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Institutional Context
Summary
The University of Suffolk is all about transformation – transforming individuals, our community, our region and beyond. Our mission is to transform lives through education, training, research, business and community engagement. At four years old with over 10,000 students, £72+m turnover and 558 staff members we are a growing University with ambitions to transform our region through knowledge exchange and widening participation.
Based at the Waterfront in Ipswich we are within one of the UK’s fastest growing city economies. As the only University in Suffolk we play a vital role in our community and local economic development.
We collaborate with businesses, our community and economic stakeholders to transform local productivity and workforce development.
Institutional context
The University of Suffolk was originally established as University Campus Suffolk in 2007 and transformed the provision of higher education in Suffolk and beyond. Subsequently on 1st August 2016 the first independent University of Suffolk was officially launched. The story actually stems back to the Tudor period, when Cardinal Wolsey established Cardinal College (now Christ Church College) for which he planned a number of feeder colleges; the main one of which was to be in Ipswich. Some 500 years later Suffolk now has its own University.
The University was created to provide higher education in an area where no higher education existed, by doing so addressing the lack of higher educational attainment in the area. This mission remains our core strength. Through working in partnership with the local public and private sector the University always ensures that its portfolio is relevant and appealing for students and employers alike. This community partnership approach underpins and informs our teaching and learning, research and knowledge exchange.
As one of four key institutional strategies, in 2018 we published our first business engagement strategy.
Working with our business community we developed five areas of distinctiveness to drive our research, focus our knowledge exchange activities and give clarity on our supporting estates, IT and people strategy. These areas are:
Health and Wellbeing, with a focus on integrated care systems
Crime and Social Justice,
Creative and Digital Technologies
Sustainability
History and Heritage
Innovation in pedagogy
Our areas of distinctiveness respond to the needs of our local community and local economic plans, they have driven the development and delivery of significant knowledge exchange projects including:
2016 – The Suffolk Institute for Social and Economic Research (SISER)
2016 - The Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (IWIC), a £5.8 million ICT incubation centre and 3D productivity suite
2019 - The Digitech Centre, a £9.8 million research and engineering knowledge exchange facility at BT’s Adastral Park,
2020 - The Hold, a flagship heritage community facility on campus
In July 2019 the University published an independent economic impact report which showed that in 2017/18; the University generated £103 million Gross Value Added (GVA) and supported 2,270 jobs across the UK. Of this £41 million GVA and 820 jobs were in Ipswich, £56 million GVA and 1,210 jobs were in Suffolk. It is noted in the report that the University is credited for being a catalyst for change in the regeneration of the Ipswich Waterfront; for supporting the delivery of key frontline public services in health and education and for establishing an educational institution that is embedded within the local business community and responsive to its needs.
All our knowledge exchange is underpinned by a commitment to cross cutting themes including leadership and management, equality and diversity and sustainability.
In 2020 we have strengthened our commitment to knowledge exchange with the appointment of a Pro Vice-Chancellor for Business and Entrepreneurship to strategically drive our agenda for knowledge exchange and maximise our impact.
For further information, please send queries to engage@uos.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
Local regeneration and growth are at the heart of our mission to transform lives through education, research and knowledge exchange. We have been a catalyst to the regeneration of the Waterfront in Ipswich, Ipswich itself and the wider county and region.
By 2030 we aim to
Transform local productivity and targeted sectors through skills development, business and job creation, work-based learning, student and graduate entrepreneurship and support for research and innovation
From 2016/2017 to 2019/2020 we have developed our key areas of distinctiveness hand in hand with local plans for growth and regeneration and delivered a number of key knowledge exchange projects to establish a baseline and the necessary infrastructure for which to move forward at pace.
Aspect 1: Strategy
The geographical focus of our approach to local growth and regeneration during this period is within Ipswich, Suffolk and the wider region of the New Anglia Local Economic Partnership (NALEP) with some activity supporting local growth within the broader region of the East of England. The geography of Suffolk represents a predominantly rural base with Ipswich as its key economic centre. The New Anglia LEP covers Norfolk and Suffolk and is home to 1.6 million people, and around 55,000 businesses.
In 2011 there were 54,800 active enterprises in the New Anglia area, equating to 34 businesses per 1,000 residents, on a par with the national average. Three quarters of businesses employ four people or fewer and a fifth of businesses employ between 5 and 20 people. 2019 saw 4,518 new companies registered in the county, compared 4,292 in 2018 - a 5.3% rise. The total number of registered companies in Suffolk rose to 36,907 - up from 35,510 at the end of 2018. The increase equates to 3.9% growth in the number of businesses.
