Note You are currently viewing a previous version of this narrative statement as published in previous iterations of the KEF (KEF1 and KEF2). View the latest version
Institutional Context
Summary
Aston is a research-active, applied University located in central Birmingham comprising three Colleges – Business and Social Sciences, Health and Life Sciences and Engineering and Physical Sciences. Since the creation of our forerunner institution in 1895, we have consistently responded to the needs of the city and its surrounding regions, partnering with employers to advance the knowledge and skills of citizens.
Our University strategy focusses on being led by our beneficiaries: (i) students, (ii) business and the professions and (iii) region and society.
Public Engagement, Enterprise and Knowledge Exchange are crucial aspects of our identity and provide the underpinnings for our current strategy, serving the groups above.
Institutional context
Aston was the UK's first college of advanced technology and, when it gained university status in 1966, its Charter set out aims: "to advance, disseminate and apply learning and knowledge by teaching and research, for the benefit of industry and commerce and of the community generally: and to enable students to obtain the advantage of university education, and such teaching and research may include periods outside the University in industry or wherever the University considers proper for the best advancement of its objects."
Since the creation of our forerunner institution Birmingham Municipal Technical School, in 1895, we have been an integral part of our City region and a partner to employers and communities, advancing knowledge, supporting innovation and promoting social inclusion. The University has made a strategic choice to prioritise public engagement, knowledge exchange and enterprise to build on our core strengths: employability, small business growth, innovation and research with impact. Our aim has always been to be "the UK's leading university for students aspiring to succeed in business and the professions, where original research, enterprise and inspiring teaching deliver local and global impact".
This distinctive mission is supported by the student journey, which emphasises high aspiration and achievement. We enable social mobility with over 70% of our students being the first in their generation to enter higher education. Key features of an Aston education is the integrated placement year, industry-relevant curricula and dedicated support for students and graduates wishing to start businesses.
Our strategic focus reflects Aston's commitment to knowledge exchange for three core beneficiary groups: students, external organisations (comprising businesses, public entities, the not-for-profit sector, and the professions) and Birmingham and the West Midlands region and wider society.
We have a history of generating societal benefit through innovation; the blockbuster brain cancer drug Temozolamide originated at Aston started us on a path of adding value to everyday life through science that drives our intellectual property and spin out activity to this day.
Institutional strengths
We use our knowledge exchange strengths to support social mobility through widening participation and pathway programmes to open up exclusive professions, small business growth, promote sustainability and reduce health and other inequalities.
Economic context
Aston's distinctive strengths in knowledge exchange and social inclusion are used to address regional challenges. NCCPE's report on 'Achieving equity in place-based research, innovation and public engagement' found that the West Midlands had 27 of the UK's 150 'left behind' wards – the highest out of the areas identified in the report.
A characteristic of ‘left behind’ places are the significantly fewer job opportunities compared to other deprived areas. The fact that unemployment rates rose faster in the aftermath of the recession suggests a more fragile employment economy in the West Midlands; these areas are also failing on crucial measures including reductions in child poverty, health outcomes and adult skill levels. As an anchor institution, we are developing a Civic University Agreement utilising our strengths to address these issues.
For further information, please send queries to j.e.richards@aston.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
Aston is an anchor institution based in the heart of Birmingham, serving the people who live, work and study in the West Midlands. We support our diverse student body to achieve social mobility (through a placement year, mentoring and external insight and engagement) whilst filling the region’s skills gaps. We also work in tandem with firms and entrepreneurs to drive innovation, productivity and inclusive growth in the economy.
Our ethos is that more impact is achieved by working in partnership so we adopt a collaborative approach to our activities working with other universities, civil society, anchor institutions and regional bodies for the benefit of the region.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Strategic Context
Our current strategy (2018-2023) focusses on serving our beneficiaries: Students, Business & the Professions and Region and Society.
Aston has a pioneering reputation for graduate employability, business growth and entrepreneurship, which goes hand-in-hand with our commitment to social mobility. It is the combination of these factors, which makes Aston unique in UK HE; these themes carry into our Knowledge Exchange strategy which emphasises sustainable local growth and regeneration.
