Public and community engagement

Institutional context

Encouraging impactful external engagement is central to Keele University’s Strategic Plan and Mission, embedded in our education and research, and our organisational support frameworks. The University has played a leading role in this area nationally.

Institutional leadership is embedded in our governance structures for research and education and built into mainstream academic planning.

Internal governance arrangements for external engagement

In 2016 we adopted the National Co-ordinating Centre’s manifesto for public engagement, signalling an intent to move beyond individual centres of excellence and wholeheartedly embrace public engagement, and leading to two major UKRI-funded institutional development projects.

Since 2017 the University has developed, through co-production, a number of focused ‘Deals’ with Civic partners, to identify needs and deliver regional impacts, and further strengthened the environment for engagement through the KE Concordat evaluation and gap analysis and action plan.

Keele’s KE Plan provides the current framework for all external engagement, and encompasses the commitments made to local partners since 2017 in strategic agreements called the Keele Deals (Economy, Culture, Health and Recovery), and includes the institutional improvement priorities identified through the KE Concordat and Keele’s Cultural Strategy.

The period covered by this narrative encompasses the pandemic and post-pandemic period, including the development of the Keele Deal | Recovery, which built on our initial emergency responses.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI)

Equality and diversity has been identified as a key area for development. Our approach has been to support two forerunner areas of public engagement - Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) and Public Arts.

The EDI journey for PPIE started with Keele’s membership of the National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Race Equality Public Action Group, followed by the delivery and evaluation of pilots for the NIHR’s newly developed Race Equality Framework for PPIE. A Faculty Race Equality Ambassador for PPIE was appointed, to enhance engagement with underserved communities. Keele is highlighted as an NIHR case study. Membership of Keele’s PPIE team has fundamentally changed, with 50% now from BAME communities.

ArtsKeele makes a significant contribution to the area’s cultural landscape (113 cultural outputs in 21/22). As part of the Keele Deal, it has played a central role in supporting diverse artists in the cultural regeneration of the Potteries, and in creating a more inclusive environment for Keele’s increasingly diverse student and staff base. Strong, British and Black, a collaboration with Staffordshire-based Kwanzaa Collective UK was the first of a series of cultural programmes, which over the last two years has seen 50% of concerts and 75% of exhibitions involving artists from previously under-represented backgrounds.

Reward and recognition

In 2018/19 we introduced engagement into all academic role expectations, followed by inclusion in revised promotions criteria. Keele Excellence Awards include an award for External Engagement. Breaking the Mould was introduced in 2019 to reward and recognise our partnerships.

Professional Support

External engagement is supported by a Faculty embedded Engagement and Partnerships team. Clinical impact and public engagement is supported by the Impact Accelerator Unit (IAU). The IAU also supports engagement through web platforms such as Beefree and Jigsaw-e.

The Partnership Development team organises and delivers training directly to Schools and Faculties and via the annual impact festival (now part of Research at Keele month). We are a founding partner in the development of Epigeum’s online training programme. Engagement features within the core training core training of the Keele Doctoral Academy, and is available through all Doctoral Training Partnerships. Civic and social learning also features among the Keele Institute for Innovation and Teaching Excellence’s priority themes.

Working with Communities

KE Plan’s focus on inclusion and co-creation with seldom-heard communities is supported by Keele’s investment in Co-Create, and Participatory Research funding. Examples of leading projects include Zero Carbon Rugeley - a UK leading exemplar in the national energy landscape and Restorying Riverscapes.

Engagement with Policy-makers

Our investment in Staffordshire Centre for Data Analytics (SCDA), founded through a partnership with Staffordshire County Council and Staffordshire Police, continues to grow opportunities for academic communities to work with policy-makers. To enable impactful projects to spring from it, the University has
been growing its research base around policy-related and business analytics.

We provide funding for projects to enable policy engagement and impact, and have in place a 1-1 mentoring programme open to all staff and PGRs.

Festivals, events and open days

The Arts and Public Engagement team have led and organised Keele’s Annual Public Engagement Festival, which will be relaunched next year following a venue change. The team support Keele Hall readings, and with Comms colleagues also the COP 26 Festival and Keele Green Festival. The team deliver the Three Counties Art Show, which makes a highly valued contribution to the Cultural Regeneration of Stoke-on-Trent.

