations – public and private, large and small - most able to benefit from our world-class facilities, research and research-informed teaching. Our particular mix of strengths is reflected in the highlighted areas of KE activity below.
Regional Engagement
York is a leading driver of innovation across the North, working closely with the LEPs, regional and city councils and associated business and civic engagement organisations.
We work to encourage high value and high tech employment in the city by providing businesses with access to high-quality executive and professional training programmes, graduate work placement students, staff and student volunteers who provide over 45,000 volunteering hours annually, and space on campus for over 150 companies.
Technology Innovation
York has significant expertise in technology innovation in industrial biotechnology, med-tech, agri-tech and in digital gaming and creative media. This expertise is helping drive York and North Yorkshire’s knowledge-driven economy.
Public Sector Impact in Health, Social Care and Education
York has a strong history of health and social care research and engages in health-related KE through its Departments and medical school.
York advises international, national and local policymakers on children and families, housing, welfare and poverty, health and social care, mental health and crime.
Our interest in promoting excellent school teaching, is delivered through initiatives like the National Science Learning Centre https://www.stem.org.uk/ and the National Centre for Excellence in Language Pedagogy www.ncelp.org/
Culture and Heritage
Located in a city with a strong cultural and heritage sectors, York recognises the importance of driving innovation in these sectors, locally, nationally and internationally. We have dynamic partnerships with leading museums and art galleries including the York Museums Trust, the Tate, the National Gallery and Amazwi in South Africa. Activities include collaborative research projects, co-curation of exhibitions, training, staff secondments, student placements and numerous arts and community events.
For further information, please send queries to amanda.selvaratnam@york.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
The University is located within the York and North Yorkshire region, which is predominantly rural and with a high proportion of very small businesses. We also have strong links with the neighbouring areas (Leeds City Region, Humber and Tees Valley).
As part of our ‘Civic mission’, we proactively collaborate and support regional stakeholders to enhance economic development and diversification by improving access to (and use of) our research, teaching and organisational capabilities.
Our research expertise in the areas of bioeconomy, creative and digital activity, safer autonomy, and quantum communications is of particular interest for our regions, with bioeconomy activities being key to the local industrial strategy and half the value of a recently submitted Devolution Deal.
Aspect 1: Strategy
The University is proud to be an international institution, but it is also deeply embedded in the City of York and our wider region. As one of the most important sources of innovation and research capability in the region, we seek to improve outcomes for York, the wider region, and the north of England. We share values with the community of which we are a part, and can offer specific expertise to develop new economic activity around us.
The university places a strong emphasis on our role as an anchor institution and as a catalyst for economic development and diversification. We have invested heavily in a large economic development team that brings a vast array of experience in the management of regional funding and business engagement.
Senior members of the University serve on advisory and governance boards for local and regional organisations, including the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (the Main Board, Business Board and Skills and Employability Board), York City Council, York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, Make It York, York Cares, York Museums Trust, and the York Country House Partnership.
Locally
From our direct engagement with the City Council, to our leadership of or involvement in local community events, the university places a strong emphasis on helping make York a thriving and desirable place to live or visit. Through a range of activities we help drive economic growth in our local businesses and underpin a social and cultural environment that benefits both residents and visitors.
We have established strong collaborative relationships with the council, business support organisations and local community groups that ensure we understand and can respond to the local growth and regeneration ‘needs’ of the area.
In recent years the university has played a central role in helping the city expand from a service-based economy into a science and technology economy, encouraging new knowledge-based employers into the city.
Regionally
The University is located within the York and North Yorkshire (YNY) Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), a region which covers a large predominantly geographic area with a high proportion of very small businesses. Whilst YNY is our home LEP, we have strong links to the three neighbouring LEP areas of Leeds City Region, Humber, and Tees Valley. Each of these LEPs have quite distinct profiles, ranging from Leeds, a city based LEP, to the Humber with a particular strengths in bioeconomy and renewables (including offshore energy) and to the Tees Valley with an area having both a rural and automotive background
We identified our regional economic priorities through working with these LEPs, understanding their Local Industrial Strategies and identifying where we can add value given our specific research, teaching and operational strengths. Senior university staff serve on several regional policy and strategy groups in these areas, which helps us to identify their particular economic needs, influence developments and actively support one another to achieve economic benefit.
National/International
Although most of our growth and regeneration activities are delivered at a local and regional level, our research is linked to key strategic developments at a pan-North-of-England and National level, and at supporting major global challenges represented within the Industrial Strategy.