In February 2019, Aston pledged to develop a “Civic University Agreement” in partnership with local government and other major institutions. To underpin this process, a detailed regional socio-economic study was undertaken to inform our strategic decision-making. We also use this evidence base to underpin ongoing discussions with our partners from local government, NHS, Citizens organisations and the chamber of commerce to map their priorities against our regeneration capabilities. These are now developing around the themes of (i) Health and wellbeing, (ii) Sustainable Socially Inclusive Prosperity, (iii) Environment (iv) Justice and (v) Education & Employment.
Importance of Collaboration
Aston is a major player in regional economic development activity, building on the work of our renowned Enterprise Research Centre and Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Enterprise (CREME). Research from these groups not only informs regional and national Government policy, it is simultaneously shaping the way in which we address priority objectives for inclusive growth, increasing business and workforce productivity, innovation and competitiveness. Our expertise in the dynamics of small business growth helps governments craft policy to boost their economies.
The University proactively engages with a large number of partners to ensure our regional beneficiaries remain at the heart of our activities.
Local – Aston is located in central Birmingham. We engage with Birmingham City Council across adult social care, public health, planning, transport and their work to set the vision for the future of the city. We are also partners in the Birmingham Anchor Network to support regeneration through employment and procurement. We are also members of Citizens UK, to help us understand the needs of local ethnic businesses, feeding directly into the work of CREME.
Aston plays a leading role within Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP (GBSLEP), helping to develop its strategic economic plan particularly around skills, competitiveness, innovation and SME support. Our Executive Director of Business Engagement is on the LEP Board and ESIF Committee, we support their growth hub through Aston Business School’s Centre for Growth and our Provost chairs the Employability and Skills Board. The 2016-2030 plan http://centreofenterprise.com/sep2016/ commits to challenging targets around job creation and productivity with universities as key delivery partners.
Regional – West Midlands.
Aston is a key player in developing and implementing the West Midlands Combined Authority’s (WMCA) Strategic economic plan, its Local Industrial Strategy and COVID-19 recovery plans. Aston’s Vice-Chancellor is on the WMCA COVID-19 recovery group, our PVC Research is on the Innovation Board and Aston representatives sit on their Energy Capital, Brexit and Digital Partnership Boards. As members of West Midlands Growth Company we work together to showcase the region with the aim of attracting students and companies to the West Midlands.
Across the broader Midlands geography, we are part of Midlands Engine with our Vice-Chancellor being a member of their Board contributing to their strategy. This is in addition to specific input through our Logistics Institute on Midlands Connect’s strategy and our Business School with their economic review. Midlands Innovation (a strategic partnership with 7 other universities
https://midlandsinnovation.org.uk/) mirrors the Midlands Engine geography. This partnership focusses on research excellence and supports the region in engaging with national bodies in combined areas of strength: Energy, Transport, Health and Inclusive Transformation. We also collaborate on TALENT (supporting our Technicians) and MICRA (sharing best practice in knowledge exchange and attracting investors to the region).
Figure 1: Local bodies in the Midlands Geography
We also work nationally advising government and organising policy briefings in areas such as bioenergy and internationally using our research, partnerships and influence to change practice e.g. in India and the Philippines to stop the burning of rice straw.
Aspect 2: Activity
Our approach focusses on translating cutting-edge research into programmes that support local businesses with practical solutions and suitably qualified people.
Education, Entrepreneurship and Employment
Aston’s close links to employers and applied courses ensure that Aston degree programmes meet the needs of graduate employers. 81.3% of Aston’s graduates are in a positive graduate destinations 15 months after graduation, against a sector average of 74.1%1. We also led on degree apprenticeships, being the first UK university to graduate degree apprentices.
A third of our students come from Birmingham and half come from the West Midlands; a proportion which is increasing year-on-year. Many of our students also remain in the West Midlands, filling key skills gaps. Five years post-graduation, 42% of our employed graduates work in the West Midlands2.