Our five Areas of Distinctiveness were developed recognising that we need to focus our efforts to connect the emerging internal capabilities of the University of Suffolk with five key sectors for growth identified in the NALEP strategic economic plan and the local industrial strategy.
Through our membership of the NALEP Board, Innovation Board, Digital Tech Council, Sector Skills Groups and the Suffolk Growth Programme Board, we are key stakeholders in the development of local strategic economic plans, regularly contributing to consultative exercises and being the higher education ‘voice’ for the region. Similarly, through the University’s business engagement task force, representation from the NALEP, Ipswich Borough Council, Suffolk County Council and the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce informed the development of our first business engagement strategy in 2017/2018. Through this collaboration local growth and regeneration needs are identified and driven forward in partnership.
The local priorities of enhancing productivity and innovation through workforce development, research and innovation underpins our thinking in all our sector focused work and strategies, including learning and teaching, research and business engagement.
A key area of development is our apprenticeship provision since 2017 and the further promotion of social mobility in alignment with our overall mission. This has seen growth in our Health programmes and Digital Technical Solutions enhancing our relationships both with regional NHS Trusts and BT as a key local employer and site of knowledge exchange. This commitment to equality and diversity is further exemplified through our work to support female entrepreneurship within the region and BME businesses over the last three years.
Aspect 2: Activity
In addition to our collaborative approach and partnership funding of activities designed to support local regeneration and growth, the last three academic years have seen institutional investment in business engagement and knowledge to coordinate and grow our impact. The Directorate of Business Engagement & Entrepreneurship was created in June 2018 and based within the Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre to provide the necessary focal point and coordination of activity across Knowledge Exchange, CPD, Enterprise Skills Development/the Games Hub, Higher and Degree Apprenticeships and Alumni & Development, connecting support for employer and business engagement. A Pro Vice-Chancellor for Business and Entrepreneurship has been appointed in April 2020 to drive this agenda further. In kind and cash investment to partnership projects has supported the further development of our knowledge exchange activity in the absence of a HEIF allocation. Going forward we are investing in a team of Business Development Managers to drive forward our Areas of Distinctiveness.
Our key knowledge exchange projects during this period interconnect with our Areas of Distinctiveness and we have invested in them to deliver our strategic objectives, gain critical mass and bring maximum benefit to our local community.
| Area of Distinctiveness/Area of Investment | Key UoS projects 2016 - 2020 | Total Value of Project/S £ | UoS Institutional Investment £ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health and Wellbeing | Integrated Care Academy | £15m | 1.5m |
| Creative &Digital Technologies | Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (IWIC) and Suffolk Centre for Female Entrepreneurship | £5.8 million + £200k 3D productivity suite | £3.7m |
| Digitech Centre | £9.8 million | £613k | |
| Heritage and History | The Hold/Suffolk Records Archive | £20.2m | £1m |
Additional External Grants secured to invest in activity include acting as delivery partner to two ERDF projects within the East of England – Innovation Bridge and KEEP+. We have also been EIRA network partners during this period, working with the Universities of Essex, UEA, Kent, NUA, Writtle and Harlow College to deliver the outputs of the EIRA Connecting Capability Fund including 17 virtual internships with SMEs, R&D grants, Innovation Vouchers and I-Teams/Games Hub events
We are in constant dialogue with our regional SMEs who we view as key stakeholders of our institutional vision through events, collaborative projects and surveys. The University of Suffolk is a patron of the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce, member of the CBI, is represented at Board level and operationally within the NALEP and works continually with the business community to understand the needs of SMEs and larger organisations and respond to those needs through our curriculum, our research and our business engagement activities. We conducted a survey of SMEs via the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce in 2019 to establish their needs in terms of our CPD provision and have designed the programme around their needs.
Aspect 3: Results
During this period our knowledge exchange projects supported productivity, enterprise and innovation across our region. The map below shows the geographical focus of our activities.
Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (IWIC)
The University of Suffolk has been engaged in the delivery of projects drawing on local growth deal funding since 2014. This included leading the partnership that delivered the Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (IWIC). The NALEP was represented on the IWIC steering group, a successful partnership with Suffolk County Council and Ipswich Borough Council which delivered the first innovation centre in Ipswich, the outcomes of which included
79 SMEs taking up IWIC membership
An additional 47 supported through knowledge exchange projects (17 of which were awarded grants).
