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Institutional Context
Summary
The University of Exeter is a Russell Group research-intensive University, rated gold for teaching, located on five campuses across Devon and Cornwall. We have highly-rated research and teaching programmes and a vibrant community of 23,600 students (20/21).
We provide R&D, skills and growth solutions with a total value of £65M for organisations from start-ups and SMEs, to multi-nationals, NGOs and government agencies. Each year we work with partners on over 2,000 projects of various sizes across key sectors where we have relevant expertise and engaged academic staff.
Our business acceleration services are delivered with SETsquared, the World’s number 1 University Business incubator and with Exeter Science Park. We have 20 active academic–led spin-outs and annually support 1,500 student entrepreneurs.
Institutional context
UoE’s Business Engagement Strategy positions the University as a global 100 research leader at the heart of a thriving regional innovation ecosystem, delivering benefits to society and the economy. Each year, 400 academics work with partners on 2,000 projects, valued at £65M. Our approach to working with partners is shown here.
We pro-actively engage with the public and private sectors in areas such as water, agritech, aquatech, govtech, legal, education, renewable energy, advanced engineering, data and Artificial Intelligence, dementia, heritage, creative industries, and healthy living. 25 industrial/ innovation fellows are dedicated to working with partners and a professional Innovation, Impact and Business Department support these sectors.
Our priority is to deliver transformational partnerships that address global challenges, provide innovative solutions aligned to national priorities, regional development and economic growth. We work closely with policy makers, shaping regional, national and international policy agendas.
We share facilities on campus with South West Water, Shell, Victrex, and Astra Zeneca. Other strategic partnerships include IBM, BMT, BT, DSTL, QinetiQ, Syngenta, Babcock and CEFAS and the Satellite Applications Catapult. Our partnership with Shell Biodomain has led to £18M of research programmes in the Shell Bioeconomy Laboratory. Collaborations exist with many regional bodies including the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Eden Project. Our College of Medicine and Health works closely with the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust to design and deliver high-quality and efficient multi-centre clinical trials.
Our key relationship with the UK MET Office, involves 20 joint posts and collaborations (£40M) making Exeter one of the world’s most significant centres for climate research. The Joint Centre for Excellence in Environmental Intelligence (2020) will exploit the explosion in environmental data and rapid advancements in AI, creating solutions to some of the most important challenges facing society.
We have strong partnerships with universities - GW4 Alliance on research and KE, SETsquared on enterprise, and regional universities for economic growth. Partnerships with international HEIs shape our global outlook and include the University of Queensland (QUEX Institute), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (the CUHK–UoE Joint Centre for Environmental Sustainability and Resilience), and Tsinghua University.
Our network of institutes and centres provide impactful multi-discipline approaches to supporting collaborative partnerships at global, national and regional level, including the Institute for Data Science and AI, the Living Systems Institute, the Global Systems Institute and the Environment and Sustainability Institute.
UoE has spun out 11 businesses since 2014, with 20 in the current portfolio and two major exits. Our spin-outs and IP opportunities are listed here. We manage an annual cohort of 1,500 student entrepreneurs, which in 20/21 will see 175 UG and PG students entering our new incubator programme.
We are the leading Russell Group provider of degree apprenticeship programmes and attract major national partners who include JP Morgan, the Bank of England, IBM and the BBC. We are the leading provider of KTPs in the SW region. Our employability service provides opportunities for extensive student placements and the Professional Pathways programme provides a unique approach to internships.
For further information, please send queries to R.Stansfield@exeter.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
Delivering regional impact and local growth through our research and innovation, teaching and enterprise activities is a priority for Exeter. Over the past five years, working with our partners, we have shaped regional growth agendas, provided expertise and evidence, aligned our strengths to meet regional needs, and shaped a regional focus on Clean Growth innovation. The region’s largely SME base, low levels of productivity/innovation, and low levels of participation in HE, demand a specific response. We address these challenges through: investing in R&D activity to support innovation in key sectors; providing enterprise support for start-ups and scale ups, through SETsquared Exeter; and, talent creation through the skills escalator approach, a significant Degree Apprenticeship offer and graduate placements and recruitment.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Our region encompasses the geography of the Great South West (i.e. Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset), an area with world class natural capital, significant quality of life and an economy that is worth £64.4B. Characterised by its visitor economy, it has strengths in defence/security, marine, photonics, environmental intelligence, nuclear, aerospace, advanced engineering, digital, agritech, food and drink production. It is home to the largest infrastructure project in Europe at Hinkley Point, Europe’s first horizontal launch Spaceport in Cornwall, and one of the UK’s largest military establishments, in Plymouth.