Aston supports student and graduate start-ups through our award winning BSEEN programme supporting 125 new businesses to establish (2016-19). A new phase started in 2019 with an ERDF grant of £441,991.
A key focus for BCC, GBSLEP and WMCA is filling skills gaps and raising skills levels. To address this issue, a consortium led by Solihull College with Aston as a lead HE partner along with WM businesses, FE and HE partners, secured an Institute of Technology in Advanced Manufacturing locating on Aston’s campus.
We also attract talented people to the West Midlands through PhD studentships e.g. ESRC Midlands Training Partnership, EPSRC Lifetime CDT and BBSRC Midlands Integrative Biosciences Training Partnership.
Sustainable and Socially Inclusive Prosperity
Aston’s commitment to the development of ambitious small business leaders particularly stands out across the UK due to its scale – based on number of businesses, initiatives, and funding. Aston is also the most active university in the Midlands for the value of consultancy activities undertaken with SMEs (18/19 HE-BCI data).
The Aston Centre for Growth is at the heart of the University’s rich ecosystem of pioneering programmes designed to scale up SMEs. These programmes, based on cutting-edge research deliver practical leadership and management education in a peer-to-peer learning environment, helping business leaders to adopt better management practices, gain access to finance and boost productivity, resulting in inclusive growth and economic impact for the region.
Aston supports GBSLEP and WMCA through a range of initiatives, but particularly running programmes for the GBSLEP growth hub and contributing to the MIT Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Programme which aims to strengthen the region’s innovation and entrepreneurial capability.
The Centre for Research into Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME), relocated to Aston in 2018, enabling collaboration with the Centre for Growth to support ethnic minority businesses.
Aston is also a partner in WM-REDI https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/city-redi/wm-redi/index.aspxAston’s leads on ‘Lifting the Lid on Enterprise Diversity & Growth in the West Midlands’.
In 2019, we joined the Birmingham Anchor Network and part-fund a coordinator to use our collective procurement and employment spend to support the region.
Wider Business Support
Aston is part of the Energy Research Accelerator (£60M from Innovate UK/ £120M match). This provides a network of equipment that companies can access to support reduction of carbon usage (a key priority for the region).
Our broader portfolio of 14 dedicated SME support programmes build on our academic expertise in photonics, data analytics, supply chain management, functional materials, advanced services and bio-energy. Aston provided match-support to leverage a total of £10,407,335 ERDF funding to support these programmes.
Many SMEs progress onto longer-term R&D programmes, particularly Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs).
COVID-19
Aston’s close links with regional bodies, businesses and Citizens UK enabled a swift response to the pandemic see https://www2.aston.ac.uk/current-students/health-wellbeing/we-are-together. A particular highlight was the Aston means business podcast series
https://www2.aston.ac.uk/aston-business-school/podcast that gave insights into how SMEs were adapting to challenges posed by COVID-19 and the support CREME gave to ethnic business to access Government support.
References
1 2021 Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide
2 Department for Education’s LEO analysis, 2020
Aspect 3: Results
Skills, Entrepreneurship and Employment
Our track-record in entrepreneurship and employment in the region is nationally recognised ranking first in the UK for value added (The Guardian University Guide 2020). Employers are paying higher salaries to Aston graduates in every subject compared to the sector average1.
A series of measures including data from rankings, mobility, student characteristics, placements and Labour Market Intelligence support data-driven decision making to drive positive graduate outcomes.
The Placement Year drives positive graduate destinations and we have dramatically increased the scale of activities with regional employers in line with demand (see fig below). Aston has >1900 students on placement (74% of the cohort), now 4th in the UK for sandwich placements2
Figure 2: Student placements 2016-19
We work closely with regional businesses e.g. HSBC to develop graduates with key skills needed for the future workforce, delivering a strong talent pipeline to drive regional economic growth. This partnership received ‘‘Best Collaboration between a University and Employer” National Undergraduate Employability Awards 2020.