For example, the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC), which supports the development of bio-based processes and products, was established to build upon existing regional, national and international collaborations to develop bio-based products. These interactions had identified the need for a new scale-up centre (the BDC) in the region, to foster new innovations to be tested on an industrially relevant scale.
Aspect 2: Activity
Our activities cover local, regional and national levels, helping address the strategic economic development and diversification needs identified by strategies outlined above.
The University works extensively with local partners, in particular the City of York Council. Most recently the university has worked in partnership with the council to support local SMEs during the Covid crisis, through the allocation and management of small grants, provision of free training to build resilience, and provision of business mentoring.
The bio and green economy are important economic drivers in the region. The BDC has delivered a range of ERDF projects over the last 10 years across Yorkshire and Humberside. Recently, the THYME project has extended this type of Economic Development activity to the Tees Valley, thus linking us with the Universities of Hull and Teesside.
In addition, the BDC delivers UK-wide and international grant funded and commercial projects with public and private sector partners. The BDC is also a key partner in the BioYorkshire initiative that will deliver a bold new green agenda to create jobs, boost the regional economy and develop sustainable solutions for some of the UK’s most pressing and emerging environmental challenges.
The project will also support the region’s ambitions to become the first carbon negative region in the UK, and will support the City of York to achieve their carbon neutral 2030 target.
Digital creativity is another focus of research and KE across the University, bringing together creative practice, technological development and support for both businesses and people. With £30m public funding, plus match funding from the university, HEI partners and industry, we support R&D, talent development and economic development and diversification, aiming to establish the UK as world-leading in digital, interactive and immersive storytelling. The regional business case was founded on Screen Yorkshire's Growth Plan, evidencing the need for investment in the screen industries.
Initiatives include
The Digital Creativity Labs, established in 2015 as a centre of excellence for impact-driven research with local and global partners.
XR Stories part of UKRI's Creative Industries Clusters Programme, funded from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and SIGN (Screen Industries Growth Network funded by Research England's Development Fund are university/industry collaborations supporting SMEs in the screen industries in Yorkshire/Humber, via development of new products and processes, skills, training, business support and the encouragement of diversity.
Weavr (£5.8m; 2019), with six industry partners, pioneering AI and data-driven R&D in e-sports through fully integrated XR audience experiences, and serving as one of four UK flagship demonstrators, supported by the Industrial Strategy’s Audience of the Future programme.
Robotics and connected autonomous systems (RCAS) will change the way we live, such as how we travel to work, how we are looked after in later life, and how our food moves from farm to fork. Following on from the University’s £10m Lloyd Foundation funded Assured Autonomy Programme, the University was awarded a £10.5m UKRPIF grant in 2019 towards capital costs for the establishment of the Institute of Safer Autonomy (ISA).
This dedicated facility, being built on our East campus, is central to our ambitions to become a ‘living lab’ for autonomous technologies, with specialist robotics and testing equipment to help us create a safer world. Alongside UKRPIF and Lloyd's Register Foundation funding, additional funding is provided by the University and an international network of collaborative industrial partners and private donors. It will bring together unique expertise in assurance of autonomy, advanced communications including the Quantum Hub, together with expertise in the design and verification of RCAS.
The Product and Process Innovation (PAPI) project (£8m ERDF) activities in both the YNY LEP and LCR LEP areas are playing a key role in the LEPs business support ecosystems The majority (£5m) of project funding is used to provide small grants to businesses to help with the cost of developing new products. PAPI is a clear example where the University of York has stepped forward and acted as an ‘anchor institution’.
We are supporting the York Central development and are exploring developing facilities that will focus on our Creative and Digital activities. In advance of any new facilities, we are refurbishing our City Centre Kings Manor site to accommodate a Creative Media Laboratory to support regional businesses in the Creative and Digital sector.
Covid-19 and Economic Recovery Response
2020 has been an extraordinary year, and the University has played a strong part in responding to Covid-19 issues. This has included managing one of the micro-grants support programmes, which provided up to £1,000 to over 1,000 York businesses as part of the City’s initial Covid response, and which offered free, unbiased and confidential support and advice to help them develop and adapt to the new challenges.
The University is also working with North Yorkshire County Council to develop a Covid-19 Economic Assessment and response. This activity will draw on expertise across the University to both analyse issues and propose potential responses for the region.
Our research expertise is also addressing areas such as biomedicine, mental health, food and environment, all areas on which Covid-19 is likely to have a lasting effect at local, national and global scales, and for which new solutions are needed.
