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Our Community University Partnership Programme

Community-university partnerships make a difference. They enrich teaching and the student experience, offer innovative ways of engaging communities with research, and provide tangible benefits for local people.

The award-winning Community University Partnership Programme (CUPP) has for two decades supported a series of co-designed projects with local communities that have led to many long-term strategic alliances.

Our two flagship programmes are Brains at the Bevy and the Ignite community-university partnership programme.

CUPP is an outstanding example of how we think learning has to happen in the twenty-first century. It’s challenging the traditionally accepted view that knowing is held by the university and applying is held by the community. It’s a learning partnership."  

Prof Etienne Wenger-Trayner, co-founder of the communities of practice concept.

Brains at the Bevy

The award-winning Brains at the Bevy programme is a unique collaboration between the university and an urban community-owned pub.

Since it started in 2016, hundreds of people have attended the programmes drawn by the engaging and topical talks on subjects ranging from the energy crisis to seaside gentrification. The academic often gives the talk in collaboration with an expert speaker from the community and the informality of the venue encourages debate and discussion amongst the audience.

One audience member summed it up: “Brilliant talk, great place – really inclusive, engaging and inspiring atmosphere”. The talks are free and open to all; we just ask you to book in advance.

Find out more about our award-winning ‘Brains at the Bevy’ programme.

Ignite - seed-funding of partnerships that grow

Ignite is our flagship institutional programme that supports the development of new or existing community-university partnership projects. It is a fast-track programme underpinned by seed funding, co-production, one-to-one support, and knowledge sharing.

Given how busy community partners and researchers are, Ignite programmes are focused on supporting co-produced projects that can be delivered over weeks and months, not years. So far, we have seen some outstanding results including a booklet for parents to support the mental health of young children to securing £250k+ for research into marine pollutants and being featured on the BBC’s The One Show and Countryfile.

One iteration of the programme alone resulted in 18 community and university partners engaging, in under six months, with more than 350 key stakeholders across five countries: UK, Italy, Greece, South Africa and Egypt.

Find out more about our Ignite partnerships.

Community engagement

Archives and collections

There are all-year-round opportunities for the public to engage with the university's cultural provision for the community.

Design Archives

The Design Archives holds world-class collections documenting British design and global design organisations. The team curates a dynamic programme linking content, enquiry and practice through to public engagement activities including exhibitions, events, digital resources and collaborations.

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Screen Archive South East

Screen Archive South East, a moving image collection, offers a distinct historical portrait of life across our region: everything from the development of our seaside towns, to rural village and agricultural life. The archive collects, preserves, researches and provides access to screen material related to the South East region of England.

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Events

The university hosts regular participatory events, either through inviting the public onto its campuses or taking its work into other venues through dedicated staff and student project work. 

For example, our inaugural lectures are held throughout the academic year with an opportunity to hear accessible public-facing talks by newly appointed professors

Find out more about our inaugural lectures.

Sport Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ sport and fitness opportunities for the local community

Our sports facilities offer a range of services and opportunities for members of the public and community groups and organisations. The Sport Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ team also undertake a number of flagship community-focused programmes. These include coaching for Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ Wildcats, a programme to support girls age 5 to 11 to get involved with football.

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Students in the community

Engaging with the local community is central to the values of the University of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ and students are given every opportunity to work with local schools, charities, businesses and organisations through placements and projects.

I'm so grateful to the University of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ for encouraging students to go out there and do what they can with the community and develop their own skills and experience." 

Nadia Hammond, student volunteer 

Engaged Learning

Student community engagement has a long history and is embedded at scale across the university. Community placement modules are established where research links directly to local community interest areas from marine pollution to hospice care and primary school English and drama supported by the National Theatre.

Find out how to recruit a student volunteer through our Active Student service.

Mentoring programmes

Local people and organisations are a key element of the success of the University of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½'s innovative mentoring programmes. Community volunteers are trained as mentors to support our students, and many of the mentoring programmes have a focus on inclusivity and diversity:

• Men in Primary
• Uni-Amex LGBTQ+
• Identity Match
• Momentum

We also have ‘Uni+School’ programme where university students have an opportunity to mentor school children in the local community.

One of our alumni, John-Paul Kunrunmi, explained how positive this experience had been for him and his mentee: "I took up the opportunity to mentor students from secondary schools that were also from the black minority ethnic group. Mentoring the students was a great way for us to connect on our shared experience and a way to let them know that higher education is an option for them."

Find out more about how to become a student mentor.

Widening Participation Team

We have a longstanding commitment to widening participation and undertake outreach work with students from underrepresented backgrounds. Our engagement begins with pupils at primary schools and continues to year 13. Our activities include a number of Saturday clubs such as Formula 24, where secondary school students work with academics and university students to build and drive their own racing car. The Chemistry Club gives secondary school students experience in cutting-edge science in university-level laboratories. We have been delivering our flagship post-16 summer school for over 15 years, where year 12 students spend four days at the university and experience academic tasters and social activities.

Find out more about our widening participation programmes.

Research in the community

Co-researching new knowledge is part of a process that can bring mutual benefits to communities alongside researchers and students.

Below are some of the many successful ways in which academics have co-produced research with community members and students:

There is no doubt that the University of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ plays a global leadership role in partnership research. We appreciate learning about the diversity of excellence through CUPP."

Professor Budd Hall, UNESCO Co-Chair in Community Based Research

Football 4 Peace

Through its research-informed programmes, Football 4 Peace has pioneered ‘values-based’ sports training and coaching programmes. Originally developed to support conflict resolution in Israel and Palestine, its programmes now operate around the world to address division, inequality and injustice. Since it started in 2001, Football 4 Peace has worked with over 12700 children and 1100 coaches in 87 communities. 

Find out more about Football 4 Peace.

Inclusive arts practice

Inclusive arts provides a meaningful platform for self-expression, helping to combat exclusion. Over two decades, University of Â鶹¹û¶³´«Ã½ artist and academic Alice Fox has expanded traditional forms of engagement with performers and the public to broaden the scope of inclusive arts. Across diverse sectors and communities, the work has enriched the cultural offer and the lives of specific, often marginalised, community groups, built new public and professional audiences for inclusive arts, and enabled partners to engage new audiences, giving their work legitimacy and licence to experiment.

Find out more about inclusive arts practices.

Community21– designing active local communities 

Community21 brings communities together to tackle the issues that affect them most. Building teachable, shareable skills in making, technology, craft and design, it has supported communities, NGOs and industry partners in addressing twenty-first-century issues and creating sustainable and social development. Operating locally, regionally and globally, the many award-winning projects facilitate engagement and collaboration between researchers, students and communities.

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Resilience for social justice

Our researchers have championed co-creation in response to community resilience for over a decade.

Their innovative Resilience Framework has been applied to an £11m, multi-partner, co-produced programme in Blackpool (2016-22), one of the UK’s most deprived towns. Led by Blackpool Council, it was one of five strategic investments by Lottery HeadStart and has delivered a range of social impacts, including training for over 70,000 public sector practitioners. A manifesto for community development was published with commitment from 18 organisations. 

Find out more about resilience research.

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