Sustainable and Socially Inclusive Prosperity
The Aston Centre for Growth (ACG) was established to respond to the business support needs of SMEs in the region and has assisted 1,000 entrepreneurs. In response to feedback from businesses, ACG increased its portfolio of programmes developing a bespoke scale-up offer for GBSLEP Growth Hub, launching major programmes such as Productivity through People and Mentoring for Growth which are national Be the Business programmes and a leadership programme with Tuck Business School for ethnic minority-led SMEs.
SME participants on our growth programmes have achieved a 28% boost to productivity and created 650 jobs in the West Midlands and £120m of additional revenues (10KSB impact evaluation, 2018). At firm level, participants have achieved 23% greater job creation and 25% higher turnover compared to other growth businesses. Our WM Pitchfest programme has put >100 entrepreneurs in front of investors helping them to secure >£3m of investment. In student entrepreneurship, 632 Aston students and graduates have attended a start-up boot camp, resulting in the creation of 210 new businesses over the KEF period.
The Centre’s flagship programme, the Aston Programme for Small Business Growth supported 135 SME business leaders over 5 cohorts (2016-2019). An impact report by Wavehill (2019) stated “employment in the supported businesses increased by 173 FTEs as a direct impact of the intervention, while turnover attributable to the programme grew by an average of £56,688 per business … 94% reported the programme led to an increase in confidence to grow their business.”
Our work is also influencing policy makers, FSB’s report ‘Unlocking Opportunity’ 2020, led by CREME provides new insights into the specific barriers faced by, UK ethnic minority entrepreneurs. MP Vicky Foxcroft discussed the report with the Treasury Minister in the House of Commons https://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Unlocking-Opportunity_FSB-Report-.2020.pdf.
We also spin out companies, creating jobs and attracting investment to the region, recent examples being Grid Edge, Eyoto and Aston Particle Sciences.
Wider Business Support
All ERDF-funded business support programmes (https://www2.aston.ac.uk/business/aston-for-business/develop-your-business) are independently evaluated upon completion. Analysis from these evaluations and ERC’s Local Growth Dashboard https://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/publications/uk-local-growth-dashboard-2018/ show participating companies benefit from faster growth, sustainable job creation, graduates retained in the region and increased GVA.
Aston has 14 ERDF projects running concurrently that supported, between August 2016 and July 2019, 791 companies, creating significant impact for the region. As an example, our Energy Bioproducts Research Institute’s Business Investment in Research project supported 172 SMEs in the KEF period, creating 169 jobs and £19.9M in GVA (estimated over next 2 years - Focus consultant’s report)
Success of these programmes is communicated widely through the website and booklets e.g. the “Fusion Guide” https://www2.aston.ac.uk/eas/research/groups/ebri/projects/ebri-business-investment-in-research/fusion-guide-overview supporting regional businesses to develop low carbon solutions (reaching net zero by 2041 is an important target for the West Midlands). Andy Street, West Midlands Mayor, said “With Energy-from-Waste and Bioproduct supply chains expanding rapidly, businesses need to be made aware of the wide variety of specialisms that our region has to offer. The Fusion Guide does a brilliant job of making this process easier for businesses."
We also invest heavily in KTP activity and are currently the most successful University regionally with the 8th largest portfolio in the UK. Analysis of KTP reports showed Aston generated on average 1107% return-on-investment. InnovateUK recognised Aston’s KTP success at their national ‘Best of the Best’ KTP Awards 2020 https://www.ktp-uk.org/awards/ which was communicated to local businesses and regional organisations through Linkedin (10,000+ views) and our website.
References
1 LEO 2020 data
2 HESA Performance Indicators.
For further information, please send queries to Mark.smith@aston.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
Public engagement underpins Aston University’s entire Strategy (2018-2023) which focusses on serving our 3 beneficiary groups: Students, Business & the Professions and Region & Society.
Our public engagement objectives build on a history of innovative community-facing activities across the University and are threefold:
1, To be a civic university serving our local community
2, To raise Aston’s profile in region in order to drive student recruitment and to assist income diversification
3, To engage local citizens in research, enabling them to contribute, collaborate and coproduce for maximum impact.