A peripheral region, it lacks resilience, with poor transport infrastructure. It contains some of the UKs most deprived wards, has low productivity, low wages, and an ageing population. R&D spend is half that nationally; business expenditure on R&D is 38% of the national average; and productivity is at 83% of the national average.
Represented on the Boards and committees of the Heart of the South West (HotSW) and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly (CIoS) LEPs, we provide leadership in developing strategy, providing intelligence, and identifying priorities in R&D and skills. Local Industrial Strategies have benefitted from significant University involvement, including evidence collation, co-creating strategies to strengthen the economy, harnessing our research power and talent. We are leading the new Innovation Board in HotSW, reviewing the innovation and enterprise ecosystem for the HotSW LEP, and developing a new Innovation Strategy for the LEP (Jan 2021).
Our largest campus is in Exeter where we have a close relationship with the City, producing the Greater Exeter Industrial Strategy. We are part of the Liveable Exeter Place Group and a partner in Exeter City Futures, supporting the Net Zero Carbon agenda, in addition to a range of City based projects linked to social outcomes. Our Arts and Culture Strategy enhances the social, cultural and economic development of the region, and we have developed the Exeter Culture Strategy with stakeholders including the City Council, leading to Exeter being recognised as a UNESCO City of Culture for its literature.
We also work to accelerate the growth of a thriving knowledge economy in our region and as partner in the Exeter Science Park, offering incubation, business acceleration and scale up services to businesses via SETsquared Exeter.
The Marchmont Observatory provides economic analysis and support with strategic planning for local growth partners, including the LEPs, Skills Advisory Panel and Innovation Board, making us a leading provider of such intelligence.
Our Environmental Sustainability Institute, Global Systems Institute and Centre for Energy and the Environment provide evidence for local authorities and strategic partners on climate emergency and environmental strategies linked to local growth. Our South West Partnership for Environment and Economic Prosperity (SWEEP) project generates benefits for businesses, policymakers and communities in relation to the natural capital on which our prosperity depends. The Great South West region has developed a new prospectus for Inclusive and Clean Growth in collaboration with the University.
Our strategic approach to local growth, is overseen by our Regional Strategy Group (chaired by the University’s Provost) and implemented by a Director of Regional Engagement. A new Regional Engagement Strategy is underway linked to a series of Civic University Agreements with Cornwall, Devon and Exeter City, for which we are currently conducting a needs assessment. We aim to deepen our regional strategic partnerships and co-create an action plan linked to COVID 19 recovery.
The Regional Engagement Strategy supports the delivery of the corporate and sovereign strategies of the University and closely aligns with the Business Engagement, Arts and Culture, Widening Participation, Regional Skills, and Community Engagement Strategies. Our strategic approach aligns our research, innovation and talent to regional strengths and opportunity, creating globally significant assets and networks of thriving high-growth businesses. Large scale University-led projects and initiatives are linked to key sectors: marine, environmental intelligence, aerospace, space and health as well as initiatives for skills and talent retention linked to these sectors, set out in our Regional Skills Strategy.
Figure 1. Regional Engagement Strategy Seven Engagement Goals
Aspect 2: Activity
To deliver our strategic goals and regional impact we have developed an extensive programme of strategic projects in research, development, innovation, skills, culture and civic arenas.
Research, Development and Innovation - a network of six Research, Development and Innovation Hubs (R,D&I Hubs) linked to strategic sectors aims to solve industry problems. Each coordinates a network of sector businesses, supported by industrial research fellows (led by key academics) with access to challenge funding. These Hubs (ESIF funding £27.56M with a further £9.5M to be invested to 2022) are led by the University and delivered in partnership with other regional R&D organisations to support innovative businesses.
Our leadership of Marine- I, Environmental Futures and Big Data Impact Lab, South West Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications, TEVI, Smartline and The Inclusivity Project, is enabled by collaboration with the Met Office, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Rothamstead Research and the Universities of Plymouth and Falmouth.
We have a number of transformational proposals to strengthen the region’s impressive assets – the Environmental Intelligence Accelerator and the Industrial Digital Technology Hub for which we are seeking funding. A successful £32M UK RPIF project has been established with South West Water to build a national Centre for Resilience in Environment Water and Waste.
