Civic Map
The London Higher Civic Map is a dynamic project which has been compiled in collaboration with London Higher members to showcase and examine the ways in which London’s higher education sector works in partnership with multiple key stakeholders across our city to enhance and improve it for all.
This map celebrates the many ways in which London’s higher education institutions work on, and indeed beyond, the traditional ‘campus’, for example, engaging with the capital’s businesses or partnering with healthcare providers to benefit local communities and make a positive difference to society.
The map seeks to reflect the depth and diversity of our members’ place-based collaboration by identifying ‘hotspots’ of civic engagement across London, and is regularly updated. It currently hosts over 300 case studies, and has been cited by UNESCO as an exemplar higher education initiative embracing cross-sector collaboration.
Filter the map
‘Mind the Gaps’ – Improving Mental Health Outcomes for First-in-Family and Independent Students
St Mary's University, Twickenham, University of West London
The Institute of Education (IOE) and the Widening Participation department at St Mary’s University, Twickenham have successfully bid for over £180,000 to lead a study into mental health support at universities. This project, which will be coordinated by Head of Widening Participation at St Mary’s, Nikki Anghileri, and co-designed and co-delivered with students, is led by a combination of expert higher education and mental health professionals. It will generate much-needed evidence of what can improve mental health outcomes for this group of students through the provision of a novel transition support package for first-in-family or independent students. This support package will include psychoeducation training; personal skills development; peer-to-peer support initiatives; mental health drop-in sessions; and online resources. It will generate much-needed evidence of what can improve mental health outcomes for this group of students.
Locations
Richmond upon Thames
Partners
OfS; King’s College London; the University of West London; and Maudsley Learning (South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust)
Category: NHS / Health
‘The Storm’ Interactive stage set design for the Literacy Pirates charity
University of East London
UEL MA Interior Design collaborated with the Literacy Pirates and designed an interactive stage set for their performances in Stratford, London; an imaginative immersive environment for the children to dream and explore their creative and literacy potential. Literacy Pirates is a charity supporting hundreds of children with their literacy skills through creative workshops.
The studio considers design as a means for cultural and social change; a device that has the power to communicate ideas, empower communities, trigger imagination and participation and potentially transform lives for the better. In the context of this project, the stage set was purposefully designed as an interactive device. The children of the audience are not passive listeners; their body movement makes the stage set come alive.
Stretched fabrics on carefully designed mobile structures transform the audience’s movement into a magical visual game that contributes to the performance and bodily transports the audience into the sea adventures the storyteller is narrating. Oversized rolls of paper, with video art projections form part of the stage set and is inviting the audience to roll, draw, write their version of the story. The audience’s bodily presence and movement through fabric waves, projected sea creatures, sounds of the sea created an immersive experience.
Designers: Dina Al-Qusous, Birce Gural, Felicia Ivanciuc, Parisa Oreizi, Yuvraj Panwar, Ishita Pathak, Sophie Savvidou, Lasata Shrestha, Esra Tekagac, Garima Thakkar, Sahar Youssef, Fatima Zahra Hadj, led by the course leader, Dr Anastasia Karandinou.
Locations
Newham and Hackney
Partners
The Literacy Pirates
More information about ‘The Storm’ Interactive stage set design for the Literacy Pirates charity
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
A New Partnership to Help Young People Back into Work (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
Hackney Council and London Metropolitan University have formed a partnership to offer a range of programmes to improve employment opportunities for students across the borough.
The partnership forms part of a long-term response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the work to rebuild an inclusive economy to help Hackney residents into work during and after this difficult time.
By working together the two organisations will co-design solutions particularly among groups facing employment disadvantage by bringing high-quality education, training and paid work to the borough.
Partners
Hackney Council
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Education
(In)Active Older Adults
London South Bank University
LSBU’s research with active and inactive older adults in London explored how active and inactive older adults view their participation in community-based exercise. It provided insight into the programme characteristics and instructor styles that attract older adults the most. Participation improved emotional well-being and cognitive function. The closure of community-based exercise led previously active older adults to become inactive during lockdown and revealed the crucial importance of the social element as a prime motivator to exercise in older adults.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Silverfit Charity
More information about (In)Active Older Adults
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
A Public Health Framework around Youth Knife Crime with Camden Council (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
Dr James Alexander, in partnership with Camden Council, to deliver a major project focused on youth safety. The project will assess the progress that has been made towards the recommendations made by the Council’s Youth Safety Task Force, which advocates for the recognition of youth knife crime as a public health issue.
The public health model recognises that many different factors affecting young people contribute to different behaviours. It also accepts that early intervention is vital to mitigate against the factors that make involvement in youth crime more likely, and for support to have a positive influence.
The recommendations made by the task force include promoting early help services to families including parent-led programmes, supporting police engagement with young people and finding ways to foster greater trust, and developing programmes to equip young people with the skills and resilience needed to make positive choices, with a focus on those moving from primary to secondary school.
Throughout the study, there will be a focus on understanding the role that race disproportionality plays in relation to youth safety within the borough.
Partners
Camden Council
Category: Communities, Education
A Public Health Framework to Tackle Violence against Women and Girls (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
London Met’s Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) has been selected to develop the city of London’s next Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategy.
CWASU developed the first VAWG strategy for the capital over a decade ago. This latest iteration takes a public health approach to tackling violence and abuse and is funded by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC).
This strategy will thus mark a significant and timely step change – it will consider whole systems and whole populations, rather than focusing on incident response.
Locations
pan-London
Partners
Greater London Authority
Category: Communities, Education
AI-enhanced Building Energy Management Systems
London South Bank University
The greatest cause of poor building performance is the malfunctioning of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems: these are controlled by the building’s Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS). Inefficiencies in BEMS systems therefore increase energy waste and impacts comfort.
Terminal Units (TUs) are used to control the temperature of building areas. Professor Dudley and colleagues used AI, in collaboration with three commercial partners, to develop automated approaches to enhancing the detection of faulty TUs, and hence address the problematic building energy ‘performance gap’.
The outcome of the research was an AI-driven system which classifies TUs into well- and badly-behaved elements, yielding a major enhancement to the BEMS system produced by commercial partner Demand Logic (DL).
Key London users and beneficiaries of this system are:
●The Canary Wharf Group
●Transport for London)
●The headquarters of Standard Chartered Bank in London – fitted with DL system in May 2017.
By December 2017 significant improvements were already evident: a reduction of 10% (£61k) on energy spend; a 59% reduction in the number of spaces which were judged too warm (>25°C).
●20 Fenchurch Street (the “Walkie-Talkie”): analysis revealed a 27% reduction in demand of
both heating and cooling as well as a 62% reduction in heating power..
Locations
City of London, Tower Hamlets
Partners
Demand Logic, Verco EDSL
More information about AI-enhanced Building Energy Management Systems
Category: Business and Industry, Sustainability
Art Matters student exhibition for 50 East London Schools
University of East London
This is a community creative project to encourage school pupils to showcase their art talents. The School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering at UEL team up with University of the Arts London to collaborate with Art Matters organiser Catherine McGill, SLE Primary Art and Design, and around 50 East London primary and secondary schools.
Over 4,000 school pupils take part each year to have their art work exhibited in the University of East London’s art galleries at Dockland campus for two weeks in July. It receives over 1500 visitors. Due to Covid, this was moved online and the physical exhibition did not take place in 2020 or 2021. The 2021 online show was coordinated by Catherine and Ian Thompson in association with Newham Council.
For 2022, the physical show will resume at UEL Dockland campus AVA art gallery.
For more details please visit:
Locations
School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering AVA art galleries Dockland Campus, UEL
Partners
Art Matters - Contact: Catherine McGill University of East London - Contact: David Tann University of the Arts London - Contact: Ian Thompson
More information about Art Matters student exhibition for 50 East London Schools
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Balanced Energy Network
London South Bank University
Heat pumps are a proven low-carbon alternative to gas boilers. However, they deliver heat at a lower temperature than a gas boiler and usually require other building upgrades such as insulation or larger heat emitters. Heat networks can offer improved efficiencies compared to heating individual buildings, particularly 5th Generation (ambient temperature) networks linked with heat pumps. At LSBU’s campus in Southwark, the UK’s first 5th Generation heat network (termed the Balanced Energy Network) at scale has been demonstrated: it links two buildings together using an ambient temperature network served by two boreholes connected to the London aquifer.
Through BEN and a range of other measures, LSBU has achieved an overall 85% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in the past decade.
This project has had significant benefits for the industry lead, ICAX Ltd: ICAX has developed a second generation of the heat pumps created for the BEN project: 3.4MW of these heat pumps are currently being installed across three sites for the London Borough of Southwark, in three housing estates consisting of 2,175 households. The systems currently being installed in Southwark are designed to save over 57,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions over a twenty-year time span through an energy saving of 17,690,743kWh per annum.
Locations
Southwark
Partners
ICAX
More information about Balanced Energy Network
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
Biodiversity & Ecosystems Services at Greenwich
University of Greenwich
The University of Greenwich’s grounds are managed sensitively; limiting the use of herbicides, protecting habitats and balancing conservation practices to ensure enjoyment of the outdoor areas.
The university has 6.7 hectares (9 football pitches in size) of natural land across its campuses. To date its has recorded over 250 animal species, including around 25 species listed as vulnerable so in extra need of conservation. The Ecosystems Services Policy sets out Greenwich’s overall vision and aims for how to achieve a balance between natural conservation, education and wellbeing enjoyment. With the new Estates Master Plan the University will be formalising its external and natural spaces as learning and development spaces, further enabling teaching staff to utilise the extensive estates for more applied and creative learning that can happen outside the classroom in more practical and hands on ways.
Grounds have been managed for biodiversity for over 10 years and this work is being further improved through the delivery of the new Biodiversity Action Plan and integration of ecosystems services thinking in the estate. Impacts include the increased natural value of the estates, encouraging species to the estate, the roll out of initiatives such as the Hedgehog Friendly Campus that is encouraging staff and students to better engage with the campus and through encouragement of citizen science as they ask students and staff to log species they have encountered on our campuses. The natural value and its diversity is also being used to engage their students in natural learning environments so, for example, getting Early years and Primary Health students out into nature to see how it connects and contributes to their studies, providing new perspectives that are considered in their studies and careers.
Locations
Greenwich (and Medway)
Partners
Sustainability team, in partnership with campus Facilities Management teams, contractor and academic teams.
More information about Biodiversity & Ecosystems Services at Greenwich
Category: Sustainability
Biodiversity on Campus
Middlesex University London
Working in partnership with the London Wildlife Trust, Middlesex University has developed a rolling annual biodiversity action plan and is working to enhance biodiversity in partnership with the London Borough of Barnet measuring success through an Annual Bio Blitz. Green walls and green roofs across campus, beehives on the roof of the Grove building, a relaxed mowing schedule and refurbishment of the pond in Church Farm House Museum garden all help to enhance the biodiversity on campus. They also helped one of their students to install two hedgehog boxes on site – Middlesex is now a hedgehog friendly campus.
The ongoing project has seen the:
– creation of two large wildflower areas;
– planting of a native hedgerow;
– planting of thousands of native bubs in a woodland walk way;
– relaxed mowing in selected areas of the campus;
– development of plans for a community orchard;
– Students Union garden and associated facilities; and
– plan for the enhancement of Hendon Grove.
Locations
Barnet
Partners
London Wildlife Trust; Students Union, London Borough of Barnet, Mark Walker Ltd
More information about Biodiversity on Campus
Category: Communities, Sustainability
Blackheath Halls Community Opera
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
The annual Blackheath Halls Community Opera is a successful project that has been running since 2007. Blackheath Halls, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Trinity Laban, presents a programme of ambitious and creative opera projects offering people of all ages from across the London Boroughs of Greenwich, Lewisham and beyond, a unique opportunity to take part in high-quality, live music-making alongside a professional cast of soloists and production teams. Most recently, it produced an online Blackheath Halls Opera, A Journey Through Rake’s Progress, with a final film watched by nearly 2000 people. Trinity Laban aims to continue creating high calibre participative opera opportunities for the local community.
Each year, over 200 people have the chance to be part of the making of a fully staged opera. A chorus of around 80 local adults perform alongside the Blackheath Halls orchestra, members of a youth choir and children from local primary and special education needs schools. In an audience survey, 98% of respondents said they would come to see an opera again.
Locations
Blackheath Halls (Greenwich), Lewisham
Partners
Blackheath Halls; Professional artists; TL students; professional trusts and foundations; Arts Council England
More information about Blackheath Halls Community Opera
Category: Communities, Creative
Brickfield Newham
University of East London
Brickfield Newham was a community research project that questioned clay and its importance to the urban landscape by connecting people, literally, to the earth beneath their feet. Communities from across the borough came together to make bricks, build and fire a kiln on a construction site in the Royal Docks.