Professional Services teams support tours of the Smart Energy Demonstrator. Other vehicles for public engagement, such as the Observatory (which attracts around 900 visitors a year) and Arboretum and National Flowering Cherry Collection, are supported by Estates and philanthropic funding outreach teams.

Student engagement

The University has invested significantly in Student Knowledge Exchange. The KRISP programme has now provided over 500 opportunities for students across the institution to work with SMEs and purpose-led enterprises. Our Law School students deliver legal advice clinics for commercial and family law, and McKenzie Friend support through CLOCK.

Keele’s commitment to making societal engagement a key part of our student experience is underpinned by a Sustainability in Education strategy. Keele not only embeds sustainability in the curriculum, but also creates opportunities for practical projects with external communities, part of the basis for our recognition as Global Sustainability Institution of the Year in 2021.

The Keele Gateway

In January 2021 we relaunched the Keele Business Gateway as Keele Gateway, broadening its role as a single enquiry point for organisations and communities interested in working with the University, and providing valuable intelligence on our partners.

Location of recorded external partners, April 2021

Responses to the Pandemic

The first half of the review period was dominated by the need to address the demands of the pandemic. In addition to scientific and clinical research contributions at national and local levels, this included academic membership of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies SPI-B, and contributions to the evidence, diagnosis and care of Long Covid. Keele staff volunteered at the Lighthouse Lab at Alderley Park, led an international engineering challenge to address the demands of health services, and reopened the campus for national antibody self-testing and vaccine trials.

At the local level, Keele’s contributions included: 

• enabling all final year medical students to graduate early to work on the front-line, and nursing students to work in the NHS during their final year;
• knowledge sharing with employers on long covid;
• essential advice and support for people and families in crisis;
• the donation of significant stocks of PPE and essential chemicals within the region;
• and co-produced research to inform future Local Resilience Forum responses to pandemic events.

As normality returned, the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences was able to resume public and patient involvement activities (PPIE). In 2021-2022, 471 meetings took place. Engagement included 61 public co-applicant meetings, 211 study advisory groups, 10 steering group meetings for studies and 34 meetings in partnership with the Research Design Service. A further 155 PPIE meetings were delivered across studies and implementation projects.

As the initial emergency responses subsided, we worked with partners to develop the Keele Deal Recovery, which was launched in February 2021.

Strategic Engagement Programmes

Three case studies linked to our strategic priorities are presented here.

Low Carbon Transitions

In February 2021 Keele worked with BEIS officials to deliver the UK Government’s first regional business facing event on net zero - Your Business Journey to Net Zero.

Keele organised a public Festival to coincide with COP26 (28 events and 22 visitor sessions, involving over 7,000 participants), Luke Jerram’s GAIA providing a dramatic backdrop to events.

The Festival included a leaders’ summit chaired by the Director of Keele’s Institute for Sustainable Futures, which proved to be a pivotal moment for the area’s net zero transition, leading directly to the creation of Staffordshire Climate Commission to develop, oversee and champion a diverse programme to achieve climate change commitments.

The Smart Energy Network Demonstrator (SEND) programme has already achieved an estimated reduction of 10,202 Mt in CO2 (based on its specified programme methodology), as well as providing a significant SME support programme. Over the last year the demonstrator has seen over 1,000 visitors,
including overseas government delegations.

The Demonstrator’s public engagement and impact includes a focus on the role of hydrogen technologies. The review period saw the conclusion of campus-based Hydeploy trials, which introduced hydrogen into the domestic gas supply, and included research on public acceptability. The Research England-funded HyDex programme got underway with Keele as the lead partner, to better connect hydrogen innovation with user communities. The project period saw the successful delivery of Zero Carbon Rugeley - the co-production of a Smart Local Energy System design with local communities, based on the approach developed at Keele.

Cultural Regeneration

Keele’s convening role has also been in evidence where Keele Deal Culture has enabled the University to work more closely with cultural partners and local communities. By July 2022, this had enabled 53 cultural or creative events, engaged 276,500 people, supported 86 creative or cultural businesses, and generated £241,000 for the local economy.