This is further supported by University-led cluster development activities including a new SW Defence and Security Cluster, MARI UK SW, a new creative sector grouping and a new Food Hub.
Exeter’s R, D and I Hub Model
Enterprise
Supported by Santander, our successful student start-up programme engages over 1,500 participants annually, a new Centre for Entrepreneurship enables any Exeter student to develop a “proficiency in entrepreneurship” and a new facility, “The Deck”, encourages student start-ups remain in the SW.
We have invested £3M into a unique partnership with Exeter Science Park, which will provide funding for the innovation services delivered through the SETsquared Exeter for the next decade and beyond.
A new University Enterprise Zone has secured £800,000 funding which we hope to extend through and new ERDF bid. We are attracting new high growth enterprises, supporting new founders and developing a hub and node arrangement to support remote rural businesses.
Skills and Talent Retention
The University’s Regional Skills Strategy ensures a focus on widening participation, strategic skills for the region, entrepreneurship skills, degree apprenticeships and CPD. We have developed a Skills Escalator approach in Exeter (Figure 2), focusing on data analytics (see below) an approach since adopted by the LEP for its Local Industrial Strategy, and have led on the establishment of the South West Institute of Technology, a £25M initiative involving the Universities and FE colleges in HotSW and Cornwall, delivering digital and advanced manufacturing training to meet employer needs. We are now seeking to replicate this with the health and social care sector in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. Our Degree Apprenticeship team is delivering 1150 apprenticeships and working with 58 employers in the region.
Figure 2. Skills Escalator approach
Civic Development
MoUs are underway with the South West Federation of Museums, Cornwall Museum Partnership, Exeter Cathedral, Powderham Castle and the RAMM. Outputs include employability initiatives, joint bids and shared programmes of work and advocacy. We are partners in the EUniversities network to build on best practice in civic working across Europe.
Since 2017 the University has partnered in regional regeneration projects worth £154.4M, has invested £5.5M in regional regeneration projects leveraging ESIF investment of £28.8M. This investment in regional regeneration enables us to support 750 regional innovation-driven businesses. These projects (including R, D and I Hubs) have met or exceeded their targets working with SMEs and are being extended through to 2022. We have also become the leading University in the SW region for KTP programmes. The University has invested £3.25M since 2017 to fund its regional work on skills, enterprise, innovation and intelligence.
UoE partners with the universities of Bristol, Bath and Cardiff through the GW4 Alliance which focuses on a collective approach to large-scale research initiatives and doctoral training, many involving regional organisations. Established in 2015, GW4 has invested over £4.6M in research, training and world class facilities. Over £2.8M has been invested in 87 collaborative research communities, addressing major global and industrial challenges which have leveraged £37M in research income.
Aspect 3: Results
Our Regional Engagement Strategy Webpages, include case studies and materials for regional partners. We have a regional communications plan, soon to launch a new Partnerships for Progress campaign targeting SMEs and community partners.
We disseminate evidence and impact through presentations to sector bodies, business organisations and community partners in the region. We publish evaluations and case studies. We regularly review practice to draw lessons from projects through our Lessons Learned Group and review performance through our ESIF Risk and Compliance Group and Regional Strategy Group. This has enabled us to review the impact of our R, D & I Hubs in supporting innovation.
We have several strategic outcome measures, collected through our HEIF reporting and reporting for our regional projects. These include Business Expenditure on R&D (BERD) at the University of Exeter rose by 28% year on year compared with national growth of 5.5%. The University therefore attracts business R&D funding into the region at a faster rate than nationally.
In 2017-19 University of Exeter-supported student start-ups and academic spin-outs represented 2.4% of all start-ups/spin-outs in the Exeter city region. We work with 1,500 students per year through our programmes, and in 2020/21 delivered training in entrepreneurship through the new Centre for Entrepreneurship, delivering new degrees badged “with proficiency in entrepreneurship”.
Our SETsquared Exeter programme has helped businesses in the Exeter area generate over £50M of equity investment and 150 new jobs.
Exeter Science Park Ltd, Open Innovation Building report, 2019
By 2018, SETsquared Exeter clients had raised £59.7M investment. The University itself has spun out over 20 businesses and supported over 100 student start-ups since 2014.
The University is the leading Russell Group provider of Degree Apprentices with a total of 1,150 apprentices in learning in 20/21 with 52% of learners based in Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Avon, Somerset. One of the largest local employers supported by this provision is the NHS. Our South West Institute of Technology has already exceeded recruitment targets for new data analytics students.