They investigated themes of dwelling, living and claiming the earth through performance and brickmaking. Rooted in Newham’s history of industrialisation and habitation, Brickfield Newham provided a hearth to share experiences of living in Newham and to listen to others’ vision of its future. An outdoor ‘brickathon’ engaged a variety of community groups in brickmaking workshops. The Brickfield Makers, a community collective, explored the history of brick in Newham. UEL students devised a series of new performances about Newham’s brick heritage which they shared at a showcase event where they performed in front of the kiln as it fired the first bricks.
Locations
Newham
Partners
V&A Museum; Brickfield
More information about Brickfield Newham
Category: Communities
Brunel Arts Centre
Brunel University London
Providing a variety of courses and events to enrich the University and the wider community, Brunel Arts Centre is open to all, offering weekly classes, events, exhibitions, concerts and productions throughout the year. The weekly classes include singing, acting, creative writing, music theory, digital photography, oil painting, life drawing, movement & meditation, pottery and guitar groups. Other activities include exhibitions of local art and a popular lunchtime concert series (livestreamed and in-person), of both traditional and contemporary works performed by professional musicians.
Locations
Hillingdon, Uxbridge
More information about Brunel Arts Centre
Category: Creative
Bringing Music to Londoners
Royal Academy of Music
Partnerships with festivals, concert series and recording labels throughout the world give students platforms to reach wider audiences and make professional connections for their careers. London audiences flock to the Royal Academy of Music’s famous site on the Marylebone Road and follow them in over 500 concerts and events per year, the majority of which are free. Plans for its third century include an ambitious scheme to expand the Junior Department and offer opportunities to talented young musicians from backgrounds previously under-represented in the institution and across the sector.
Locations
City of Westminster
More information about Bringing Music to Londoners
Category: Communities, Creative
Brunel Older People’s Reference Group
Brunel University London
Brunel Older People’s Reference Group (BORG) is a network of local people aged over 50 who are interested in activities at Brunel and who are invited to engage with cutting-edge research activities. The group was set up in 2009 when researchers with a special interest in ageing wanted to raise the profile of an ageing studies group. It has since developed to become a forum for community feedback on research, to enable co-production and co-designed research, and to connect lived-experience with research expertise.
Locations
Hillingdon
More information about Brunel Older People’s Reference Group
Category:
Brunel Partners Academic Centre for Health Sciences
Brunel University London
Brunel Partners Academic Centre for Health Sciences (BPACHS) is a collaborative endeavour between Brunel University London and four NHS partners, delivering improvements in care through advances in education and research within Health Sciences in which Brunel has established expertise.
BPACHS aims to deliver a sector-leading system of integrated health and social care for the people of Hillingdon and beyond, where care is increasingly delivered in the community and supported by advances in technology and the interface between hospital and community based care is seamless.
Through effective partnership between academics and health and care providers – together with local residents and those who access health and care services – the quality of provision for patients, the efficiency of services, the opportunities for students and the health and wellbeing for the local community, both young and old, can be improved.
Locations
Uxbridge, Hillingdon
Partners
Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust; Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust
More information about Brunel Partners Academic Centre for Health Sciences
Category: NHS / Health
Brunel Volunteers
Brunel University London
As a public institution based in the heart of Hillingdon, Brunel believes in utilising the facilities at the institution and the expertise and skills of the staff and students at the institution to make a positive impact in the local community. The university runs a number of initiatives and projects in Hillingdon and are always looking for new ways to meet civic needs. Last year Brunel Volunteers offered 16,000 hours of service to good causes in Hillingdon through their volunteering scheme.
Brunel Volunteers works with over 60 local charities, community groups and schools. Volunteer activities include fundraising, mentoring, befriending, social media, marketing and stewarding, as well as organising high-profile civic events such as ‘Good Deeds Day’.
Locations
Uxbridge, Hillingdon
More information about Brunel Volunteers
Category: Communities
Carnival Mas-Piece
University of East London
‘Carnival Mas-Piece’ was a co-design project in collaboration between Tropical Isles, a Hackney based carnival youth group and architecture students of Unit A from the University of East London, led by lecturers Carsten Jungfer and Fernanda Palmieri at the Department of Architecture. Tropical Isles is a carnival group and charity that supports young people with building life skills, confidence and wellbeing. As a registered Mas-band, the group also participates to carnival parades and competitions. A ‘Mas-piece’ is a tall signature costume and a piece of ‘body-architecture’, that leads the carnival group at the performance.
This project helped Tropical Isles to win numerous prizes in 2019, including 1st prize for Carnival Band of the Year at Hackney Carnival and 3rd price in the ‘traditional’ category at Notting Hill Carnival.
During the live project UEL architecture students collaborated with members from Tropical Isles and built a 5×5 meter large Mas-Piece. Through a number of co-design workshops, students considered the constraints of the brief for a modular and lightweight design. They experimented with different materials, explored how to put them together and gradually developed designs, which were tested through the construction of full-sized prototypes. The ambitious design even included a special effect, used at the parades’ judging point, where the central ‘flower’ of the Mas-Piece opened and released numerous helium balloons into the air.
Locations
London Borough of Hackney
Partners
Tropical Isles London
More information about Carnival Mas-Piece
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Centre for Efficient and Renewable Energy in Buildings (CEREB) Framework
London South Bank University
LSBU research has produced a policy theory-based, subsidy programme evaluation methodology that proposes the use of programme funds to invest in activities that result in lasting market effects after the subsidy is removed. The research has yielded the CEREB (Centre for Efficient and Renewable Energy in Buildings) Framework, articulating five pillars of Retrofit Market Transformation: 1) Programme Design and Stakeholder Networks; 2) Marketing and Outreach; 3) Workforce Engagement and Training; 4) Financial Incentives; and 5) Data Collection and Evaluation.
For each pillar, the CEREB Framework gives activities, indicators, and success factors required to decarbonise existing buildings through retrofitting. Research has been conducted in partnership with Lambeth Council to understand the local retrofit supply chain and workforce in the two main retrofit channels: Public-Procured and Private-Purchased. This involved a gap analysis and evaluation of the roles and skills needed across both channels.
The recommendations and outputs from the research include a list of the roles and skills needed to 2030 and 2050, a stakeholder map of employers and supply chain, and what the council and other stakeholders should do to address gaps and barriers and optimise local benefits from the delivery of net zero retrofits. LSBU is now working with Local Authority Sustainability Officers to implement pillars of the CEREB Framework in Lambeth Council: Lambeth have recently declared a climate emergency and are using the CEREB Framework to inform their strategy to decarbonise existing buildings.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Council
More information about Centre for Efficient and Renewable Energy in Buildings (CEREB) Framework
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
Children’s Health in London and Luton (CHILL)
Queen Mary University of London
CHILL is a research study at Queen Mary, University of London, which aims to find out whether reducing air pollution from traffic is good for children’s health. It is interested in whether interventions to reduce air pollution can improve children’s lung growth and respiratory symptoms, activity levels and brain function. It is also interested in whether exposure to air pollution in childhood leaves markers on genes that reflect pollution levels over time. Students are assessed once a year for up to four years.
The project is ongoing but aims to influence air pollution policies in London and find evidence of the health benefits of reducing air pollution (i.e. the Ultra Low Emission Zone) for children.
Locations
Pan-London, Luton
Partners
3,300 primary school students across 44 London and 41 Luton schools.
More information about Children’s Health in London and Luton (CHILL)
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Charities & Social Enterprise Clinic
London Metropolitan University
London Met’s new ‘clinic’ for charities, social enterprises and the public sector offers consultancy and business services to London-based voluntary organisations. The clinic builds on a long-standing connection between the University and London’s third sector – as well as significant current research and consultancy expertise. It also has a dynamic portfolio of courses associated with community development and social enterprise and the clinic provides a focus for bringing organisations into contact with London Met students, who work though the clinic to help you develop organisations. The clinic offers both free and paid-for services to charities and social enterprises in a number of different areas such as: strategic planning, community engagement and development, trustee board development and membership, financial management fundraising, policy and procedure development, marketing and communications, research collaboration, monitoring and evaluation, volunteering food safety, and art/architecture projects.
Locations
Across North London
Partners
Numerous Charities
More information about Charities & Social Enterprise Clinic
Category: Communities, Creative, Sustainability
Civic Fellows Scheme
Staffordshire University London
Staffordshire University London offers a scheme of Civic Fellows, recognising members of the public who operate in the local community and make a difference to those within it.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
More information about Civic Fellows Scheme
Category: Communities, Creative
Connected Campus for Creative Industries
Middlesex University London
The Connected Campus for Creative Industries initiative is a joint academia-industry initiative between Middlesex University and Film London. Beginning with film industries, the project is to create a blueprint for other creative industries, informing and leading the way in collaboration between academia and industry – ensuring that graduates gain highly-valued skills and experiences. This initiative is creating the JoDo Platform: an online, on-demand, resource platform for students, lecturers, support staff and employees in the screen industries. The platform includes behind-the-scenes case studies and insights into the screen industries as well as contact on subjects ranging from engineering and construction to business and finance. With the support of industry organisations and practitioners, the JoDo platform seeks to grow and further establish itself as the go-to platform for the screen industry sector – both within academia, and industry itself.
Locations
Barnet; Islington
Partners
Film London
More information about Connected Campus for Creative Industries
Category: Creative
Community Connections Grants
Queen Mary University of London
After making the difficult decision not to hold the Festival of Communities during Covid-19, Queen Mary provided an alternative opportunity for staff and students to develop and sustain relationships with local residents and community groups through the Community Connections grant scheme.
The Community Connections grant scheme is designed to enable those at Queen Mary to create/adapt activities which bring people together: generating conversations around these shared experiences within local communities.
Funding of up to £500 per Queen Mary project was available to create new or adapt existing engagement activities. These activities could be in response to a community need, a desire to bring neighbours in a building/street together to share an experience, or planning for a celebratory event when COVID-19 restrictions allow.
The scheme funded 19 varied and exciting activities engaging residents across Tower Hamlets and east London over the summer months. These included sports camps, domestic violence prevention advocacy work, cooking clubs and the SEEDS (Sowing Empowering and Engaging Discussions on Substances) project.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
More information about Community Connections Grants
Category: Communities
Connecting with Communities
The Institute of Cancer Research
Connecting with the local community is a major priority for the ICR. They are committed to sharing their research with the communities in and around Sutton and Chelsea, as well as the wider London area, to encourage a sense of ownership and participation in their research, and to generate support for their aims and activities. It is particularly important to engage actively with the local community in Sutton, given their leading role in The London Cancer Hub, and the need to grow local support and enthusiasm for the new developments taking place in the borough.
Over the life of the previous strategy, the ICR took part in more than 55 events in Sutton and Chelsea, connecting with local communities and strengthening their relationship with local partners. They will continue to play an active role through community events, festivals and work with schools to share with local people the world-class research taking place on their doorstep. They will explore how they can best support their communities through new engagement projects and partnerships, meeting the needs and interests of the diverse communities of which they are part.
Locations
Sutton; Kensington & Chelsea
Partners
Schools; festivals (Great Exhibition Road fest and Bing Bang fest); London Cancer Hub; London Borough of Sutton
More information about Connecting with Communities
Category: Communities, Education
Continuum
University of East London
Continuum, the UEL centre for widening participation policy studies, has been the lead partner in a major knowledge alliance which brings together UEL, London councils and the London Borough of Newham to provide an annually commissioned data commentary insight into the journey of young people into the labour market.
Locations
Newham
More information about Continuum
Category: Education
Covid-19 and Creative Clusters
Loughborough University London
This Loughborough University London project investigates the impact of, and recovery from, the Covid-19 virus on the creative business community in and around Hackney Wick and the Olympic Park in East London. The Hackney Wick/Olympic Park cluster brings together small and micro-creative businesses with large and significant creative employers (such as BT Sport and Sadler’s Wells Theatre) in a very small physical footprint. It is also home to Loughborough University London, and parts of UCL.
Working with businesses and community partners over a 12 month period from September 2020, the project assessed changing practices and business models, and attitudes to future prospects and growth, as a result of the Covid-19 crisis. It was led by a steering group of local partners, bringing together a network of national and regional advisors specialising in creative cluster development.
Locations
Hackney, Tower Hamlets
Partners
GLA; London Legacy Development Corporation; Hackney Wick CEZ
More information about Covid-19 and Creative Clusters
Category: Business and Industry, Creative
Covid-19 Vaccination Training
Middlesex University London
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, members of Middlesex’s Adult, Child and Midwifery Department provided educational support through training and assessing the competency of around 2400 vaccinators for the NHS North Central London area, covering Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Islington and Haringey. In recognition of their work to support Barnet in the face of the pandemic, Middlesex University received Barnet Council’s 2021 ‘COVID-19 Community Heroes Award’.