Our key partners in public and community engagement are Citizens UK, Aston Villa, the Titan Education Partnership, regional Schools and Colleges.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Our public engagement strategic objectives are outlined above. In practice our focus is on:
1, Widening participation & social mobility (where we have an impressive track record)
2, Supporting communities with what they need e.g. volunteering and community projects
3, Engaging communities with the University
Planning process
Initially, we used the EDGE tool to assess our position in public engagement and in 2019, worked with Metro Dynamics to evidence our impact in the region. We also commissioned a survey of citizens in local wards to gain data on their awareness of Aston, their priorities and views on planned activities. We also held sessions with staff to gain their views.
In 2019, Aston also signed the pledge to develop a Civic University Agreement. Planning has included using the citizens’ survey, regional impact assessment, as well as looking at the priorities of citizens (through Citizens UK and WMCA’s Citizen panel), local NHS trusts, WMCA, GBSLEP, Birmingham City Council and Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce’s priorities. This enabled us to develop themes that overlap with Aston’s areas of strength, providing a framework for partner discussions.
Allocation of resources
Public engagement activities have been supported for many years by Student Recruitment and Outreach, Centre for Growth, Centre for Research into Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME), the REF Impact Manager, ERDF projects, Sustainability team, Go Green champions, Careers & Placements, Students’ Union and the Alumni Office.
In 2019, Aston strengthened its support for public engagement with a Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and a Director of Regional Strategy. In 2020, Aston moved to a 3 College model and appointed College Associate Deans for Public Engagement to further embed the strategy.
We also invest in partnerships to support community engagement. 1) Citizens UK for engagement with local diverse community groups, training students in public engagement and co-production of Aston public engagement initiatives 2) Aston Villa 3) the Birmingham Anchor network 4) The Social Mobility Pledge and 5) Titan Education Partnership.
Facilities open to the public are advertised on our website including, the sports centre, Conference Aston, health clinics (including audiology, epilepsy, eye, dyslexia) and outpatient MRI.
Governance and accountability is the responsibility of the Strategic Projects Group reporting to Executive Engagement Group.
Aspect 2: Support
Aston invests in targeted support for impactful public engagement particularly through:
Volunteering opportunities: 1) Students can volunteer through societies organised by the Students’ Union, 2) Students volunteering with registered charities (coordinated by our Careers and Placements team) 3) Staff who are allowed to volunteer in work time 4) Staff who volunteer in their own time.
A short placement module for students on courses where a placement year is non-mandatory supports students to work with charities.
Aston is part of the Midlands Public Engagement Network of universities who share best practice, ideas and information on public engagement.
CPD and training opportunities for staff, students and partners
Citizens UK membership gives staff and students access to Citizens UK training on community organising. Associate Dean Public Engagement, Health and Life Sciences runs ‘how to engage with the public’ sessions. Our REF Impact Manager also provides support for academics to develop the impact of their projects. The student recruitment and outreach team also offer CPD to school and college partners and support students to inspire school children. Aston’s Centre for Europe (ACE) run training sessions of NGO volunteers working with refugees. Aston is a subscriber to the conversation (https://theconversation.com/uk) and runs regular staff training in how to write articles, resulting in some widespread news coverage of Aston research.
Website and social media
Our website is currently being refreshed and the University community engagement pages are in development. Members of the community contact the University through our ‘contact us’ pages.
Member of the public in governance roles
Aston University Council includes 15 people from a range of organisations and roles. We also have advisory boards in each College.
Evidence of how community and public engagement is recognised
Our academic promotions criteria include external engagement. In 2020, a new Aston achievement award was introduced, to recognise Outstanding Contribution to the Region, Local Community or Environment.
Aspect 3: Activity
Aston engages with the public through volunteering, outreach & public events and knowledge exchange.
Volunteering
Staff volunteer with >156 organisations, including public sector, fire service, environment, schools, guides and scouts, women’s support, LGBT, human rights, arts and culture, food, homeless, health, faith and international civic organisations. Our Provost is Vice Lord-Lieutenant of the West Midlands and our Executive Dean of Engineering chairs the Royal Academy of Engineering’s diversity committee.