The IWIC project evaluation report is an example of how we evaluate projects, evidence of the impact of our activities and provides feedback from stakeholders. We have invested in the Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (2016 – present) to provide an incubation and co-working space for ICT SMEs. The IWIC network is an established peer network for SMEs that is managed by the IWIC and includes a series of networking events on topical subjects to strengthen the peer to peer network. We have specialist facilities and a state-of-the-art 3D productivity suite to provide SMEs prototyping facilities reducing the need for in house investment thanks to a £200k capital grant from Ipswich Borough Council in 2019.
The training of IWIC and network members and partners was focused on supporting affordable but high value resources and support enabling business and personal growth. We delivered specialist business support to SMEs and start-ups in the tech sector.
During the period 2016 – 2019:
• 370 training events were hosted and 1226 people trained at the IWIC
• 4,088 people attended a range of activities including networking events.
We are soon to be expanding our provision by launching the Digitech Centre at BT’s R&D headquarters at Adastral park to serve the training and knowledge exchange needs of the SME cluster at Innovation Martlesham.
ERDF and EIRA
Since 2016 we have partnered with other regional Universities (UEA, Essex, Kent, NUA) on ERDF funded projects and with the EIRA partnership led by the University of Essex delivered consultancy, innovation vouchers, student internships and R&D projects with SMEs to improve productivity and support scale up activities.
We were a key delivery partner for the ERDF funded Innovation Bridge (IB) Project aimed at bridging the gap between SMEs and Universities by stimulating new collaborations. The project supported a range of sectors with 58% in three high performing activities contributing to the wealth of the local economy: manufacturing, information and communication and professional, scientific and technical. The University worked with 35 companies to deliver up to twenty hours academic consultancy. This consultancy resulted in the development of a plan for the development of new products and business growth through a combination of triage, mentoring, workshops within the IWIC and dialogue between academic teams and SMEs.
Some examples of these include:
• Mark Sherman, entrepreneur and founder of Temmt Ltd received 12 hours expertise and coaching from an academic with expertise in games and app development. The Innovation Action Plan made recommendations for further development to ensure scalability and as well as the scope of the phased testing approach and subsequent roll out. Mark found the experience invaluable: “I know our business would not be as healthy today without the help and support of IWIC” Mark Sherman.
• Safetyboss (health and safety consultancy and training provider) secured 20 hours of expertise from a senior lecturer with digital expertise: “The University of Suffolk provided fantastic, professional guidance and support to enable us to create in-house, practical 360 videos to improve the interactivity of our health and safety courses. They went above and beyond to provide us with tailored service, dedicated time to focus on our project and even access to equipment to create the content ourselves”
Our results and impacts are communicated and celebrated via our membership of community and economic development groups and our active social media channels for business engagement and the IWIC. Feedback and dialogue with our community is used into inform the development of future collaborative projects as we build our track record, reinvesting in those areas that deliver successful outcomes.
For further information, please send queries to g.jagpal@uos.ac.uk
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
The University of Suffolk is a model for a new type of civic university – embedded, influential and a focus of societal and economic change in the communities it serves. We reach out to communities locally, regionally and nationally to create partnerships that make a real difference and address societal challenges.
Our external engagement is place led and is about exchanging knowledge and enriching cultural life for citizens and business. We are built for the community as well as for our students and staff and we ensure our campus and offer is accessible and a community resource.
Our approach to public and community engagement is articulated through our Vision, our research and business engagement strategies and our Access and Participation Plan.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Our institutional approach to regeneration and growth feeds into our public and community engagement strategy as we develop our focus on six areas of distinctiveness alongside our outreach, access and participation work.
These areas of distinctiveness have been developed in partnership with, and align to, local plans for growth and regeneration and the needs of our communities. These areas are:
Health and Wellbeing
Creative & Digital Technologies
Crime & Social Justice
History & Heritage
Sustainability
Innovation in Pedagogy
Our knowledge exchange framework focusses on developing these areas of distinctiveness and shapes our public and community engagement strategy and activities.
Our Access and Participation Plan (2020-2025) sets our priorities for engaging with the community in order to increase access and participation in higher education. We specifically focus through the APP on activity with people of Black, Asian and Minorities Ethnicities (BAME) and people from geographical areas of economic and social deprivation. These groups have been identified through statistical analysis as being under-represented in higher education. Our approach to this activity is evidence based using research and evaluation from across the sector. The APP is monitored through our committee structure with progress updates to the University’s Executive and Board.