Locations
Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Islington and Haringey
Partners
North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group
More information about Covid-19 Vaccination Training
Category: Education, NHS / Health
Covid Inequalities and Vaccine Equity
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Working closely with health care providers and local organisations, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is looking at the social, political and economic dynamics which shaped health inequalities during and prior to Covid-19, and the way in which these dynamics are influencing Covid-19 vaccine uptake. The ultimate goal is to support vaccine equity – and health equity more broadly – now, and in the future.
Locations
Ealing
Partners
London Borough of Ealing; Institute of Development Studies, Sussex
More information about Covid Inequalities and Vaccine Equity
Category: NHS / Health
Create and Learn Playkits
Royal College of Art
Create and Learn PlayKits share creative materials and activities co-designed by artists and arts organisations from Wandsworth for young people aged 6–10 affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. In February 2021, the Create and Learn PlayKits were recognised nationally, winning the Hearts for the Arts Award for Best Arts Project. Building upon the success of the scheme and following consultation with headteachers, the consortium is looking to create a new PlayKit to support children’s creativity and wellbeing for a summer of creative play in 2021.
Locations
Kensington & Chelsea
More information about Create and Learn Playkits
Category: Communities, Creative
Creative Enterprise Zone
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldmiths continues to contribute to the development of the Greater London Authority’s (GLA) network of Creative Enterprise Zones. In so doing, they inform the creative and digital strategies for the GLA and also for the borough of Lewisham.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
Trinity Laban, Lewisham College, Lewisham Council, The Albany
More information about Creative Enterprise Zone
Category: Business and Industry, Creative
Creative Enterpise West
University of West London
Creative West Creatives is one of the Creative Enterprise Zones funded by the GLA.
Its purpose is:
• Strengthening networks, engaging multi-national local businesses such as Sky, Disney, Paramount, to work closer with local creative and digital companies to boost opportunities.
• Delivering specialist skills training and freelance and SME business support to ensure local residents, especially young people, and students from University of West London, have a clear route and access to opportunities in the creative sector.
• Building on London’s hub for TV and Film production by unlocking new affordable production and studio space.
Locations
Chiswick Business Park to Sky in Osterley, including Brentford town centre to the south and going north to include Boston Manor and Gunnersbury parks.: see https://www.westlondon.com/initiatives-networks/creative-enterprise-zone/
Partners
London Borough of Hounslow, University of West London, West Thames College, West London Business, Hounslow Chamber of Commerce, Brentford Chamber of Commerce, Feltham Arts, Waterman's Theatre, and Alliance Arts
More information about Creative Enterpise West
Category: Business and Industry, Creative
CU London Youth Outreach
CU London
CU London’s work with local young people includes welcoming local organisations such as Barking & Dagenham School Improvement Partnership and Future Youth Zone onto campus, the sponsorship of Dagenham & Redbridge FC and supporting community and charity events such as the Mayor’s Civic Dinner. CU London’s second campus in North Greenwich in also participates in this civic activity.
Locations
CU London Dagenham Campus: Rainham Road North, Dagenham, RM10 7BN CU London Greenwich Campus: 6 Mitre Passage, Greenwich, SE10 0ER
Partners
Barking and Dagenham School Improvement Partnership, Future Youth Zone, Degenham and Redbridge FC
More information about CU London Youth Outreach
Category: Communities, Education
Creative Skills Pathway
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldsmiths is committed to strengthen the work of Lewisham’s Strategic Learning Partnership and Lewisham Education Arts Network to deliver a Creative Skills Pathway; understanding and breaking down the barriers to careers in the Creative Sector.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
Trinity Laban, Lewisham College, Lewisham Council
More information about Creative Skills Pathway
Category: Creative, Education
Creative Sector Support
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldsmiths is committed to working collectively with local partners to provide resources for the creative sector, including space, expertise and joint funding initiatives.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
Lewisham College, The Albany, Trinity Laban, The Horniman Museum and Gardens
More information about Creative Sector Support
Category: Creative
Cultural Engine Research Group (CERG) Silvertown Sessions
University of East London
CERG builds on UEL’s strong commitment to civic engagement by focusing on the critical and public exploration of the complex economic, social and cultural factors that frame the everyday practices of people and the places in which they live. Places are complex and informed by multiple and diverse narratives and temporal forces. See list of events/project on CERG’s blog.
Locations
Newham
Partners
Royal Docks Learning and Activity Centre (RDLAC)
More information about Cultural Engine Research Group (CERG) Silvertown Sessions
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Creative, Education
Cultural Learning and Outreach across London
SOAS, University of London
Through its Widening Participation (WP) activity, SOAS works with partner schools, Linking London, Aimhigher London South, and adult learning centres to engage people from marginalised backgrounds or socio-economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods, supporting access to university and providing opportunities to learn about the languages and cultures of Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Linking London; Aimhigher London South; adult learning centres
More information about Cultural Learning and Outreach across London
Category: Communities, Education
Dance for Parkinson’s
University of Roehampton
Dance for Parkinson’s (DfP) is a pioneering body of research led by Dr Sara Houston, from Roehampton’s School of Arts, that has encouraged people with Parkinson’s disease (PwPs) to dance, enabled dance artists to teach them, and helped dance organisations to support them. By providing an evidence base that demonstrates the benefits of dancing for PwPs, Dr Houston has changed dance practice and transformed lives for PwPs across Australia, Europe and North America. The research has had several specific impacts which have had global reach, including evidence to support the expansion of the English National Ballet’s DfP programme throughout England and Wales. DfP is widely recognised as a case study for demonstrating the value of arts, and arts-based health interventions.
Locations
Wandsworth
Partners
BUPA Foundation Prize; English National Ballet
More information about Dance for Parkinson’s
Category: Creative, NHS / Health
Flagship Civic University Agreement
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldsmith’s Civic University Agreement sets out a shared vision and action plan agreed by twelve anchor institutions in the London Borough of Lewisham. Together they have identified the priority areas where they work together to improve the lives of those in the locality. The agreement focuses around four objectives:
• Educational Opportunities and Supporting Learning Aspiration
• Economic Prosperity, Jobs and Growth
• Culture, Health and Well-being
• Environmental Sustainability
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
The Albany, The Horniman Museum and Gardens, Lewisham College, Lewisham Council, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, Lewisham Homes, Lewisham Local, Migration Musesum, Phoenix Community Housing, Trinity Laban, 999 Club
More information about Flagship Civic University Agreement
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
Goldsmiths’ Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA)
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldmiths is committed to enhancing the partnerships and collaborations to strengthen public and local community programmes of engagement, including the community outreach programme of the Goldsmiths’ Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA).
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
Horniman Museum and Gardens, The Albany, Migration Museum, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
More information about Goldsmiths’ Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA)
Category: Creative
Great Exhibition Road Festival
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art collaborated with a number of close cultural neighbours on the inaugural Great Exhibition Road Festival (GERF) – a free festival open to all, bursting with arts, science and curiosity. A number of RCA staff, students and alumni presented talks and workshops exploring ideas as diverse as tailoring clothes for space, designing happy cities and innovative design solutions for iron deficiency and dementia. The event partnered with the Natural History Museum to deliver workshops for families from North Kensington in the lead up to the festival. This enabled the College to place local voices at the heart of the programme alongside professional artists and scientists from world-class institutions.
Locations
Kensington & Chelsea
Partners
Natural History Museum
More information about Great Exhibition Road Festival
Category: Communities, Creative
GreenSCIES (Green Smart Community Integrated Energy Systems)
London South Bank University
GreenSCIES will deliver a detailed design for a smart energy system that integrates new low carbon energy technologies across heat, power and mobility. Innovative technical and business model approaches will be developed for the provision of smart energy systems that significantly reduce carbon emissions and result in significantly smaller bills for the consumer. The smart energy grid will also help provide affordable warmth and lower local pollution, with a clear path for replication elsewhere in the UK.
This will be a community-based project with wide stakeholder engagement including local residents and businesses but also with policy makers and replicators.
GreenSCIES is an entirely innovative ground-breaking project that will provide an investable low carbon scheme unique in the UK.
The GreenSCIES detailed design for a smart energy network will initially focus on the London Borough of Islington and will connect 33,000 residents and nearly 70 businesses. The aim is to co-design the network with the local community and several community engagement workshops will be carried out to inform residents and other stakeholders about the project and its benefits. Focus groups will include resident champions and collaboration participants who will participate in the detailed design, ensuring it is truly co-designed.
Locations
Islington; GLA are on the advisory committee
Partners
London Borough of Islington; E.ON; Carbon Descent Projects; Building Low Carbon Solutions; grid Edge; Carbon Data Resources; Repowering London; Consortio; Cullinan Studio; Silver EMS; Cenex; Hanagar 19; West Midlands Combined Authority
More information about GreenSCIES (Green Smart Community Integrated Energy Systems)
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
GCSE Maths Tutoring with TeamUp and Partner Schools
London School of Economics and Political Science
In 2020/21, the LSE WP Team redesigned its existing tutoring programme for its two partner schools – Barking Abbey School and Harris Academy St Johns Wood. This programme was designed in response to the pandemic which has exacerbated the attainment gap in state schools meaning that some pupils have fallen behind, especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The programme attempted to address this and support students who need help due to school closures and other disruptions to their education. The tutoring focused on improving the GCSE Maths grades of participating Year 10 and 11 students, most of whom were eligible for Pupil Premium funding. Team Up is an educational charity that aims to ‘tackle educational disadvantage’. Team Up worked with the schools to identify students most at risk of not achieving their full academic potential. In one school, comparison of a baseline and progress test revealed pupils made on average 1.4 grades of progress. Anecdotal feedback from staff, tutors and schools pupils was overwhelmingly positive.
Anthony Maloney, Head of Sixth Form at Barking Abbey School commented: “The tutoring project with LSE has offered our students much needed stability and security in these uncertain and difficult times to strengthen their mathematical concept comprehension and develop areas of weakness. The personalised nature of this platform has provided our Year 11s with the reassurance and resilience to persist with their mathematical studies with renewed vigour and confidence. This post lockdown forum has provided just the remedy they needed!” The LSE WP Team will continue to partner with Barking Abbey and Harry Academy St Johns Wood in 2021/22. After the success of the pilot year of LSE and Team Ups partnership, planning is underway to deliver two, in person, Maths Tutoring programmes to our London partner schools from January 2022.
Locations
Barking and Dagenham, City of Westminster
Partners
Team Up; London Partner Schools.
More information about GCSE Maths Tutoring with TeamUp and Partner Schools
Category: Communities, Education
First Star Academy
St Mary's University, Twickenham
First Star Academy is a four-year programme for young people in foster care, supporting them through GCSE and ‘A’-Level education and developing crucial life skills with the overarching aim of boosting numbers of young people who go on to university from the care system.
The pilot cohort saw a 300% increase of young people in foster care going to university, compared to the national average. They have seen huge increases in GCSE and A’-Level passes in their group compared to the national average for young people in foster care. They have received feedback from students who have described the academy as ‘life-changing’, and who encourage younger cohorts to join the academy. They are currently fundraising for a third cohort.
Locations
Twickenham
Partners
Local authorities; schools; colleges; community organisations; university departments; First Star Scholars UK; First Star Inc USA
More information about First Star Academy
Category: Communities, Education
Fight Against Covid-19
Queen Mary University of London
Queen Mary has undertaken a wide range of activities to support the local community in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes:
• Releasing clinical staff from their academic duties to take up roles in local NHS trusts.
• Training final year medical students to offer immediate frontline support to doctors and nurses in adult critical care wards at the Royal London Hospital before graduating.
• Donating PPE equipment used the university’s research laboratories to a local hospice and a community group involved in providing meals to older residents in Tower Hamlets.
• Making parking spaces on our campuses available for local NHS workers.
• Offering accommodation vacated by students to the NHS and Tower Hamlets Council.
• Offering free hot and chilled meals for local families and homeless organisations during school holiday periods.
• Encouraging and enabling Queen Mary staff and students to volunteer in their local communities through mutual aid initiatives, local authority opportunities and supporting community groups.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
Partners
NHS Trusts; Royal London Hospital; Testing Alliance
More information about Fight Against Covid-19
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Fight Against Covid-19 (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
London Met scientists were, and continue to be, regularly consulted by governments and agencies for comment and advice, whether on the question of how hardy the virus is on external surfaces, such as banknotes, to the best vitamins for the older generations to take in order to give their bodies the best chance of combatting the virus’ effects.