Aspect 3: Results
The activities listed above are achieving significant benefits for the local, regional and national economy.
BDC and BioVale
Since its inception in 2012, the BDC has delivered over 865 projects for 382 clients, including SMEs, larger companies and other partners, to develop new bio-based processes and products and has catalysed 23 companies in the region.
In 2016, the BDC set up BioVale, a bioeconomy cluster development organisation. BioVale has 585 members from 322 companies providing entrepreneurship training, mentoring and investor-introductions for University spin-outs. BioVale works closely with the City of York Council (CYC), which helped shape York’s decision to define itself as a "bioeconomy opportunity city”.
The BDC and BioVale are key partners with a group of regional organisations (including, most notably, FERA and Askham Bryan College) that are working together to deliver the BioYorkshire Initiative, which is a key component of the York and North Yorkshire LEP’s recent Devolution Deal submission to the UK Government.
XR Stories
As part of business collaborations, XR stories is providing both grant and equipment support to businesses, as well as technological expertise.
Weavr
Weavr has created innovative audience experiences powered by data analytics and AI, which were deployed at four major international e-sports tournaments, two in 2019 (ESL ONE Hamburg 2019, ESL ONE Birmingham 2019) and two in 2020. These were virtual events in which players and production crew participated remotely during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Since May 2019, Weavr has attracted over 85,000 esports fans with their product portfolio: companion mobile app, talent dashboard, VR experience, 360 broadcast capability, virtual studio and content delivery network to support the real-time broadcast of Weavr game analytics.
Weavr generated four publications in 2019/2020, one of which won Best Paper Awarded at IMX 2020, a premier venue in interactive TV, bringing together leading academics and practitioners. Research conducted by the York-based team is continuing to have substantial impact on its commercial partners. The data analytics suite produced at York, integrating cutting-edge machine learning and AI, has enabled the industry partners to create entirely new data-driven audience experiences, commercial opportunities, and enhanced their production capabilities.
PAPI
The PAPI projects are together supporting six new SME projects each month. To date over 173 SMEs have been supported with over £2.8m of grants. The map below shows how this activity is spread across the whole area.
PAPI is an established part of the regional business support ecosystem and with funding until June 2023, will support close to 400 businesses. PAPI has facilitated a large amount of cross-referrals both internally and externally, ensuring the businesses get the help they need.
Eight of the most recent PAPI project approvals relate to new products that are addressing Covid-19 and three of these shown on the University’s Covid-19 business support page.
Communication of Results
The hyperlinks in this document provide examples of our communication ranging from case studies, local, regional and national press releases and social media. Through these, the University communicates the value of its research, teaching and other organisational activity and outlines its impact on the wider economy.
For further information, please send queries to mark.gunthorpe@york.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
The University of York is a university for public good. We are passionate about engaging diverse communities to celebrate the relevance, influence and impact of higher education. Our strategy is anchored by the principle of knowledge exchange in its truest sense: collaborating with individuals, organisations and communities to share information and ideas, working together in partnership to define common challenges, and design effective solutions.
Key outputs cover the public and community engagement (P&CE) spectrum from co-produced research, collaboration with schools, community and cultural organisations, and volunteering, complemented by a vibrant and inclusive year-round free public events programme including the York Festival of Ideas, the largest free festival of its kind in the UK.
Aspect 1: Strategy
From the founding of our institution, the University of York has been committed to addressing social justice and inequalities, and our new Vice-Chancellor has reaffirmed a vision for York as a university for public good.
Our strategic vision, to be an institution with a global perspective but also at the heart of our local community, is exemplified by our recent response to the Covid crisis where staff across the university worked to support the NHS, young people, families and communities, cultural organisations and local businesses.
Our collaborative ethos drives our community and public engagement, and we have a diverse breadth of excellent public and community engagement activities being conducted across the University. This helps us understand their needs and develop a strategic response that harnesses the University’s key strengths for public benefit.
Long-term strategic partnerships with arts and heritage organisations in York allow the University to play a vital role in the city’s cultural life and enable large and diverse audiences to engage with our research and students.
Moving forward, we seek to bring these strands together for a more holistic view of engagement, integrating research, teaching and outreach in a way that aligns with our founding principles of being a university for public good. We will be further developing this “ground up” strategy in the coming years.
P&CE is integral to our University Strategy 2014-2020 and our Research Strategy 2015-2020. Our Research Impact Statement highlights that “working with partners who use the new knowledge we create, informs our research directions and methods.” Our Strategic Framework for Research Impact Delivery Plan encourages best practice in effective PE for departments and individual researchers.