Engagement with our stakeholders features within the annual planning round of our academic Schools with support from our Directorate of External Relations, the Research Office and the Directorate of Business Engagement and Entrepreneurship. Our Alumni team engage with our graduates, many of whom live within the region, delivering alumni mentoring services for our students and contributing to our curriculum.
Looking forward we will be preparing a Civic University agreement to strengthen our external and public engagement strategy work.
Aspect 2: Support
In order to deliver our strategy and approach, teams and roles are accountable for delivery. The Executive/PVC for Business and Entrepreneurship provide strategic leadership whilst members of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) take plans forward through the Directorate of External Relations, the Directorate of Business Engagement & Entrepreneurship and the Research Office. Within each of our academic Schools there is an Associate Dean for Business Engagement and an Associate Dean for Research (new posts for 2018/19) with leadership responsibility at the level of academic Schools to drive forward the engagement agenda. Course boards have representation from business/practice informing the curriculum and our Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) drives the embedding of enterprise and employability in the curriculum across Schools.
Governance
Our community play a role in our governance structures too with representation from external community groups on our Board, our Equality and Diversity Committee, our Foundation Board and at Course Committee level.
Organisational Development, recognition and reward
In 2018/19 we delivered a two-day business engagement training session with a focus on networking, pitching and engaging with external stakeholders for academic and professional services staff. Other CPD sessions held include Consultancy skills for researchers, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and Introduction to Intellectual Property. Academic staff are encouraged to contribute to and attend our popular Quay to Growth Business Breakfasts with the business community where key connections are made and developed. The events of the Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre provide CPD and networking opportunities for staff including sessions on project management and setting up your own business. The learning opportunities available are enhanced by most events being suitable for both academic staff and external visitors.
Business engagement forms part of the progression criteria for academic staff with evidence of community impact sought alongside testimonials from partners and leaders in the relevant field.
Social Media Presence
The Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre and the Directorate of Business Engagement uses social media to engage our community further through accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We have a good stakeholder following (over 4000 followers) on all these accounts and regularly monitor popularity of posts and events to inform future delivery.
Aspect 3: Activity
The focus of our approach has been to support and widen access to HE, our research and business engagement activities are designed to meet with the specific needs of our local public and community groups and key stakeholders whilst also exploring new areas of innovation.
Outreach
We offer support to teachers and the wider community in accessing the University and engaging with higher education in general, providing training opportunities through an annual teachers’ conference and as members of local networks relating to Careers and Education information. We support staff to take on roles as school governors and offer support to organisations that work with specific groups, including young people in Local Authority Care, refugees and asylum seekers, young people with disabilities. This is delivered through workshops, training and 1:1 guidance from our student recruitment and outreach team. We welcome 800-1000 young people on campus each year to access workshops, summer schools and family awareness events. We work closely with Ipswich Suffolk Council for Racial Equality (ISCRE) and commissioned them to do research into engagement with the BAME communities in Suffolk. Many of our staff are members of community groups. Examples include representation on the Board of the Ipswich Opportunity Area supporting social mobility, Ipswich Vision, IConnect, and Ipswich Roma Inclusion Support (IRIS).
Our Open Lecture Series is a high quality events programme featuring world renowned speakers, showcasing academic excellence both inside and outside the University. The events include conversations with lectures by experts across a wide range of disciplines. In 2019/20 we ran six Open Lectures with 603 attendees, the majority of which were from the local community.
Research and business engagement
Our research and business engagement activities and the Areas of Distinctiveness have a strong public engagement focus. The needs of our communities are identified and acted upon through our membership of many local economic stakeholder and community groups including those specified above, the Board and sub-groups of the New Anglia Local Economic Partnership, the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce, the Suffolk Growth Programme Board and the New Anglia Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering (NAAME) group.
The work of our Suffolk Centre for Social and Economic Research (SISER) has engaged the public and community through a number of impactful events as articulated within the annual report for 2019.
Although new to Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, our first KTP with ‘Orbital Media’ was ranked ‘outstanding’ and led to the development of the ‘MySpira’ app, revolutionary augmented reality asthma training app. This initiative has received widespread coverage leading to the nomination for a number of awards and featuring on the BBC Click programme.