The London Met psychology team has commented on managing mental health during isolation within media channels including national press. Others are volunteering to support local communities, mental health charities and other agencies in an effort to relieve the crisis. London Met also donated food to local foodbanks, as well as PPE from the Science Centre and sewing protective masks.
PhD students volunteered in a hospital lab and London Met has looked at Vaccine Hesitancy and Social Distancing in North London. The Widening Participation and Outreach team at London Met has organised a series of engaging online activities to help young people progress into HE, which work in tandem with a new national project launched by the Minister of State for Universities, Michelle Donelan.
Locations
Islington, Hackney and Tower Hamlets
Partners
NHS, GP Federation, Whittington Hospital
More information about Fight Against Covid-19 (London Met Lab project)
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Festival of Communities
Queen Mary University of London
Queen Mary University of London launched this festival in 2015 for Tower Hamlets to bring together QMUL staff and students with local families to celebrate life in the borough of Tower Hamlets. The two-day festival is now attended by around 3,500 local residents each year.
The individuals and teams who have been involved in the Festival of Communities is extremely diverse, reflecting the collaborative nature of the event. Staff and students from within Queen Mary have been pivotal in Festival provision. On each day of the Festival, 25 teams from Queen Mary have provided activities for visitors to engage with, 20 PhD students have been involved in operations of the Festival as Festival Crew, and 5 PhD students have been responsible for Festival evaluations. Additionally, 11 other Queen Mary teams have been involved in Festival operations (Venues, Catering, Cleaning and Waste, Portering, Security, Estates Projects, Design and Branding, Marketing and Communications, Students’ Union, Residences, Events).
Externally, there were five representatives from local organisations and projects who worked as Festival Advisors throughout the year and a local social enterprise was responsible for event management and construction of the Festival site in Stepney Green Park. The Festival also had activities from 35 local organisations and projects to engage with visitors.
Locations
Tower Hamlets (Stepney Green Park and QM Mile End Campus)
More information about Festival of Communities
Category: Communities
Family Learning
Birkbeck, University of London
Family Learning targets children who are unlikely to apply to university. Birkbeck’s role is to provide advice and support to parents, in some cases encouraging them to consider HE for themselves. This includes, for example, parents who run small businesses and who have signed up to do a Foundation Degree over four years, part-time in order to fit in with work and family commitments, in order to enhance their business.
Locations
Birkbeck's campuses in London
More information about Family Learning
Category: Communities, Education
Emergency Food Bank for Vulnerable Citizens
City, University of London
City Library Science postgraduate students worked in tandem with Age UK to set up and deliver an emergency food bank for City of London residents during the pandemic. The project was developed after it was advised that people vulnerable to Covid-19, such senior citizens and people with disabilities, remain at home during the pandemic.
Locations
City of London
Partners
Age UK (Alice Westlake)
More information about Emergency Food Bank for Vulnerable Citizens
Category: Communities
Elevate Programme
London South Bank University
Lambeth Council’s Elevate programme aims to break down barriers to employment and training for low-income residents, disabled residents, BAME residents and women in the creative and cultural industries. Academics from LSBU’s School of the Arts and Creative Industries have been providing support to the Elevate programme by undertaking an evaluation of the activity that the Council has delivered to date. They have also held a series of workshops to produce a Theory of Change to guide the programme over the next three years as well as delivering a series of recommendations for Elevate’s future development.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
London Borough of Lambeth
More information about Elevate Programme
Category: Communities, Creative
Education Partnership Forum
Staffordshire University London
Staffordshire University London are chairing Newham Council’s 14-19 Education Partnership for 2021-22. It is a strategic partnership of 16-19 education providers, whose Leaders Forum meets regularly throughout the year to discuss specific areas of work. Several other London Higher members are or have previously been involved with this partnership (University of East London; Loughborough University London; Birkbeck, University of London)
Locations
Newham
Partners
Newham Council
More information about Education Partnership Forum
Category: Communities, Education
East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone
Loughborough University London
Loughborough University London is a partner of the East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone (ELIEZ). ELIEZ is an accessible, specially designed, community for entrepreneurs, business leaders and design thinkers who are disabled or whose work focuses on disabled people. It helps accelerate the development of products and services that address unmet needs and on focused on generating accessible inclusive and innovative practices from idea stage through to global deployment.
ELIEZ is now a thriving community of disruptive start-ups, innovators, and disabled entrepreneurs developing products and services that are addressing previously unmet needs. Together, we are endeavouring to radically change inclusive innovation and accessibility sectors.
Locations
Hackney
Partners
Loughborough University, UCL, Plexal, Here East, Global Disability Innovation Hub, Disability Rights UK, Capital Enterprise, Greater London Authority, London College of Fashion, UAL, Hackney Council, Ford Mobility, Inclusion London, and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC)
More information about East London Inclusive Enterprise Zone
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
East London Genes & Health
Queen Mary University of London
Genes & Health is one of the world’s largest community-based genetics studies, aiming to improve health among people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage by analysing the genes and health of 100,000 local people. There are studies in East London, Bradford and Manchester.
The study is ongoing, but aims to improve understanding of link between genetics and health from the perspective of Bangladeshi and Pakistani populations.
Locations
Tower Hamlets, Newham, Hackney, Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge
Partners
Social Action for Health, Centre of the Cell, Barts NHS Trust, UCL Partners
More information about East London Genes & Health
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Digital Skills Programme
Loughborough University London
Loughborough University London is working to support start-ups, Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs), charities and not-for-profits scale and grow through a two-part programme aimed at boosting digital skills.
The Digital Skills programme is a free two-part programme with the aim to improve digital skills. It offers online workshops and the chance to set virtual work insight projects for Loughborough students.
Since starting the Programme in March 2020 they have worked with around 150 micro-SMEs from across London. 70 of these micro-SMEs have benefitted from at least five hours of capacity building workshops. Alongside this they have delivered 92x 30-hour work insight projects, building capacity for those micro-SMEs involved and giving vital work experience to their students. The work insight projects have directly led to students gaining employment, either with the organisations they have worked with or via the experience and references they have gained.
Locations
Hackney
Partners
Digital Grid Partnership; Newham College; Goldsmiths, University of London; London South Bank University
More information about Digital Skills Programme
Category: Communities, Education
Digital Curating at The Photographers’ Gallery
London South Bank University
Research led by the Centre for the Study of the Networked Image (CSNI) at London South Bank University (LSBU) in partnership with The Photographers’ Gallery (TPG) London, enabled TPG to address the aesthetic, cultural and socio-technical challenges posed by born-digital and networked photography.
The research established TPG’s international reputation for driving public discourse on the cultural ramifications of the radical technological changes taking place in image production. The research directly shaped TPG’s programming strategy and changed curatorial practices and the approaches of its education programmes: the digital programme encompassed 36 curated projects, with 15 new works commissioned, with an approximate Gallery audience of 1,800,000 and several million online; further, over 45 talks were delivered to audiences of 40 – 60 that included arts policy and industry professionals, artists, photographers and educators.
https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/curating-networked-image-2011-present https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/photography-culture/co-creating-networks https://www.centreforthestudyof.net/?page_id=1491
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
The Photographers’ Gallery (TPG) London
More information about Digital Curating at The Photographers’ Gallery
Category: Creative, Education
Developing Coding Skills in the Community
Northumbria University London
Northumbria University London Campus continue to collaborate with its strategic partner QA in a Teach the Nation to Code initiative. This is a series of free, one-day interactive workshops specifically designed to help everyone to develop the essential skills needed within the technology world – from programming and cloud technologies to DevOps, data management, web development and beyond. The workshops are delivered on-campus or virtually by industry experts in a way that is easy to understand, regardless of background and level of experience.
The Teach the Nation to Code partnership between NU and QA goes from strength to strength with further events planned in 2022. The initial Northumbria workshops were focused around software engineering with Python. Next year we plan on expanding this by running additional workshops that focuses on market led skills needs including DevOps, Cloud and Data.
Locations
These events are open to all communities in London
Partners
QA
More information about Developing Coding Skills in the Community
Category: Business and Industry, Education
Digital Environmental Strategy for New Bond Street
London South Bank University
The City of Westminster was looking to develop a new recycled scheme for Bond Street area in order to improve the urban quality of the spaces. LSBU’s Digital Architectural and Robotics Lab (DARLAB) developed a proposal for new urban design proposal for waste collection points using plastic waste recycled from Veolia as a waste management company for the area.
Locations
City of Westminister Council
Partners
Veolia, City of Westminister, New West End
More information about Digital Environmental Strategy for New Bond Street
Category: Communities, Creative, Sustainability
Centre of the Cell
Queen Mary University of London
Centre of the Cell is a science education centre based at the Whitechapel Campus of Queen Mary, University of London which opened in 2009. It is the first science education centre in the world to be located within working biomedical research laboratories. It seeks to have a positive impact on the educational, career and health choices of the children, young people and families with whom it works. Centre of the Cell is an online resource, a science and health education centre and outreach project. The team runs educational sessions in the Centre of the Cell STEM Pod supported by workshops, mentoring and revision programmes, online resources and volunteering opportunities.
The project aims to inspire the next generation of scientists and healthcare professionals by stimulating interest and dialogue around health research.
Locations
Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets
Partners
Local schools from across east London, and hosts a Youth Membership Scheme for young people aged 14-19.
More information about Centre of the Cell
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
Enable London
St George's, University of London
‘Enable London’ studied how residents who moved into the former London Olympic village were affected by the built environment they lived in, and whether it altered their levels of physical activity. The St George’s project showed that moving to an environment with a built environment designed for physical activity did not necessarily result in an increase in physical activity, but the marginal gains produced might have a beneficial result over a whole population. Further research is needed to understand how the built environment could be optimised to have larger effects on physical activity at an individual level.
Locations
Newham
Partners
Local community in the Olympic Village, Newham local authority, East Thames Group and Triathlon Homes, Public Health England.
More information about Enable London
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Hackney and Greater London Selective Licensing Schemes for Private Rented Housing Sector
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Local authorities have discretionary powers to implement selective licensing schemes. Under these schemes, landlords of private rented homes in designated areas must pay the authority a license fee, which contributes to a local authority inspection scheme. Inspections are intended to identify homes that do not meet minimum standards and compel landlords to carry out improvement work to remove environmental household hazards. LSHTM are currently co-producing an in-depth study of one ongoing scheme in Hackney, alongside the Borough of Hackney. They are also using routine data to assess impact on mental health and wellbeing of a number of schemes across greater London, and findings will be fed back to relevant local authorities.
Locations
Hackney
Partners
London Public Health and Housing Network; NIHR School for Public Health Research
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Here East Scholarship Programme
Staffordshire University London
This programme provides full undergraduate tuition and supporting loans of £2,700 per year to students from the Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest areas, enabling them to study at Staffordshire University London. It also facilitates work experience placements and mentoring opportunities within the Here East business community for its recipients. It is particularly aimed at first-in-family students, caregivers, or those facing financial barriers in progressing to higher education.
Locations
Hackney; Newham; Tower Hamlets; Waltham Forest
Partners
Here East (Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park)
More information about Here East Scholarship Programme
Category: Communities, Education
Improving Recognition and Management of Chronic Kidney Disease in Primary Care
London South Bank University
The East London Community Kidney Service (ELCKS), which serves 1.2m people and covers 4 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), has further developed a system-wide change in both intervention and control CCGs.
One study by the service looked at renal-specific clinical facilitation with Practices in the lowest decile of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) coding. Practices showed significant coding improvement over a 1-year period following the intervention, and those have been sustained. This is important as those who aren’t coded for CKD have double the mortality rates of people whose are coded, alongside a significant increase in unplanned hospital admissions and in rates of acute kidney injury.
Data from all practices in three CCGs in 2020 showed a sustained level in the proportion of cases with blood pressure achieving NICE targets. Additional impacts of the ELCKS include reduction of wait time for consultation, and only 20% referred patients requiring a hospital appointment.
“The new service supports timely provision of advice from the hospital specialist to the GP, to enable better management of the patient either in the community or with more specialist care where needed. A single pathway from primary to secondary care with rapid access to specialist advice provided by consultant led e-clinics have transformed the way the outpatient service is delivered. Since the e-Clinic began in December 2015, 50% of referrals are managed without the need for a hospital appointment. The average waiting time for a renal clinic appointment has fallen to five days, from 64 days in 2015.”