Keele’s leadership role alongside other partners led to the development and agreement of the City’s Cultural Compact and establishment of Stoke Creates, the CIC co-chaired by the Director of Keele Institute for Social Inclusion, supporting collaborative research proposals with local cultural communities. These
efforts have culminated in the award of a significant Arts Council England's Cultural Development Capital grant for a heritage project in which Keele and Stoke Creates are partners, adding to major partnerships with V&A Wedgwood and Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust.

Digital Society

Over the last two years a major strategic focus for the University has been our contribution to supporting digital transitions, in wider society as well as the business sector. As well as a new Digital Society Institute and innovation centre, this has included a Town Deal-funded Digital Society Centre in the centre of Newcastle-under-Lyme, to support digital entrepreneurship, community-based engagement, student knowledge exchange and enterprise, and Staffordshire Centre for Data Analytics.

The Digital Society Centre is supported by a Shared Prosperity Fund project delivering student KE opportunities around:

• Digital Society and Economy (20 projects)
• Sustainability (10 projects);
• SME innovation (15 projects);
• Access to Justice – up to 120 individuals supported;
• Culture and Creativity (10 projects); and
• Digital Entrepreneurship – supporting entrepreneurial readiness for around 30 individuals, and early stage incubation of 5-10 new businesses.

53 Ironmarket in Newcastle Under-Lyme is soon to be the University’s Digital Society Centre.

The University is also a partner in the development of an Institute of Technology (IoT), led by Newcastle and Stafford College, a consortium of education providers and key employers from across the Midlands.

In 2021 Keele undertook a comprehensive self-evaluation in this area, as part of its commitment to the KE Concordat. This built on the discussions with stakeholders underpinning the development of the University’s KE Plan, and the institutional EDGE assessments undertaken in 2017 and 2019 (before and after institutional development work enabled by UKRI funding). As such it was firmly anchored in the delivery of the KE Plan’s objectives.

The process was owned and moderated at a senior level by Keele’s Academic Strategy Group, and forms part of our presentations on KE matters to the University’s formal governance structures.

The approach to the assessment recognised that it is an important means not just of gathering evidence, but also of fostering a healthy culture of open reflection, learning and development, building ownership of institutional improvement priorities.

The improvement aims identified included:

• To extend Keele’s contributions to addressing EDI challenges;
• To grow contributions to policy-making;
• To increase the number of proposals for research funding with external partners;
• To achieve a shift in academic attitudes to working with external partners building a broader understanding that impact is integral to high quality research; and
• To build the skills of researchers at all levels to work confidently in external arenas.

The following priority actions were identified:

Priority 1: Create a researcher development framework for KE;

Priority 2: Make significant progress in promoting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion;

Priority 3: Continue to improve the coherence and communication of the Professional Services offer;

Priority 4: Develop KE dashboards;

Priority 5: Develop a toolkit for feedback from external partners;

Significant progress has been made on Priorities 2 and 3, enabled by a fundamental institutional review of support for student KE, partnership and business development, which will see enhanced capacity for P&CE. And work is well underway on Priority 1.

The Keele Deals provide a framework of accountability to partners, which takes the form of a regular informal round table to share progress, clarify priorities, and understand impacts.

All programmes and projects have mechanisms to gain feedback, which are reviewed at operational level. Where Project Executive Groups exist, this can form part of the Project Manager’s report. Local Growth Programmes are subject to independent Summative Assessments, which include qualitative feedback from partners.

Case Study: Smart Energy Network Demonstrator

The Smart Energy Network Demonstrator measures its impact by capturing the outcomes from visits. This is initiated by a follow up email that is sent directly after the event to capture comments and questions related to our activities, and advise on their activities including investments, jobs created and carbon saved.

Case Study: Community Legal Outreach

CLOCK fully established a pioneering online platform to capture all aspects of its operation – the nature and scale of demand from litigants, their insights and experience, partner involvement, judicial outcomes and data. The online platform has enabled a swift response to new issues emerging during the pandemic, and analysis relating to CLOCK’s objectives.

Case Study: Student Knowledge Exchange

An account of the learning process underpinning the development of impact evaluation framework for the OfS Knowledge Exchange project can be viewed here.

The University also recently commissioned a regional baseline public perceptions survey to gain an understanding of the wider public’s view of the University’s impact, beyond those who have had direct engagement with the University.

Source: YouGov, August 2022