The University has substantially contributed to the growth of the region and the City of Exeter, which is currently the 6th fastest growing city in the UK by population, and has the lowest proportion of population with no qualifications in the country. The % of people in Exeter with level 4 and above qualifications is 30% more than the UK and Devon average and ranks in the top third of UK cities.
The Tech Nation (2018) reported over 10,000 jobs in digital tech in Exeter up 47% between 2014-17. Employment in knowledge intensive sectors is now 20% higher in Exeter than the UK average. Exeter is ranked 14th out of the 63 largest towns and cities for the number of patent applications per 100,000 people (16.59), up from 32nd with 11.61 in 2019.
Exeter’s productivity is 20 points ahead of the average for Devon and Cornwall and its GVA growth is 150% higher than the Heart of the South West LEP as a whole, excluding Exeter. Exeter now has the 2nd highest net in-commuting of any town or city in England or Wales after Cambridge.
In 2016 the University generated £1.17B in economic output across the UK (£540M of economic output in Exeter and £75M of economic output in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly) and supported 11,430 FTE jobs in the South West.
To assess the impact and the benefits of our continued engagement with regional business intermediaries we undertake an annual online survey. This measures our partners’ perceptions of their interactions with the University over the last 12 months.
The 2019 Stakeholder survey was sent to 132 organisations/networks and 87 replies were received from 68 different organisations. 98% thought the University’s role in supporting innovation and business, as well as social and economic growth was important; 84% that it was substantially important with 25% rating the University as ‘extremely’ important.
For further information, please send queries to chris.evans@exeter.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
Public and community engagement are central to Exeter culture. We have a distinguished record in this space, especially in incorporating public perspectives into research impacting health and wellbeing. Over the past three years we have focused on increasing the volume and quality of activity; providing greater support and strategic leadership; and working with more diverse publics, including our regional urban, rural and coastal communities. We have made significant progress in working with the public and communities outside the University to better understand their needs. We have invested heavily in our centres of excellence, as well as in building capacity for future engagement, especially among our early-career researchers.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Public and community engagement (P&CE) is central to the culture of research, impact and education here, and has been the subject of renewed strategic leadership across the institution during the past three years. P&CE cuts across the main institutional sovereign (Research&Impact; Education; Global) and supporting strategies, gaining greater status since 2018 in strategy refreshes and separate strategic initiatives. A Public Engagement Strategic Advisory Group (PEG), established in 2017, oversees a Public Engagement with Research (PER) strategy and implementation plan (2019). PEG aligns with the work of our Community Engagement Strategy (2018-2020), our Civic University Agreement (CUA) working group (active in 2018/19), Regional Strategy Group (RSG) and CUAs with Exeter, Devon and Cornwall. Our new Regional Engagement Strategy (RES), currently in consultation phase will be launched in 2021, drawing these different strands of activity together and enhancing our community-centred approach.
These groups have led our strategic thinking through identification of, and wide-spread consultation with, our local, national and international partners serving publics and communities, as well as directly with public stakeholders (§Aspect3). These listening activities have told us, for instance, that activities between the University and the public could benefit from being more strategically coordinated and communicated. We have responded to our local stakeholders in developing our strategies: e.g. our objective to make KE opportunities more visible and accessible to all communities, including those in rural Devon and Cornwall (RESGoal-2) and increase awareness of PER, its benefits, and the University’s commitment to it across the entire institution and strategies (PERstrategy-Obj.1). Our PER strategy was also informed by an NCCPE's EDGE Tool self-assessment which identified priority areas for development as Communications, Support, Learning and Public (§Aspect2, §Aspect 5).
PEG and RSG include colleagues from our six colleges and professional service (PS) directorates, across our four campuses (PEG membership comprises 14 academic and 11 PS; RSG 14 PS), with crossover membership to ensure joining up. We ensure our strategic objectives are co-created with our external partners and reflect their priorities and needs; e.g. we have established the PEG External Members Group and are developing a Community Panel, which comprises members of local communities and organisations. Our senior academic and professional service managers with responsibility for P&CE have included: Director of Research Services; Director of Impact, Innovation and Business; Director of Regional Engagement; DVC for Research and Impact; DVC for External Engagement; and University Registrar.
Over this period, PEG’s budget, including dedicated central PER support, totals £250k and RSG’s totals £3.25M. The total resource dedicated to P&CE is higher within our matrix environment (§Aspect2): e.g. PEG’s strategic work is supported by the Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF) and MRC in staff time and grant funds (§Aspect2).