A major project (June 2018 – Feb 2020) was the 100CC/Connected Together project (a consortium project funded by Innovate UK) which assisted SME partners through usability work in improving the software and hardware solutions aimed at combating the social isolation and lack of digital skills of elderly and vulnerable people. Consequently both SME partners were able to deploy their products to support a number of local government authorities in assisting vulnerable citizens in accessing essential services during the current pandemic. In Suffolk, Bronze Software Labs deployed their TRIBE Volunteer app for Suffolk County Council connecting those with needs with appropriate volunteers.
In March 2020 a conference showcasing the research output took place. Funded by Research England’s Strategic Priorities Fund the conference brought together academics, policymakers, commissioners, public sector organisations and the charity sector.
The Directorate of Business Engagement has run 65 events from 2016 - 2020 engaging businesses and individuals with topics related to business growth and innovation. The Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre has run a number of community events engaging high profile speakers to engage women in enterprise and gaming. During the current pandemic the University has delivered a https://www.uos.ac.uk/content/we-are-together-business‘Together with Business’ programme to support economic and individual recovery and resilience which has extended the reach and impact of our business engagement and resulted in further innovation in delivery. Looking forward we are developing industry advisory boards associated with our Schools and areas of distinctiveness and recruiting a team of business development managers to facilitate further engagement with our key sectors for growth and impact.
We have a strong social media presence across a number of accounts enabling us to engage with our community and maintain a dialogue. We monitor our impact and reach through a quarterly digital content report. In 2018 we were shortlisted for a social media award for our Faces of Suffolk campaign.
Aspect 4: Results and learning
From our launch in 2016 we have been continuously refining and refocusing our engagement activities through the development of our Areas of Distinctiveness. Key learning has been a need for a more targeted approach in our public engagement and focus on what we can deliver effectively in alignment with our Access and Participation plan and local economic plans including the local industrial strategy.
Through our membership of the NALEP Board, Innovation Board, Digital Tech Council, Sector Skills Groups, Ipswich Vision Board and the Suffolk Growth Programme Board, we are key stakeholders in the development of local strategic economic plans. This active engagement means that we are continuously sharing and receiving information to develop projects that are meaningful and impactful to our communities. As with any good action learning cycle our activities are reviewed continuously to inform plans for the future.
The community of which we are a part of is learning and moving together with a shared purpose to transform lives. This journey has been strengthened by the year on year enhanced institutional investment in the support and necessary infrastructure to deliver on our ambitions.
We continue to evaluate our activities at project level – for example the outcomes of the Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre and at institutional level through our strategic planning process and evidence informed decision making. We commissioned an independent economic impact report in July 2019 to support our understanding of the impact we had to date and to inform our future direction. This showed in 2017/18 the University generated £103 million Gross Value Added (GVA) and supported 2,270 jobs across the UK. Of this £41 million GVA and 820 jobs were in Ipswich, £56 million GVA and 1,210 jobs were in Suffolk. It is noted in the report that the University is credited for being a catalyst for change in the regeneration of the Ipswich Waterfront; for supporting the delivery of key frontline public services in health and education and for establishing an educational institution that is embedded within the local business community and responsive to its needs.
The results of our evaluation of outreach activity is shared directly with stakeholders, including teachers and community groups, as part of our regular engagement with them.
Our key knowledge exchange projects and future plans are informed directly by the results of our planning and learning to date. The key projects below take forward our Areas of Distinctiveness and are a direct result of learning from an increasingly refined approach to public and community engagement.
2016 – The Suffolk Institute for Social and Economic Research (SISER)
2016 - The Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre (IWIC), a £5.8 million ICT incubation centre and 3D productivity suite
2019 - The Digitech Centre, a £9.8 million research and engineering knowledge exchange facility at BT’s Adastral Park,
2020 - The Hold, a flagship heritage community facility on campus
Aspect 5: Acting on results
The University holds an Annual Court to communicate to key stakeholder business and community groups the outcomes and impact of our strategic direction and key knowledge exchange projects with annual reviews and a regular University newsletter communicating key outcomes to staff, students and stakeholders. The Ipswich Waterfront Innovation Centre newsletter is sent to our network quarterly to inform businesses and external organisations of events and activities for engagement.
Feedback is sought through our engagement with community and economic development groups and used to refine the focus of our areas of distinctiveness. This feedback is kept under review via the internal Business Engagement and Entrepreneurship Group (BEEG), informing the annual review of strategies and business plans for Schools and Professional Services. KPIs are set within the planning round and within our key institutional strategies. For example, alumni engagement and student engagement with enterprise opportunities is monitored via the monitoring of our business engagement strategy.
For further information, please send queries to g.jagpal@uos.ac.uk