Locations
Tower Hamlets Council Town Hall Mulberry Place 5 Clove Crescent E14 2BG Hackney Service Centre 1 Hillman Street London E8 1DY London Borough of Newham Newham Dockside 1000 Dockside Road London E16 2QU Guildhall PO Box 270 London EC2P 2EJ (correspondence) EC2V 7HH (visiting us)
Partners
Bart Health NHS Trust, Clinical Effectiveness Group, NHS Tower Hamlets Clinical Commissioning Group, Queen Mary University of London
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Informing Social Care Policy in London during the Pandemic
London School of Economics and Political Science
CPEC’s Jose-Luis Fernandez led research for the London Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) to support London’s assessment of and response to Covid-19 impacts on social care. This led to daily evidence from the London social care community and bed-based care market, which identified Covid-19 risk-factors and impacts on the care workforce. CPEC also contributed to a pan-London projections model for assessing the likely capacity of the social care sector to meet the demand for support from patients discharged from London hospitals.
Locations
Across London - 1,300+ care homes and 1,100+ home care providers
Partners
London Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS)
More information about Informing Social Care Policy in London during the Pandemic
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, NHS / Health
Injury & Rehabilitation Clinic
London Metropolitan University
Based in the Science Centre in N7, London Metropolitan University’s Injury and Rehabilitation Clinic offers high quality but affordable services to give back to the London community. It provides examination, assessment and diagnosis of musculoskeletal injuries as well as treatment and rehabilitation. Additionally, it offers fitness services such as screening, biomechanical and physiological analysis.
The Injury and Rehabilitation Clinic is run by graduate sports therapists on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. There is also an option to see Tuesdays and Thursdays (term-time only). London Met’s sports therapists help to: reduce pain, align posture, prevent injuries, treat injuries, recover faster.
They provide hands-on treatment such as manual therapy, massage and joint mobilisations to help reduce muscle tension and improve joint mobility. Planned rehabilitation exercises helping patients with daily movement patterns or peak to perform at an elite sporting level.
Partners
GP Federation Islington, NCL NHS
More information about Injury & Rehabilitation Clinic
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Innovation for Sustainable Airports
Brunel University London
This Science and Innovation Audit (SIA), awarded by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, focused on Innovation for Sustainable Airports using Heathrow as the primary place.
Heathrow Airport represents 1% of UK GDP, is in the Thames Valley that delivers 10% of UK GDP, and is recognised for excellence in customer experience and operational efficiency, operating at 98% capacity. It is also an internationally-recognised leader in environmental sustainability, a position reinforced by Heathrow 2.0, the airport’s recent sustainability leadership strategy. It is the most efficient 2-runway airport in the world, and while aviation is growing globally, research, innovation and business collaboration will be critical for this growth to be sustainable.
The study focused on four key themes: Big Data and Cyber Security, Intelligent Mobility, Sustainable Construction and Operational Excellence, to help make Heathrow and the UK system of businesses the home of Sustainable Airport innovation. The themes explored by the audit map closely to the Grand Challenges set out in the Government’s Industrial Strategy.
Locations
Heathrow, Hillingdon
Partners
Heathrow Airport, Royal Holloway, University of London, The Heathrow Strategic Planning Group, Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure Ltd, The Buckinghamshire Thames Valley LEP, The Smart Specialisation Hub, West London Business, BRE (Building Research Establishment Ltd), Maidenhead & District Chamber of Commerce, Thames Valley Berkshire LEP, Conigital, SEGRO, ICE blue
More information about Innovation for Sustainable Airports
Category: Sustainability
Inside Science
St George's, University of London
Since 2014, St George’s, University of London has collaborated with HM Prison Wandsworth on a science engagement programme, in which current topics in science are introduced and discussed, with most of the topics being chosen by inmates. The informal sessions take place in an art class, in which the men can continue drawing or painting whilst being encouraged to engage and discuss scientific ideas, prompts and questions. Two art exhibitions featuring the work produced by prisoners in creative response to the talks have taken place at St George’s. The second ‘Inside Science: a conversation between art and science’ exhibition took place in May 2019. The artwork went on permanent display at HMP Wandsworth in June 2019, and there is a YouTube video that highlights the creative process of the people involved. Education and confidence building are recognised as essential elements of rehabilitation. Inside Science extends beyond scientific content and knowledge dissemination to help facilitate discussion, reflection and confidence.
Two art exhibitions featuring the work produced by prisoners in creative response to the talks have taken place at St George’s. The second ‘Inside Science: a conversation between art and science’ exhibition took place in May 2019. The artwork went on permanent display at HMP Wandsworth in June 2019, and there is a YouTube video that highlights the creative process of the people involved.
Education and confidence building are recognised as essential elements of rehabilitation. Inside Science extends beyond scientific content and knowledge dissemination to help facilitate discussion, reflection and confidence.
Locations
HM Prison Wandsworth
More information about Inside Science
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Inspired not Tired
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Trinity Laban’s Inspired not Tired programme offers opportunities for older adults in Lewisham to take part in creative activity, engage in projects with other groups including other local groups for older adults, schools and Trinity Laban students, perform at venues across London, develop new creative skills and connect with other likeminded people in the local area. It celebrates participants’ creativity, ideas and life experiences, including those who are less mobile or experiencing life-limiting illness, isolation and social exclusion.
Successive research studies have evidenced positive impacts on social and creative confidence, improved breathing and mobility, reduced pain and significantly greater psychological wellbeing among participants. This is a longstanding programme. During the pandemic, Trinity Laban has maintained delivery through a combination of online projects such as Let Me Out!, What Is Hope?, and engagement via post and phone, sending creative postal packs encouraging movement exercises, crafting and lyric sheets, and organising group skype calls for karaoke and catching up via landlines. As they return to in-person activity, to hope to continue to capitalise on new forms of digital engagement to reach as many participants as possible. Indeed, these projects, and others, have touched the lives of around 1,770 local residents aged over 60. Other community projects have engaged 1,636 disabled children and 26,223 young people and a phenomenal 176,682 people have attended Trinity Laban performances.
Locations: Lewisham
Partners
Lewisham Council; Older People Arts Network partners; Entelechy; Albany; SLAM; Age Exchange; Horniman Museum
More information about Inspired not Tired
Category: Communities, Creative
Inspiring Future Diversity in Science
The Institute of Cancer Research
The Institute of Cancer Research will develop a schools outreach programme to promote careers in research in their target schools, which will include: (i) events/workshops/talks in schools; (ii) opportunities for students from target schools to visit the ICR; (ii) new resources for schools.; (iii) develop a long-term partnership with Harris Academy Sutton; (iv) launch an educational film and resource pack to support the science curriculum and promote this resource both locally and nationally; (v) work with the BAME forum at the ICR and The Royal Marsden to encourage students from BAME backgrounds to pursue careers in science and cancer research; and (vi) launch a section of the ICR’s website that features resources for schools and teachers.
Locations
Sutton
Partners
Harris Academy Sutton; ICR BAME Forum; Royal Marsden
More information about Inspiring Future Diversity in Science
Category: Education
Intensive Post-discharge Support for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Clients
London South Bank University
In the UK, approximately 4,000 adolescents are admitted for inpatient psychiatric care each year. The period after discharge is associated with the highest risk of suicide and self-harm, due to a lack of social support and effective treatment upon discharge. As a direct response, the Supported Discharge Service (SDS) was set up to offer each young person a detailed assessment and evidence-based, individual, group and family treatment without incurring major disruption to education, family life and leisure.
Research by LSBU demonstrating the efficiency and cost effectiveness of SDS has contributed to a shift away from inpatient treatment for severe cases of mental distress (both child and adult) to an intensive community service delivery that is beneficial to mental health in the longer term, reduces self-harm and is safe and cost effective. Furthermore, NHS England has now allocated £50m to post-discharge support for patients leaving mental health inpatient services, signalling a significant shift towards more intensive community support.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(18)30129-9/fulltext
Locations
Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham
Partners
King’s College London, South London & Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
IntoUniversity Brent Centre and LSE Widening Participation Partnership
London School of Economics and Political Science
LSE has been funding the Primary FOCUS programme in Brent since September 2018. As well as providing funding to support the costs of the programme, LSE has worked closely with the IntoUniveristy staff team to support the delivery of the programme. Pre COVID-19, this included hosting visits to the University for graduations and providing Student Ambassadors to support in workshops and give campus tours. During the pandemic, LSE Student Ambassadors have continued to support sessions remotely through virtual Q&As. Through the partnership, the Brent team has also been put in in touch with LSE academics who have volunteered to co-create and lead workshops during Primary FOCUS weeks. IntoUniversity are an educational charity, providing local learning centres where young people are inspired to achieve. At each local centre, IntoUniversity offers an innovative programme that supports young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to attain either a university place or another chosen aspiration.
As a result of this partnership, the LSE has engaged with hundreds of Primary School Students in Years 5 and 6 over a number of years.
Pre COVID-19, graduations on campus also provided an opportunity for parents and carers to attend. LSE are continuing to support IntoUniversity by providing funding for their Brent Centre’s Primary FOCUS programme during 2021/22. In addition, LSE promotes volunteering opportunities at IntoUniversity centres to current LSE students and staff and provides remote support at Q&A sessions for Year 5 and 6 students on their programmes.
Locations
Brent
Partners
IntoUniversity; LSE Widening Participation Partnership
More information about IntoUniversity Brent Centre and LSE Widening Participation Partnership
Category: Communities, Education
Kingston University Biodiversity Action Group
Kingston University London
Kingston University is in a rare position of being an urban university with a large amount of biodiversity on their campuses that it is committed to protecting and enhancing. The Kingston University Biodiversity Action Group is a vehicle for students, staff and local community volunteers to work on a range of projects with the aim of protecting the biodiversity on and around the university campuses. As part of the Riverfly Monitoring Project students, staff and residents monitor the Hogsmill River to establish changes in river health and whether there have been acute pollution incidents. The Invasive Plants Project ensures that invasive species on Kingston University sites are managed and controlled to stop spread into the wild. These include the removal of Himalayan balsam around Knights Park and rhododendrons from Kingston Hill.
More information about Kingston University Biodiversity Action Group
Category: Sustainability
Journeys to Democratic Engagement on Climate Issues
London School of Economics and Political Science
An LSE Public Research Partners project supported by the LSE Student Futures experiential learning initiative, it involved six undergraduates in a research collaboration with the NGO, Hope For The Future (HFTF), through the Department of Government’s Contemporary Political Theory course module.
The project’s premise was that for political leaders in a democratic system to take meaningful public action on climate issues, ordinary citizens must engage in democratic processes in sustained ways rather than simply as a brief experiment. This study therefore sought to learn more about how to encourage such sustained involvement by interviewing people who had taken part in HFTF’s training activities about how to communicate as citizens with their MPs on climate issues. Student interviewed 18 participants about what experiences, ideas and values had motivated them to become involved with HFTF and climate advocacy.
Through this research, HFTF has been able to enrich its constituent training activities, especially through creating more opportunities for participants to experience a sense of community with one another in their democratic engagement efforts. LSE students offered concrete recommendations in this regard that HFTF has taken up and is implementing.
A new LSE Public Research Partners project with HFTF is being planned as part of the same course module in the new year (2022). This new research will involve students interviewing local councillors in London and other councils in the UK to find out what actions on climate issues these officials can take and what factors are most significant in motivating such action.
Partners
Hope For The Future
More information about Journeys to Democratic Engagement on Climate Issues
Category: Communities, Sustainability
Kingston Volunteering
Kingston University London
Since 2001 the Union of Kingston Students has run a successful volunteering scheme.
Open to all current students and staff, it provides opportunities to take part in a wide range of extra-curricular voluntary activities.
The majority of this activity takes place in the local community within the borough of Kingston upon Thames, but Kingston volunteers occasionally volunteers travel further afield to London and the surrounding areas. The volume, variety and quality of volunteer activity has gone from strength to strength. The scheme now sees around 300 active volunteers involved with 100 volunteering opportunities, contributing around 3,500 hours to the community each year.
The scheme gives volunteers the opportunity to work regularly in schools, charities and community groups. Funding and support is provided to students to set up their own community project, big or small with past examples including creating a cookery book for young carers and knitting hats for babies in Kingston Hospital’s special care unit.
Locations
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
More information about Kingston Volunteering
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Law Pro-Bono Advice Clinic
London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University’s School of Law is pleased to offer free initial legal advice to the general public via its online law pro bono clinic, where law students work on members of the public’s cases, supervised by an expert qualified solicitor.
The service is available in the three key areas of consumer law, employment law and housing law.
If citizens have any non-urgent problems of this nature, they can contact the clinic, and London Met students are happy to research the case and offer free guidance.
All advice is confidential and is given in writing, usually within a two-week time frame. If the matter is too complex for the students to deal with, the supervising solicitor will offer advice on gaining professional representation elsewhere.
This service is offered both to empower members of the local community in enforcing their rights, and also to provide vital experience to our excellent students, as they train to become practising lawyers.