Aspect 2: Support
In this period, a rigorous approach has supported P&CE activity towards our strategic aims. For 2019-20, our PER implementation plan has prioritised three support-related objectives:
equipping staff to conduct high quality PER;
co-ordinating opportunities for PER;
ensuring excellence is recognised and rewarded.
Dedicated P&CE support has increased to 5.0 FTE across a matrix structure, with central support staff working with experts across our PS and academic divisions (Obj.1).
Diagram: support for P&CE across the University, September 2017-October 2020.
Our ever-growing Impact and Engaged Research Network (300+ members) is a community of practice to share knowledge, undertake training, and network (Obj.1, Obj.3). Since 2017, 39 early-career researchers have benefitted from the Engaged Research Exploratory Award, an annual scheme (total £95,400) to develop and embed engagement skills and build relationships with non-academic partners, with additional funding from Wellcome Trust’s ISSF in 2019-2020 of £12,300 (Obj.1, Obj.2).
Our continuously updated Research Toolkit and dedicated training provision provide comprehensive support and guidance for planning and doing C&PE, including updates for engagement during Covid-19 (Obj.1). Support staff deliver dedicated research development courses and bespoke training across the colleges including our Doctoral College, and facilitate access to external opportunities. For instance, four ECRs have attended the NCCPE Engage Academy and 56 doctoral students have participated in The Brilliant Club programme, which increases the number of pupils from underrepresented backgrounds progressing to university (Obj.1).
In 2019, our inaugural annual P&CE conference, The Exchange (postponed for 2020), was attended by 80 delegates, from the community and University. It raised the visibility of P&CE and allowed community-university to share the benefits and challenges of this work in our localised context (Obj.3, Obj.4). Members of the public also hold formal advisory and governance roles which support P&CE (§Aspect1), e.g. our PEG external members helped redesign our PER webpages to ensure language, information and resources meet public needs (§Aspect4, §Aspect5).
Finally, revisions to the academic job descriptions in 2019 have provided clearer recognition and reward of P&CE (Obj. 3). In February 2020 we introduced a prize scheme (delayed due to Covid-19) to celebrate staff across the University who support and deliver high quality and inspiring P&CE (Obj.3).
Aspect 3: Activity
We encourage P&CE across all disciplines. Our audit of this reporting period has revealed P&CE featured in 506 awards across our portfolio (total £44.2M). Of these, 70 projects (total £13.9M) - including three of UKRI’s Place and Citizen Science awards (2019) - included significant KE with publics. Institution-wide mapping shows sustained excellence in medicine and health, with other significant strengths in the social sciences and humanities. The outcomes of activity in terms of meeting the identified needs of public and community groups is addressed in Aspect4.
The University has invested in four interdisciplinary institutes dedicated to tackling significant world challenges, each with a commitment to P&CE, examples among which are:
The Environment and Sustainability Institute engages with publics to develop local nature-based climate mitigation tools and to understand their impacts on communities’ health and well-being. Growing Communities Through Nature (2019) is a UKRI-funded action research project, in which 96 members of three deprived Cornish communities participated in co-designing improvements to their local open spaces.
The Global Systems Institute operates a Global Citizens’ Engagement Network to sense-check its activities for their salience to citizens and lay sustainability practitioners. A leading project involves the design of a Net Zero Citizen's Assembly with Devon County Council and the Devon Climate Emergency Response Group.
Many research centres have excellence in P&CE. These include the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health (2017-present), which is committed to ensuring 'no individuals, groups or sectors of society are excluded from possible collaboration and engagement' with its research. Pivotal is the Connecting Communities [C2] Programme (2002-present), a transformational approach which has empowered UK partnerships between communities and local services to co-create conditions for health and wellbeing. Also, the Cultural Contexts of Health (CCH) programme (2015-2020), a WHO Collaborating Centre, has facilitated citizens to voice concerns to international policymakers across Europe in order to incorporate cultural perspectives into health programmes.
Our work in Public and Patient Involvement (PPI) is nationally leading, and numerous groups with a variety of lived experiences make crucial contributions to our medical research. For instance, the Peninsula Public Involvement Group (PenPIG), attached to the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration South West Peninsula (PenARC), comprises patients, service users and carers with associate University status: patient perspectives are at the forefront of research, e.g. by advising on grant applications related to the successful heart rehabilitation programme.