Our students volunteer for 92 local registered charities.
Outreach and public events
Public events include inaugural lectures, Pint of Science talks and engaging potential students and parents through campus visits, aspirations events, transition days, study days, summer schools, subject conferences and masterclasses. This year, we launched online activities such as ‘Aston live’ and ‘Pint of Aston’ podcasts.
We reach wider audiences through the Big Bang Fair, Microbiology roadshow at Cheltenham Festival and engage with the media e.g. Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds https://www.channel4.com/programmes/old-peoples-home-for-4-year-olds/on-demand/64374-001
We support refugees through projects including Chance to Change (supporting employment skills), Erasmus+ online linguistic support, academic tuition for IELTS exam and providing Birmingham refugee centre with volunteer English teachers.
Information, advice and guidance is provided to ~160,000 students nationwide per annum by attending higher education conventions, school fairs and university-focused presentations off campus, working with 250+ schools (including Aston University Engineering Academy).
Aston works with AimHigher to engage in postcodes where higher education participation is lowest and leads the ‘Routes into Languages’ project in schools and colleges. This enthuses students to study languages, highlighting international mobility with cultural events, competitions and on-campus language days.
During COVID-19, we provided PPE and hand sanitiser to Birmingham Children’s Hospital, 3D-printed equipment for ENT surgeons, set up a food distribution centre manned by staff and student volunteers, hosted a drive-through testing centre and provided funding for computers to schools https://www2.aston.ac.uk/current-students/health-wellbeing/we-are-together.
Knowledge Exchange examples
Aston’s Centre for Healthy Ageing engages with a panel of 100+ older adults who comment on the research direction as well as receiving newsletters and invitations to take part in research and events. Our recent Healthy Ageing bid (Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund), involved older adults from a variety of ethnic backgrounds via Citizens UK.
UKRI supported Aston University, Aston Villa and Citizens UK to gather information on barriers to accessing eye-health services from 9 community groups. This informed ‘Villa Vision’ where an optometrist supported by students delivers workshops, vision screening and eye tests in local schools. https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2019/09/27/aston-villa-renew-partnership-with-aston-university
Law and Business clinics in the community
CREME supports ethnic minority and migrant businesses through: Inclusive business support ecosystem (ERDF), Rethinking Migrant Entrepreneurship (ESRC), Productivity from below (ESRC), Innovation, Diversity and Supply chains (ESIF), ProPEL hub (ESRC) and set up a local Business Leadership group to provide feedback from ethnic minority businesses to Government and public bodies influencing policy https://www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Unlocking-Opportunity_FSB-Report-.2020.pdf.
Project Rwad helped 50 Syrian refugees become entrepreneurs creating 15 new businesses and ACE engage with refugees to highlight their issues with policy-makers.
‘Crowdsource SuperYeast’ engaged citizens in science and a collaborative application was recently submitted to expand to more citizen science with local BAME groups.
How activities meet the strategy
Volunteering, outreach and open-access facilities support our mission to be a civic university serving our local community.
Our outreach activities, engagement with the media, and the eye-health project have significantly raised the profile of Aston within the community. Applications from local students have risen significantly in the last few years, ~60% of applications coming from the local region. Aston recruits more IMD Q1 students than the sector average (22%). The proportion is growing faster than sector average due to targeted outreach activity.
Through knowledge exchange, our School of Optometry and its spin-out Eyoto https://www.eyoto.com/about/about_eyoto.aspx are making eye tests accessible to deprived communities across the globe and CREME’s work to develop inclusive business support systems is improving performance of 80 Birmingham businesses and scaling-up into other cities.
Aspect 4: Results and learning
Outputs against strategic objectives
Objective 1: To be a civic university serving our local community
Lots of civic activity and a civic university framework is under discussion with partners.