Locations
Across North London
Partners
Law Centre Islington, Toynbee Hall
More information about Law Pro-Bono Advice Clinic
Category: Communities, Education
Lambeth: Better supporting LGBTQI+ communities through Covid-19 (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
A unique new study that examines the experience of LGBTQI+ residents in Lambeth has revealed how the Covid-19 pandemic and its impacts have eroded support networks, negatively impacted on people’s health and left community member’s isolated.
Partners
Lambeth Council, Black Thrive, Black Out, Lambeth Links and Opening Doors London.
Category: Communities, Education
Leadership Training for Community Leaders
SOAS, University of London
SOAS has worked with London local authorities and education delivery organisations over the last few years to provide leaders from disadvantaged and multi-ethnic communities with the skills and knowledge to develop their careers and gain positions of influence.
They have worked closely with diaspora communities from countries such as Somalia and developed leadership training for African women working in a range of sectors and professions. These initiatives have a profound and enduring impact on the ability of minority groups – and those who provide services to them – to take control of their lives and change agendas. SOAS’ unique perspective enables them to address difficult topics such as radicalisation, religious intolerance and cultural differences help to create greater cohesion and harmony in communities.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
Partners
Tower Hamlets Council; GOSH; Future Leaders
More information about Leadership Training for Community Leaders
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Education
Lewisham Borough of Culture 2022
Goldsmiths, University of London
Goldsmiths was a key partner in the successful bid for Lewisham Borough of Culture 2022 and proposed a series of contributions reflecting the university’s central role in the borough’s cultural life for over 100 years. Goldsmiths is the borough’s lead partner for ‘In Living Memory’, a strand of activity celebrating Lewisham’s heritage and diversity.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
Lewisham Council
More information about Lewisham Borough of Culture 2022
Category: Communities, Creative
London City Institute of Technology
Queen Mary University of London
The London City Institute of Technology (LCIT) is one of only 12 bids in the UK to be awarded provisional IOT status by Department for Education and plans to open in September 2022. The LCIT is a partnership between Queen Mary University of London & Newham College of Further Education, with support from key employers, Greater London Area and the London Borough of Newham. It will focus on supporting young people with high-level skills and provide employers with the workforce they’re looking for in the transport industry.
Locations
Newham
Partners
Newham College of Further Education, Greater London Authority
More information about London City Institute of Technology
Category: Business and Industry, Education
London BioScience Innovation Centre
Royal Veterinary College
The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) owns and operates the London BioScience Innovation Centre (LBIC), which provides 3100 m2 of wet-laboratories and office space for pharmaceutical companies such as MSD (Merck), and around 30 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) active in the biological and biomedical sciences. The Centre offers the possibility of collaborating with world-class scientists and clinicians at RVC, and access to RVC’s experimental animal facilities in Camden. The unique advantages that LBIC possesses in terms of accessibility and location (a five-minute walk to King’s Cross / St Pancras and Euston stations), together with the scarcity of commercial wet laboratory / write-up space within central London, have allowed it to operate at full capacity, or close thereto, for many years. As a result LBIC has developed a strong reputation for supporting the growth of SMEs, and good connections to London’s other innovation centres (Imperial White City, Queen Mary and facilities being developed at UCL East). It is also cultivating links to local business support networks such as Camden Unlimited, MedCity and organisations outside London, such as the Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst.
Locations
Camden; Islington; Stevenage, Hertfordshire
Partners
Camden and Islington Borough Councils; Camden Unlimited; GLA; MedCity; Research England
More information about London BioScience Innovation Centre
Category: Business and Industry, Education
London Barbershop Blood Pressure Project
London South Bank University
LSBU, Croydon BME Forum and Off the Record launched a project in April 2021 to train barbers in eight barbershops in Croydon to measure and give advice about blood pressure to their customers in a UK-first project.
The London barbershop blood pressure testing project is inspired by a successful health study in Los Angeles barbershops in 2018 which resulted in 68% of those with high blood pressure ending the study with healthy blood pressure levels.
Around 30% of men in the UK currently have high blood pressure, and around half of these are not diagnosed or receiving treatment. High blood pressure is the third biggest cause of disease in the UK. The London barbershop project will target Black and Asian men who are more likely to have high blood pressure and less likely to be diagnosed than the general population.
Through the project, for the first time in the UK, barbers will offer testing to their customers to find out if they have high blood pressure and then give advice about how to reduce it.
Locations
Croydon
Partners
Croydon BME Forum, Off the Record
More information about London Barbershop Blood Pressure Project
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
London Heliport
London South Bank University
London heliport in Wandsworth is London’s only commercial heliport. It operates on the river Thames and is now surrounded by residential properties, whereas in 1959, when the heliport was built, the area was a disused dock. A noise survey was undertaken coordinated with a social survey to determine how disturbing the operation of the heliport was to residents. The research was carried out by Dr. Stephen Dance and Dr. Luis Gomez-Agustina of London South Bank University’s (LSBU) Acoustics department in the School of Architecture and the Built Environment (BEA).
The study was commissioned by three London boroughs (Wandsworth, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea) and the findings show that residents living close to the Thames in these boroughs are routinely subjected to noise disturbance levels that exceed limits set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This is the first acoustics study of its kind in the UK to monitor noise levels near the heliport over a five month period in 2017.
Publication of the report has sparked calls from all three boroughs for the heliport to do much more to limit the impact of its operations on neighbouring communities. The leaders of each Council have been urging the Mayor, transport ministers and the Civil Aviation Authority to work more closely with them in co-ordinated efforts to resolve the noise problems caused by the heliport.
Locations
Wandsworth
Partners
Wandsworth and Richmond Council, Royal Borough of Kenginston and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham.
More information about London Heliport
Category: Communities, Sustainability
London Met Lab
London Metropolitan University
London is the greatest city in the world, but while Londoners enjoy some of the highest standards of living anywhere in the world for many others in the capital it is a different story.
Through civic engagement work, London Met is on a mission to tackle the inequalities facing London, to improve people’s lives and to deliver social justice. The London Met Lab brings academic expertise to co-design solutions to the social challenges which disproportionately affect local communities. London Met Challenge Champions undertake research projects, provide practical support and share their expertise so that together, we can find new and innovative ways to respond to the needs of the city in six crucial areas; Crime, Poverty and Deprivation, Social Wealth, Discrimination, Health Improvement, and the Environment. The London Met Lab works with over 600 partner organisations, including local authorities, NHS Trusts, sports clubs, third sector organisations, higher education institutions and businesses.
There are many examples of completed and ongoing projects across London, which can be found as individual case studies on this Civic Map.
Locations
Hackney, Islington, Tower Hamlets, Newham
Partners
GLA, Over 20 London Borough Councils, The Metropolitan Police, North East London Social Work Teaching Partnership, Youth Justice Board, Small Businesses Charter, Over 10 local NHS Trusts
More information about London Met Lab
Category: Communities, NHS / Health, Sustainability
London Gangs: Understanding Youth Violence
London South Bank University
In 2017-18 the London Borough of Waltham Forest funded LSBU’s Postcodes to Profit study to understand youth violence linked to street gangs in the area. LSBU developed a gang evolution model to understand how gangs had changed in the past 10 years since a previous landmark study (Pitts, 2008) in the same area.
LSBU’s study enabled Waltham Forest Council, the Metropolitan Police Service and other agencies to redesign their strategies and policies to respond to the new risks identified. Further, the Council developed a range of trauma informed interventions. As a result of the study, Waltham Forest Council and partner agencies allocated an additional £806k of funding to redesign their gang strategy and reshape their gang prevention programme. Further, the Council developed a range of trauma informed interventions. The change in strategy enabled Waltham Forest Council and the Metropolitan Police Service to successfully disrupt gang activities in drug markets, resulting in a reduction of 34% in knife crime involving injuries and a 27% fall in overall knife crime in the following 12 months.
More recently, LSBU has worked with Southwark Council to benefit young people at risk of exploitation: one of the lead researchers is currently seconded to Southwark Council to develop a training programme designed to understand children and young people’s experiences of gang life through the lens of coercive control. This research involves the novel application of the concept of coercive control to the field of child criminal and sexual exploitation within gangs.
Locations
Southwark and Waltham Forest
Partners
WalthamForest Council; Southwark Council; the Metropolitan Police Service
More information about London Gangs: Understanding Youth Violence
Category: Communities
London Met supports UUK Climate Action campaign
London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University is proud to support the Universities UK’s Climate Action campaign, which highlights the role of higher education institutions in improving environmental outcomes and how they are working to build a more sustainable world. London Met’s commitment to sustainability has been highly praised, having reduced its carbon footprint by 78% during 2019-20 from a 2009 baseline figure, meeting its 2020 target four years early. By developing projects with staff, students, and the wider public, London Met continues to showcase its innovative approaches to environmental change.
One of these projects is the Rewild My Street campaign, founded by London Met lecturer Siân Moxon, which aims to combine architectural design and sustainability to help residents adapt their homes, gardens, and streets for wildlife.
In addition, the HomeGrownHouse initiative developed by London Met Associate Professor George Fereday has been widely recognised for research into sourcing sustainable timber for UK construction. The project was featured at the COP26 climate change conference, held in Glasgow in 2021.
Partners
Universities UK
More information about London Met supports UUK Climate Action campaign
Category: Sustainability
London Met Students help Waltham Forest College with COVID Testing (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
London Met students have joined forces with Waltham Forest College to help them run their rapid-testing centre for COVID-19, to minimise the risk of spreading the disease. Waltham Forest currently has the third-highest number of recorded cases of coronavirus of London’s boroughs, following Newham and Redbridge.
Partners
Waltham Forest College
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
London Student Sustainability Conference 2022
City, University of London, UCL, University of Westminster
The annual London Student Sustainability Conference this year is being hosted by City, University of London in collaboration with University College London, London School of Economics, Imperial College, King’s College London and the University of Westminster. The student-led Conference aims to highlight sustainability initiatives delivered by Higher Education students across London to raise awareness and encourage further action towards building a sustainable future.
The conference is entirely student-led; with students exhibiting their research and projects through presentations, posters and demonstrations.
The conference took place on Thursday 24 February 2022 and was delivered online, with an in-person networking event held at the University of Westminster’s Regent Street campus.
You can follow the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #LSSC22
Locations
Online, with an in-person networking event
Partners
Imperial College London King's College London University College London University of Westminster
More information about London Student Sustainability Conference 2022
Category: Sustainability
London Research and Policy Partnership (LRaPP)
University of London
Researchers and Policymakers are working together for a better London through LRaPP, a new partnership aimed at promoting greater joint working between London government and the academic research community. The Partnership finds its context in broader movements to foster closer relations between universities on the one hand and local communities, cities and regions on the other – the ‘civic universities agenda’ – and to encourage universities to help use their expertise and organisational resources to address pressing public policy challenges.
LRaPP recognises that there have been and are many examples of London academic researchers and London’s public sector working together. But most of these relationships have developed in a fairly ad-hoc way. The LRaPP aims to take a more systematic approach, by supporting proactive and sustained engagement between the university and government sectors.
The LRaPP is partnering with London’s boroughs through London Councils and the national Capabilities in Academic-Policy Engagement programme through CAPE’s London lead, University College London (UCL).
Locations
Camden
Partners
Mayor of London, London Councils, CAPE and universities; University of London (UoL) and the City Intelligence Unit (CIU) of the Greater London Authority (GLA)
More information about London Research and Policy Partnership (LRaPP)
Category: Business and Industry, Education
LSBU 100: Centerary of Women in Engineering
London South Bank University
LSBU began teaching women engineering in 1920 – one of the first English universities to do so – and is celebrating this centenary with ten months of events – LSBU 100 – Women in Engineering.
Discussing how to increase opportunities for women to become engineers, shining a spotlight on Women in Engineering at LSBU and beyond, and stressing the importance of encouraging young women to study STEM subjects to explore and challenge.
Locations
Lambeth and Southwark
Partners
WES; LSBU Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic and Allies Network and LSBU Gender Equality group; Students, guests speakers.
More information about LSBU 100: Centerary of Women in Engineering
Category: Communities, Education
LSBU Armed Forces Covenant
London South Bank University
Since 2017, LSBU has worked closely with staff and students from the Armed Forces Community to support their recruitment and retention in HE. This work has since been expanded into the University’s local Boroughs through working with Cadet Forces and local community groups to deliver accredited training to young learners. In 2018, the University was awarded a Armed Forces Covenant Gold award in recognition of this work to support the armed forces community.
The Ministry of Defence makes the awards through its ‘Defence Employer Recognition Scheme’ (ERS) to those employers who have demonstrated the absolute commitment of their staff, students and personnel to becoming reservists and supporting the work of the armed forces and their families.