Oversight of P&CE sits with both the University Partnerships and Engagement Committee and the University Research Committee, which are chaired by our Pro-Vice-Chancellors for Partnerships & Engagement and Research, respectively. We are also signatories to the NCCPE Manifesto for Public Engagement.
While much of our P&CE is funded through our HEIF allocation, we also seek additional external funding to complement this allocation. For example;
£259,000 from the Office for Students and Research England, to scale up student engagement in knowledge exchange, to address community needs.
£150,000 annually through external sponsorship for the York Festival of Ideas
£17,846 UKRI Place-based public engagement award to co-produce, with the local Residents’ Association, a digital application to enhance resident-led tours of the Park Hill Flats in Sheffield
In addition to the many events that are open to the public, from open lectures to music concerts, our facilities are also available to the public, e.g. through the Jack Lyons Concert Hall and our Astrocampus.
Aspect 2: Support
Staff across the University engage in, and provide support for P&CE, within both academic departments and professional services directorates.
Teams in Research and Enterprise provide regular training sessions in public engagement for research students and staff, most recently in coordination with the NCCPE. Opportunities to apply these skills and knowledge include events such as the 3 Minute Thesis. Similarly, Media Relations provides training to researchers on communicating their work to the public.
An extensive evaluation toolkit for public engagement with research has been developed and is available to all staff. This covers topics including “why evaluate?” “how to?” and “methods for evaluation”.
Since 2019, we have developed our capacity for participatory research through the Involvement@York network, which serves as a ‘hub’ for recruitment of patients, carers and the public into health and social care research. The network is supported by external NHS Trusts and the NIHR Research Design Service.
Additionally, we offer shared practice events and training programmes and have developed new guides on the co-production of research.
The University of York Twitter account and Facebook page have 73,700 67,000 followers respectively, and Media Relations monitors feeds and responds to enquiries.
The importance of P&CE is recognised within specific indicators for our Promotions Criteria within: 1) Research, 2) Teaching, Scholarship and Professional Practice and especially 3) Academic Citizenship.
Aspect 3: Activity
Our approach focuses on: 1) partnerships with organisations outside the University (locally and globally) to identify and address community needs, 2) co-design and co-development of projects and 3) interdisciplinarity, – all hallmarks of research at York.
Public involvement in research
Involvement@York has embedded 74 patients and members of the public as lay project advisors in ‘active partnerships’ with research teams, helping researchers understand which outcomes matter most to patients and the public.
The Open Air Laboratories Network engages communities in Yorkshire in citizen science surveys of soil, air and water quality, biodiversity and climate, as well as in participatory mapping.
Communities in the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu are co-designing a project to develop sensors to assess whether local water supplies are safe to drink.
As part of the iKnowFood programme, a York Citizen Food Assembly allowed citizens to express their views on the food system resulting in a policy brief for DEFRA and the National Food Strategy team.
The Cochrane Common Mental Disorders Group (CCMD) held workshops for people with lived experience of mental health problems to support them to become consumer referees of Cochrane reviews, to improve health research and care. CCMD also held co-design workshops with young people with experience of mental health problems, in conjunction with Leaders Unlocked, to inform a systematic review on interventions for self-harm.
The Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past in History promotes partnerships between the University and museums, galleries and heritage organisations.
Events and Cultural exhibitions
Our annual calendar of free public events reaches audiences of over 50,000 each year across 137 countries. Highlights include our York Festival of Ideas and York Researchers’ Night with hands-on activities and Open Lectures.
The Centre for Lifelong Learning offers a wide range of short courses to local learners as well as massive open online courses (MOOCs).
The Northern Lights events at York Minster showcased research from History of Art and English. The Minster attributes its record number of over 700,000 visitors in 2019 to both the Northern Lights event and the newly unveiled East Window, whose conservation and restoration involved close collaboration between York Glaziers Trust and York’s History of Art.
The English department contributed new voice recordings in Old Norse to the Jorvik Viking Centre’s animatronic citizens, which are heard by over 400,000 visitors every year.
The award winning film Black Snow, named AHRC Best Research Film of the Year 2018, raised public awareness of England’s worst mining disaster, the Oaks Colliery Explosion of 1866 in Barnsley. It reached wide audiences and raised funds for a town centre memorial sculpture.
York Management School runs weekly public online masterclasses on topics including leadership and finance.
Community support and engagement
Mobilised a local and regional Covid-19 response and recovery to support the NHS, young people and families, local businesses and local cultural organisations.