Objective 2: Raise Aston University’s profile in the region to drive student recruitment and assist income diversification
Profile in the region
Our citizens’ survey (400+ face-to-face interviews of 16-64-year olds in Birmingham), showed excellent brand awareness. 96% had heard of Aston University prior to the survey. 51% had a positive view versus 2% negative.
More high quality students from a wider range of groups
In the last 3 years, Aston has increased its diversity of students whilst retaining its quality/access requirements. In 2017/18, 65.4% of the total student population came from an ethnic minority background, compared to a national average of 22%.1 As many universities continue to struggle to open themselves to new demographics, BAME students thrive at Aston.2
Objective 3, Engage local citizens in research, enabling them to contribute, collaborate and coproduce for maximum impact
At least 8 research awards totalling >£1.2M have been secured involving citizens and interest is growing.
Conducting surveys before and after public engagement events has proved an effective method of measuring impact and is being rolled out across Colleges3, 4
CREME/ERC and ACE have influenced the debate on migrants. FT, Migrants drive UK’s fastest-growing companies https://www.ft.com/content/62848754-a2f5-11e9-974c-ad1c6ab5efd1
Building Capacity: Our Director of Regional Strategy attended NCCPE evaluation and impact training in 2020 and is applying those techniques to plan and evaluate projects.
Data: Our Student Recruitment and Outreach group use OfS target and access data to identify areas to focus recruitment and outreach activities.
Public/communities testimonies
The Salvation Army (involved in the eye-health project): ‘’Parents felt these listening sessions were important, and it gave them the feeling that they are finally being listened to.’’
A carehome owner engaging with CREME said “My highlight of this project has been changing my mindset … Natwest … is on our side”. A gym owner said “the course was instrumental in securing funding”.
Aspect 5: Acting on results
Continuous improvement: Aspects of the NCCPE EDGE tool where Aston was embryonic have been improved and are now ‘gripping’ in most categories e.g. introducing Citizens UK training for students and centrally coordinating public engagement in collaboration with the College Associate Deans for Public Engagement providing a really joined up approach.
We are also currently working with Executive on embedding continuous improvement throughout our knowledge exchange activities as part of the Knowledge Exchange Concordat.
As our regional strategy is relatively new and our civic university agreement is still developing, the focus has been on finalising and implementing the strategy. Annual reviews will start next year. As part of the regional impact assessment we surveyed alumni about the effect Aston had on them. This revealed that the Aston-experience broadened their horizons and increased their confidence.
Communications: Within the university, activities are communicated in Aston Connects (weekly e-news), executive communications (weekly e-mail) and to the Executive via Strategic Projects and Executive Engagement groups, to Council through a quarterly report from the Vice-Chancellor.
Market research of citizens in 2019 formed a baseline. Another survey will be conducted when the civic university agreement is in place to assess its impact on the people of Birmingham.
Citizens UK run listening campaigns that inform our research and practice. We also worked with them on the eye-health public engagement project and findings were recorded in a project report (and video, shared on social media/website) which has been sent to project partners (including community groups), policy makers and a range of academics. The findings are shaping new research projects with communities.
Current KPIs
Number of people engaging in events on campus
Number of people engaged in events off campus
Progress towards Access and Participation targets
Number of case studies involving Aston and the community
Number and value of grants secured involving community partners
£s spent per annum on public engagement activities
REF impact case studies scoring 4* involving citizens/community groups
For further information, please send queries to Mark.smith@aston.ac.uk
Aston University Student Equalities Report 2017-18, Aston University Business Objects, 2019; HESA HE student enrolments by personal characteristics 2013/14 to 2017/18.↩︎
HESA HE student enrolments by personal characteristics 2013/14 to 2017/18. ↩︎
- Aston University's Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Roadshow: raising awareness and embedding knowledge of AMR in key stage 4 learners Ahmed, R., et al, 28 Apr 2020, Infection Prevention in Practice.
- The drugs don't work: evaluation of educational theatre to gauge and influence public opinion on antimicrobial resistance Ahmed, R., et al, 1 Feb 2020, In : Journal of Hospital Infection. 104, 2, p. 193-197 5 p.