Locations
Across London
Partners
Ministry of Defence
More information about LSBU Armed Forces Covenant
Category: Communities
LSBU Business Solutions Centre
London South Bank University
Since 2016, the University has hosted the LSBU Business Solutions Centre which provides local businesses with access to free drop-in consultancy expertise from LSBU Business School students (with supervision from academics). Areas of advice include: business development and planning; tax and small business accounting; forecasting and costing; and marketing. In June 2018 the Business Solutions Centre won the Institute of Enterprise and Entrepreneurs (IOEE) annual award for Enterprising Learning Provider of the Year 2018.
Locations
Southwark
More information about LSBU Business Solutions Centre
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
LSBU Legal Advice Clinic
London South Bank University
LSBU’s on-campus Legal Advice Clinic is a free public drop-in service, staffed by law students working under the supervision of practising solicitors. The clinic provides members of the public with: Generalist advice in social welfare law matters including family, housing, employment, welfare rights, consumer, small claims and disputed debts; and specialist legal advice in family and housing matters.
The Legal Advice Clinic also works in collaboration with the Windrush Justice Clinic, providing initial advice on likely eligibility for the Windrush Compensation Scheme and supporting with gathering evidence to make an application.
Over 3500 people have used the clinic to date, helping to meet an overwhelming demand for high quality social welfare law advice in the local area. Approximately 60% of the time the Clinic is able to solve the clients’ queries instantly with the resolution rate rising to approximately 90% after meeting with the client a second time.
Locations
Southwark
More information about LSBU Legal Advice Clinic
Category: Communities
Love Kensington + Chelsea Street Art
Royal College of Art
Love Kensington and Chelsea Street Art creates temporary landmarks on construction hoardings to identify the area geographically for residents, businesses and visitors; to increase a sense of civic pride; to strengthen connection across the community; and to celebrate the vibrancy and creativity of the borough. Artists are invited to explore local history and use it as inspiration to create site-specific murals linked to the area. Kensington + Chelsea Art Week shortlists mural designs for each location and puts them to a public vote. The partners have collaborated on three of their murals so far, with winning designs being installed by RCA alumni Tor Ewen, Sean Steed and Adalberto Lonardi.
Locations
Kensington & Chelsea
Partners
Love Kensington, Chelsea Street Art
More information about Love Kensington + Chelsea Street Art
Category: Communities, Creative
NHS Nightingale Hospital Support
University of East London
The University of East London played a key role during the COVID-19 pandemic in supporting the NHS by offering accommodation and other critical support to healthcare workers at the new NHS Nightingale hospital set up in the ExCel Centre. UEL’s staff and students have volunteered their expertise and skills at NHS Nightingale, including nursing, physiotherapy and technician teams as well as staff and students volunteering for non-clinical support. The University engaged in 72 projects in relation to COVID-19 supporting communities and businesses affected by the pandemic.
https://www.uel.ac.uk/about-uel/news/2020/april/university-east-london-leads-royal-docks-support-nhs-nightingale-fight-against-covid-19
Locations
Newham
Partners
NHS
More information about NHS Nightingale Hospital Support
Category: NHS / Health
Newham Public Health and the Institute for Connected Communities
University of East London
The UEL research team has been collaborating in five Task and Finish groups set-up underneath the Newham Health and Wellbeing Board, including the establishment of a Community Reference Group. Challenging inequality, racism and disproportionality is at the heart of the collaboration. QR funding supported the rapid creation, coordination and placement of the interdisciplinary team to form the research arm to the multi-agency Task and Finish Groups.
Working together with a range of senior managers and strategic leaders from the public and third sector, the UEL team has undertaken a wide range of activities to marshal evidence on trends and best practice in fighting the spread of Covid-19 and tailored messaging aimed at the public to help contain and mitigate the spread of Covid-19.
In practice, the UEL research team has undertaken a range of desk-based research as well as co-organised, co-facilitated and reported on insights gathered in community conversations, which have been acted upon by the different task groups to help shape and inform local policy and practice as it related to the health emergency.
The UEL Institute for Connected Communities has played a pivotal role in coordinating UEL’s response, meeting weekly with key partners from London Borough of Newham and NHS East London Foundation outside the formal task group meetings to pool and share information. The research focused on aligning expertise and experience in Newham, taking an interdisciplinary approach to a set of key local challenges and responding at pace. More broadly the relationships developed through this work, including with wider health partnerships, has strengthened UEL’s knowledge of organisational behaviour and how to better collaborate productively. This partnership has led directly to the research team being engaged by Newham Council Public Health Team to evaluate the borough’s Covid-19 welfare support service and hotel isolation scheme (Sept 2021 to Jan 2022).
As a result of the partnership, Newham Council Public Health Team has been successful in testing and providing insight into the national test, trace and isolate system, as well as piloting the second iteration of the NHS Covid app. The partnership is an extension of the novel work presently being undertaken across the Borough and learning from collective action to combat Covid-19 will be integrated across the health and care system under the Well Newham Strategy and 50 Steps Strategy to a Healthier Borough. UEL is committed to continued involvement in the health and economy legacy structures in Newham.
Locations
Newham
Partners
London Borough of Newham; Newham Health and Wellbeing Board; Newham Public Health; NHS East London Foundation
More information about Newham Public Health and the Institute for Connected Communities
Category: Education, NHS / Health
New Creative and Performing Arts Provision
Rose Bruford College
In partnership with Lewisham College, these courses include skills to build a career in the arts and the opportunity to apply for a degree or foundation course at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance and apprenticeships or entry-level jobs in the creative sectors once students have completed the year’s course.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
Lewisham College
More information about New Creative and Performing Arts Provision
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Making Recycling Working for Housing Estates
London South Bank University
LSBU’s Digital Architectural and Robotics Lab (DARLAB) is developing a strategy to increase the level of recycling in several housing councils promoted through design and manufacturing using local waste. The aim of project seeks to change the set-up of residents’ home recycling stations, by providing a more engaging, attractive, personalised bin station/recycling storage setup that becomes a feature of the home to some degree, thereby increasing recycling rates.
Locations
Westminster City Council; Various locations of Housing Estates
Partners
Westminster City Council, nlayers3D
More information about Making Recycling Working for Housing Estates
Category: Communities, Creative, Sustainability
Makerspace featuring the Maker Challenge
Imperial College London
The Reach Out Makerspace is a state-of-the-art educational facility Imperial’s White City Campus. It is dedicated to hands-on activities aimed at engaging school children creatively in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects.
The Reach Out Makerspace has a variety of tools such as 3D printers, scanners, laser cutters, woodworking equipment and much more. This unique immersive environment provides young people with a space to experiment, design and innovate. There are several funded programmes operating in the Reach Out Makerspace, including the Maker Challenge Programme. The Maker Challenge Programme gives young people who are local to White City the chance to develop an idea and see it through to creation. With access to cutting edge technologies, the young people will learn to use a range of making tools and techniques with the support of Imperial staff and students.
The programme helps young people to gain a range of skills from practical, hands-on use of equipment to myriad soft skills including product development, team-building, presenting and communicating. At the end of the programme there is also a showcase of the projects for parents, teachers and families to see.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
Local schools
More information about Makerspace featuring the Maker Challenge
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Make It Ravensbourne
Ravensbourne University London
Ravensbourne University London invests heavily in creative outreach programmes, for both school children and adults, to help inspire people in south-east London to realise their creative potential. Make it Ravensbourne is the progression programme to support young people aged 14+ to access creative education and careers. Across the Autumn, Spring and Summer there are a number of free workshops in creative and digital skills, holiday schools and 1-1 opportunities.
Locations
Greenwich
More information about Make It Ravensbourne
Category: Communities, Creative
Made in Hayes
London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University’s community of students and staff contributed to the regeneration project, Made in Hayes. Between 2012 and 2017, students delivered a range of art, architecture and design projects as part of a collection of public arts and architecture works for the Hayes area of London. Projects reflected on the estate’s civic life and explored the notion of a ‘town hall’ for the estate. They started with the construction of a mobile ‘Work Shop’ to explore social enterprise potentials. They also hosted a series of events and other one-to-one installations, which brought residents together and allowed them to get to know each other and participate in several new activities. Student proposals explored areas such as the canal area (which divides Hayes into two sides), looking into ways to utilise the space and introduce new public leisure activities, as well as bridging the divide between the two sides of Hayes. The inventive, innovative and creative proposals by students contributed to the attempts to regenerate Hayes – developing alternatives for community groups and spaces.
Locations
Hillingdon
More information about Made in Hayes
Category: Creative
MedTech Superconnector
Imperial College London
MedTech SuperConnector is set up and designed to facilitate the early stage development of innovative medical technologies, from devices, diagnostics, and digital healthcare solutions. MTSC provides participants with the funding, training, mentorship and access to industry partners to help fast-track the translation of their research discoveries.
Imperial College has a growing entrepreneurial ecosystem and a reputation for supporting its students and staff through the research to realisation process. MedTech SuperConnector seeks to build on this and create a new standard for medtech research acceleration by offering support and resources to Early Career Researchers (ECRs) across London.
MedTech SuperConnector (MTSC) began life as an ambitious experiment to combine the research and resources of eight academic institutions, three science business incubators and various global partners to create an accelerator programme that will help ECRs translate their research into tangible healthcare solutions.
Over the course of three years, the MTSC has run four programmes alternating between technology and challenge led acceleration models to determine the most effective methods for translating medtech discoveries into clinical practice and consumer use. We have used the learnings from each cohort to improve our approach and create a library of resources for both ECRs and other Higher Education Institutions seeking to start their own accelerator programme.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
The Institute for Cancer Research, Queen Mary University of London, Royal College of Art, Royal Veterinary College, Royal College of Music, The Francis Crick Institute, Buckinghamshire New University, GlaxoSmithKline, eg technology, Vita Healthcare Solutions, NIHR London In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative
More information about MedTech Superconnector
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
Migrant Night Workers in the UK: Imagining a Nocturnal Commons
London School of Economics and Political Science
Migrant Night Workers in the UK: Imagining a Nocturnal Commons. This LSE Public Research Partners project, supported by the LSE Student Futures experiential learning initiative, involved seven undergraduates in a research collaboration with NGO and independent think-tank, Autonomy. This was organised through the Department of Government’s course module, Contemporary Political Theory (GV262).
Autonomy has a research project underway that explores the needs and predicaments of people who work nights, such as delivery riders, under circumstances where it is typically difficult to access daytime infrastructures for family and personal care. Students sought to enhance the knowledge base for this research by reviewing prior academic studies of migrant night workers in the UK in selected occupational fields. Students thereby identified the primary problems these workers face and the services that it would be most useful for municipal centres for night-time workers to provide.
Autonomy is based in London and has used the students’ research in the process of developing a proposal to the Greater London Authority for creating centres to help meet the needs of night workers, ensuring that the distinctive needs of migrants would be addressed in such centres.
A new LSE Public Research Partners project with Autonomy is being planned as part of the same course module to be run again next term (January 2022). This new research will involve students in interviewing people who earn wages as ‘click workers’, performing online tasks that contribute to artificial intelligence services’ learning processes, about their working conditions. Among other factors, students will inquire into the times of day or night and the physical/spatial conditions under which this work is typically done.
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
Autonomy
More information about Migrant Night Workers in the UK: Imagining a Nocturnal Commons
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Mind the Gaps
St Mary's University, Twickenham, University of West London
Collaborative project with St. Mary’s University, King’s College and the South London Maudsley NHS Trust to support first in their family to attend higher education, care experienced and estranged students.
Locations
South West London (Twickenham) West London (UWL) , South London (Kings Campus)
Partners
St. Mary's University - Project Lead King's College South London Maudsley NHS Trust
More information about Mind the Gaps
Category: NHS / Health
Old Oak Early Years Education Centre
Imperial College London
Old Oak Nursery is a new Early Years Centre for Imperial parents in West London, which is a partnership between Old Oak Primary School and Imperial College London.
The two organisations boast over 50 combined years of experience in providing high quality early years education, including the outstanding Early Years Centre in South Kensington. This collaboration in West London is a new facility for parents at Imperial’s Hammersmith and White City campuses.
The Early Years Centre is situated in a newly refurbished space that will initially welcome 20 children – from 6 months to 5 years – into a stimulating and nurturing environment. The Centre recognises that every child is an individual and the dedicated, qualified early years educators work to create a child-centered curriculum for all its children. The school provides access to additional support, including a school Special Educational Needs and Disability coordinator.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
Old Oak Primary School
More information about Old Oak Early Years Education Centre
Category: Communities, Education
Open Academy
Royal Academy of Music
Open Academy works closely with artistic and community partners, offering opportunities for students and project participants to explore making music together. Projects include workshops with children and young people in mainstream schools and special educational needs and disability (SEND) settings, disabled people, those receiving treatment in hospitals, residents and staff of care homes, and people attending day centres. All projects are led and supported by skilled professionals, ensuring a high quality of experience for everyone involved and giving our students the chance to develop their musicianship, skills and confidence in a wide variety of contexts. Open Academy projects enable everyone to make connections with people from all walks of life, and to reflect upon the contribution musicians can make to society through their artistry and some of the ways in which that artistry can find its meaning and purpose in the world.