Annually we engage with about 15,000 students from less advantaged backgrounds and their parents, carers, teachers and schools. Programmes include Roots to Success in York, Shine, and Next Step York for student applications to HE. We also sponsor the Big Deal, a student business enterprise competition.
Located at the University of York, York Cares supports over 200 community organisations and schools in some of York’s most disadvantaged areas, annually providing over 10,000 hours of voluntary service by employee volunteers.
Over 2400 students volunteer in the community annually through a network of 150 local partner organisations, building capacity for positive social impact.
Aspect 4: Results and learning
Evaluation of our P&CE projects has been critical to the demonstration of the impacts of our activity. Examples include
The Born in Bradford (BiB): research that changes a city report details key findings resulting from research with BiB families on factors affecting the health of children in early years including: air pollution, family mental health and childhood obesity. Working with health, education and voluntary sector partners, new investment has been attracted to support a healthier city, enabling new projects:
• Better Start Bradford – for pregnant women and young children.
• Active Bradford Sport England pilot
• Obesity Trailblazer – interventions in Islamic religious settings.
• ActEarly – co-production of large-scale initiatives to prevent disease and reduce inequalities.
York’s nuclear physics research has been translated through the Binding Blocks project into engaging learning activities (using Lego bricks and Minecraft) designed to make concepts in nuclear physics accessible to students and teachers. Since 2017-18 Binding Blocks have reached over 30,000 people in nearly 300 events. 43% of student participants are more likely to go to University and 68% more likely to study physics in the future, with the effect on women and girls particularly strong.100% of teachers reported feeling better able to communicate physics concepts to their pupils.
Research from History and History of Art on St Stephens Chapel Westminster played a crucial role in the development of the Voice and Vote exhibition, which attracted 107,328 visitors. 97% came away with a better understanding of the experience of women accessing politics pre-1918 and importantly, 45% of visitors were inspired to take action and get involved with Parliament.
We use a range of quantitative and qualitative indicators to benchmark the efficacy of our public engagement. Reach and demographic data is complemented with POLAR data and audience segmentation to track engagement with low participation regions.
In 2020, York Festival of Ideas was delivered online and evaluation showed that the events reached a more diverse audience and that 33% of participants felt less isolated as a result of taking part. These findings are directly influencing future programming.
Our award winning GCSE tutoring programme matched disadvantaged pupils from four schools in York with undergraduate tutors in Maths and English Language and Literature. Pupils’ attainment scores increased by up to a grade in some cases. The scheme has been improved each year in response to the evaluation, strengthening the training of tutors and timings of the sessions.
Aspect 5: Acting on results
The results and impact of our public engagement is shared across the institution through our committees and internal communications.
We raise awareness externally through news stories, dedicated publications, case studies in relevant external communications, and York’s HEBCIS data which reports on P&CE activity, is publicly available.
Examples below highlight how we have acted on results.
Widening Participation: Access and Outreach
Our publicly available Access and Participation Plan underpins our commitment of widening access at the University and critical friends help to refine our work to achieve our overall strategy. Evaluation at every stage of the student’s journey allows assessment of our effectiveness in plan implementation. Feedback from questionnaires, focus groups and surveys with students and their supporters shapes all future activity and, when necessary, we redevelop and co-create new activities with students to meet our aims and objectives. Outcomes are measured by the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) and progress is shared in monthly newsletters to schools and colleges and key stakeholders.
Volunteering
We are partners in the City of York Volunteering Strategy and at the University level, students are encouraged to volunteer as part of our Student Employability Strategy and within our Access and Participation Plan. Reporting is done internally and externally to city partners.
The student volunteering team regularly reviews their engagement with their 150 community and school partners to continually improve their offer. For example, consultation with heritage organisations resulted in the creation of new, short term offers for volunteers, attracting 70 new volunteers.
Events
The Events team continuously reviews its public engagement programme to improve access, engagement and impact, and strongly influence the planning of future events. Methodologies include surveys of partners, exhibitors, speakers and attendees, focus groups and audience mapping strategies. For example, York Researchers’ Night adapted the date and time, content, venues and marketing in response to feedback, seeing visitor numbers treble. Using Festival of Ideas evaluation data, we have trialled new ways of engaging with audiences in deprived areas through community signposting. This approach will inform our ongoing work with these communities. Report evaluations of events are shared within the University, stakeholders and partner organisations.
For further information, please send queries to amanda.selvaratnam@york.ac.uk