Our Humanities research increasingly incorporates knowledge-exchange with communities, e.g. the Wellcome-funded Transformations project (2018-2021) tackles disempowerment of young trans and gender diverse people through the co-production of new knowledge on LGBTQ history.
Since 2017, we have grown KE activity between students and publics: our Community Law Clinic provides free legal services for the public (150 clients in 2019/20); our flagship Grand Challenges programme has supported students to design innovative solutions to real world challenges, often aligning with local agendas.
Aspect 4: Results and learning
Enhancing how we evidence and learn from the success of our P&CE activity has been a priority for us. Given the diversity of activity that falls under P&CE we have a set of indicative measures to evaluate successful progress in widening P&CE activity (Obj.2), through strengthening our support structures (§Aspect2). For instance, 64 of our 130 draft Impact Case Studies for REF2021 include P&CE; our Engaged Research award holders (2017-2019) have leveraged a further £4.6M in funding; and the ISSF funded Translational Research Exchange @ Exeter included P&CE in all of its “seed corn” research grants awarded, with expenditure on P&CE nearly quadrupling between 2016 and 2020 (increasing from £6k to £21k)
Our rigorous evaluation of P&CE outcomes has revealed the impact of our key activities (§Aspect3). We have been meeting our strategic objectives to deliver benefits for all involved (PER strategy Principles) and to respond to local priorities and the needs of wider society (RES Goal 2). Examples include:
Endorsement of the Connecting Communities approach by NICE;
Community co-production of knowledge improving access to jobs and decreasing loneliness and isolation for Cornish communities;
WHO CCH citizen engagement programme improving guidance for European practitioners by filling critical gaps around early life trauma;
Transformations project significantly increasing confidence and pride in identity for South West trans youth;
Grand Challenges listening project with older people leading to students feeding into an NHS consultation on mental health in older age.
We have supported the development of disciplinary and contextually-specific evaluation including building skills in evidencing benefits to publics and researchers, as well as evaluating process. We have a wealth of relevant expertise across the institution, e.g. our researchers who specialise in the evaluation of public involvement in health.
We support reflection and sharing of learning across the institution and externally, to continuously improve the quality of our P&CE, including in the area of ethical and equitable P&CE. Evidence of this is a 2018 Wellcome-funded project that brought together inter-disciplinary academics, professional services experts, and external partners, to co-produce a shared approach to understanding the micro-dynamics of community engagement.
Aspect 5: Acting on results
Continuous improvement underpins the management and governance of P&CE here. PEG monitors, evaluates and reports annually on success towards strategic goals and progress on implementation plans, to the University's Research and Impact Executive Group, chaired by the DVC Research. Our external members monitor PEG’s work and help us to learn how our activities improve the relationship between publics and our University. The EDGE Tool is used to benchmark progress (§Aspect1). In 2019, a year after implementing the PER strategy, evidence of improvement in Support, Staff and Public is evident, however our position remained 'gripping' overall. In 2020 we completed audits of P&CE activity across the institution; an evaluation of the process and outcomes of our Engaged Research awards (§Aspect2); and mapped Covid-19-related activity (seven initiatives). From these exercises, a much clearer view of some of the critical issues to address, which we are reviewing to meet our strategic aims.
We have built capacity in P&CE activity but need more leaders; we have ensured that recognition and reward systems are in place and look to their wider utilisation; and we have cross-disciplinary coverage and clear pockets of excellence (§Aspect3) but seek to diversify further, including building on high-quality activity within Engineering and the Physical Sciences. There are specific disciplinary challenges to overcome and have commenced a comprehensive review of our training provision, with a view to developing more context-specific support.
Finally, we recognise a need for greater diversity among the communities with which we engage. Of the 64 P&CE REF2021 Impact Case Studies, three projects target working-class communities, two LGBT+ communities, two BAME communities, two religious minority communities, and one families with children with disabilities. To extend this work and foster real change, PEG’s initiatives include working to ensure diverse representation on the advisory groups which provide strategic leadership for our investments in P&CE.
We have multiple routes to disseminate results and achieve our strategic aim of making the results of our P&CE more visible (§Aspect1). Internally, this includes our IER network, internal staff bulletins, intranet and events (e.g. The Exchange, §Aspect2). Beyond interaction at individual project level with publics and community stakeholders, we engage externally through an extremely active programme of public events (much of which has continued virtually during lockdown), external webpages, social media, various newsletters, and the regional and national press.
For further information, please send queries to grace.williams@exeter.ac.uk