Locations
Camden; City of Westminster; Kensington and Chelsea; Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
Camden Music Hub; Tri-borough Music Hub; Resonate Arts; Royal London Hospital; Chelsea and W'minster Hospital; City Lit; Awards for Young Musicians, Wigmore Hall; Glyndebourne Opera; English National Opera; English Touring Opera; Spitalfields Music; City of London Sinfonia;
More information about Open Academy
Category: Communities, Creative
Open Courtauld Hour
The Courtauld Institute of Art
During the pandemic, The Courtauld Institute of Art continuously engaged with between 800 and 900 people as part of their Open Courtauld Hour, which enabled the community to benefit from artistic performances and displays at a time when many people were suffering from isolation and poor mental health. Broadening opportunities for a diverse range of students and opening up cultural knowledge and understanding to the public has been the driving ethos of The Courtauld for some time.
Since May 2017, volunteers have undertaken a major digitisation of The Courtauld’s Conway Library collection, which consists of over one million images of world architecture, sculpture, applied arts and medieval manuscripts. In addition to opening the collection for future preservation and public access, this has provided thousands of volunteers with training in areas such as cataloguing and photography – key skills which can be applied to various sectors and industries.
Locations
City of Westminster
More information about Open Courtauld Hour
Category: Communities, Creative
Outreach at Ravensbourne
Ravensbourne University London
Ravensbourne collaborates extensively with a number of organizations, the main of which is Aimhigher London, to focus on targeting activities to those groups where there are the greatest inequalities. Through Aimhigher, Ravensbourne participates in Uni Connect and the Learner Progression Programme (LPP), as well as a number of discrete activities targeted at specific student groups.
Work with NCOP and LPP focuses on targeting students that are first generation learners, from areas with the highest deprivation (low index of multiple deprivation (IMD) scores and POLAR4 Quintiles 1 and 2), high attainers from disadvantaged backgrounds, BAME students, White working-class students, and SEND and LAC learners. Activities specifically targeted high attainers from disadvantaged backgrounds, and SEND and LAC learners.
Locations
Greenwich
Partners
Aimhigher
More information about Outreach at Ravensbourne
Category: Education
Outreach in London
The Courtauld Institute of Art
The activities that The Courtauld run include: (i) Summer University (ASDAN accredited). This is an intensive one-week course for up to 30 students in Year 12 from under-represented groups considering entering Higher Education. The course includes special access to the Courtauld’s Virtual Learning Environment and progression support sessions (currently being expanded) in the autumn term following the course to ensure that young people are better supported particularly in their choices for further study and to support their applications to university; (ii) Insights into Art History programme. This is a series of one-day workshops held at The Courtauld for state school and further education college students, introducing art history, visual analysis and research skills. It works with 150 A-level students from 49 state schools and colleges over the course of the year to introduce them to the potential of art history and university study. Each of the 10 sessions are 5½ hours long and run during weekends and school holidays; and (iii) Art History for All programme. This is a series of one-day outreach study days that engage schools and colleges outside London with art history. These study days include a visit to students’ local museum or gallery collection where possible. It works with 240 post-16 students in 10 state schools and further education colleges across the UK. This includes Years 11-13 and Access to HE (adult learners).
Along with other elements of their established outreach programme, these activities deliver: (i) online and printed resources to 630 teachers across the UK; (ii) teachers events for 95 teachers within London; (iii) outreach workshops to around 6000 students in state school and further education within London (Key Stages 2 – 5); (iv) activities to over 1,700 pupils in their target widening participation schools to develop their awareness of art history; and (vi) longer-term collaborative projects on an annual basis with 400 students from 37 state schools within London.
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
State schools; colleges; local museums; local galleries;
More information about Outreach in London
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Nursing and midwifery students join NHS
University of Greenwich
Nursing and midwifery students studying at the university joined the NHS workforce to support the fight against Covid-19.
Locations
Greenwich
Partners
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
More information about Nursing and midwifery students join NHS
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
PPE for the NHS
Middlesex University London
Middlesex used four laser cutters on their campus to produce visor straps, which were then attached to plastic sheets to create visors for NHS workers. Middlesex were able to make up to 13,000 visors a week, which were collected every two days. The NHS’s sole cost was for the materials, and Middlesex said it would provide the PPE for as long as there was a need.
Locations
Barnet
More information about PPE for the NHS
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Planting Trees to Promote Sustainable Building (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
Students and staff from London Met annually plant 420 trees at Tower Hamlets’ Mudchute City Farm, using saplings acquired as part of the Woodland Trust’s Free Trees for Schools and Communities scheme.
Locations
Mudchute City Farm
Partners
Mudchute City Farm
More information about Planting Trees to Promote Sustainable Building (London Met Lab project)
Category: Sustainability
Performance Making Diploma for Learning Disabled and Autistic Adults
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
The Performance Making Diploma is leading the way in providing high-quality performance training to learning disabled and autistic artists. Running over two years, this course nurtures new generations of exceptional learning disabled and autistic performers and theatre makers. The Performance Making Diploma gives artists the training, time and space they need to develop their work in an accessible and supportive environment. Training is bespoke, delivered with students’ individual needs in mind, with tutors who understand Access All Areas’ methodologies for creating bold, innovative devised work by learning disabled performers. Students are encouraged to consider their own needs and wellbeing throughout the course, supported and guided by an experienced team of access professionals.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Access All Areas
More information about Performance Making Diploma for Learning Disabled and Autistic Adults
Category: Communities, Education
People Like Us – Racial and Culturally Competent Wellbeing Support
University of West London
The project will deliver racially and culturally competent mental health and wellbeing support to Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students, who are underrepresented in accessing early intervention mental health support.
This will be achieved through co-produced and co-delivered interventions using BAME peer trainers with lived experience of mental ill health as well as practitioner trainers with clinical expertise.
The interventions will incorporate face-to-face and digitally innovative initiatives using social media, podcasts and VLE.
This collaborative project between the University of West London (UWL), West London NHS Trust and UWL Students’ Union aims to achieve a reduction in the risk of BAME students developing mental ill health.
The project aims to achieve this and provide evidence of effective interventions that institutions should adopt to help BAME students overcome racial and cultural barriers, which may prevent them from engaging in early intervention support within both university and NHS settings.
Locations
West London (Ealing and Brentford)
Partners
West London NHS Trust The UWL Students' Union
More information about People Like Us – Racial and Culturally Competent Wellbeing Support
Category: NHS / Health
Pass it On
London South Bank University
Pass It On aims to help Health Education England in its wider consideration of peer support roles, to review how both life experience and mental health experience for Learning Disability and Neuro Diverse communities can be used in a positive way to support others. LSBU is helping to develop a sustainable mental health training programme that will teach people with learning disabilities all about mental health and train them to pass this knowledge on to other people with learning disabilities through Peer Support Groups.
Locations
Across London
Partners
The Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities; Choice Support; McIntyre; Vibrance; Lewisham Speaking UP
More information about Pass it On
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Primary Practice
St George's, University of London
‘Primary Practice’ is a newly revamped project wherein Year 6 pupils attend healthcare focused after-school clubs, a summer school and a graduation ceremony. Future development of the project is ongoing pending evaluation.
Locations
Wandsworth
Partners
Primary Schools in the London Borough of Wandsworth; Student ambassadors.
More information about Primary Practice
Category: Education, NHS / Health
School Governors at St George’s
St George's, University of London
St George’s launched its school governor scheme in 2020 as part of a wider civic mission and desire to contribute to the improvement of education provision at all stages within the local community. They have committed to proactively supporting both Academic and Professional Services staff at the University to volunteer as governors in state schools and colleges. This plays a part in improving children’s education, making a difference to how well a school runs, and makes an important contribution to the local community. They work with Governors for Schools (a charity that links employees with schools looking for governors, in order to provide further information and to help staff find a school recruiting near them).
Locations
Wandsworth
Partners
Governors for Schools
More information about School Governors at St George’s
Category: Communities, Education
Schema: Student Film Production Unit
University of East London
Launched in February 2013, Schema is the University of East London’s Student Film Production Unit, based in the Department of Media and Communications. Schema aims to support UEL’s civic engagement agenda through working with community support organisations, health orientated charities, and local cultural and sport initiatives. Schema produces videos for these organisations to better communicate their services and to document their activities.
Many of the groups Schema works with do not have specific resources for media work and Schema allows the organisations to have a better media presence without taking vital funds from their key services and activities. For the students involved, Schema offers the opportunity to contribute to the local community, while gaining important experience of working with clients to a professional standard in a supported environment.
Locations
London wide but mainly in Newham, Barking and Dagenham and Tower Hamlets.
More information about Schema: Student Film Production Unit
Category: Communities, Creative, NHS / Health
Santander Mobility Scheme
London South Bank University
Southwark Council and Santander Bike Scheme sought to find new alternatives to promote the use of bikes and improve local mobility with the TFL cycle scheme. LSBU’s Digital Architectural and Robotics Lab (DARLAB) teamed up with London College of Communication to design a new visual totem and way finding on how to increase the local mobility in SE1 areas.
Locations
Southwark Council; Various location in SE1 area
Partners
Southwark Council, London College of Communication, Santander TFL Bike
More information about Santander Mobility Scheme
Category: Creative, Education, Sustainability
Science Stars
St George's, University of London
Science Stars is a sustained tutoring intervention designed to support Year 11 students to prepare for GCSEs and ultimately increase their attainment in Science. The programme is delivered to a state school in Tooting by Student Ambassadors – current students at St George’s, University of London – following a pre-designed curriculum developed by a former Science teacher. Evaluation shows that on average, Science Stars participants achieved over a grade higher in their Science GCSEs than a control group of non-participating pupils with a similar record of achievement.
Evaluation shows that on average, Science Stars participants achieved over a grade higher in their Science GCSEs than a control group of non-participating pupils with a similar record of achievement.
Locations
Wandsworth
Partners
A secondary school in Tooting
More information about Science Stars
Category: Education, NHS / Health
Science and Innovation Audit
Royal Veterinary College
In 2018 The Royal Veterinary College led a BEIS sponsored Science and Innovation Audit of London’s Knowledge Quarter (KQ), which mapped the district’s world-class strengths in Life Sciences, Data Science/AI, and Cultural, Heritage and Scientific Collections. The Audit, published in the Spring of 2019, has facilitated a long-term plan for the development of the Knowledge Quarter, termed ‘KQ 2050’. This plan encourages inclusive innovation, ensuring that future employment growth will provide opportunities for local residents as well as commuters.
Locations
Camden
Partners
BEIS; Knowledge Quarter London; Camden Council; GLA
More information about Science and Innovation Audit
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
Season of Bangla Drama
Queen Mary University of London
A collaboration between Queen Mary School of Drama and Tower Hamlets Council, supporting an annual Festival showcasing British-Bengali theatre, with a special focus on east London. The Festival has run for the last 18 years and the School of Drama hopes to continue to work with Tower Hamlets Council each year.
The festival celebrates the arts and cultural heritage of east London and builds trust between the local Bengali community and QMUL, particularly in 2021, with the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s Independence.
Locations
Brady Arts Centre (BAC) 192-196 Hanbury Street, E1 5HU Kobi Nazrul Centre 30 Hanbury Street, E1 6QR Poplar Union (PU) 2 Cotall Street, E14 6TL Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) Mile End Road, E1 4NS Rich Mix (RM) 5-47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA Space Theatre (ST) 269 Westferry Road, E14 3RS
Partners
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
More information about Season of Bangla Drama
Category: Communities, Creative
Sounding Out London Concert Halls
London South Bank University
LSBU has worked extensively with London’s classical music industry to:
●Create musician-focused research-informed materials to educate classical musicians on the risks of excessive sound exposure, These have been presented to all new Royal Academy of Music students (2,800 students, 2013-20), the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the choristers of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Opera House. At the Royal Academy of Music, and Music Department of St Paul’s Cathedral, policy decisions were influenced by these materials.
●Develop, for the Royal Opera House orchestra pit, new metamaterials which could be 3-D printed and reduce the pit’s sound level without adversely affecting the quality of the performance.
●Improve the acoustics of the large rehearsal space at Henry Wood Hall to make it suitable for smaller scale rehearsals: the inexpensive, lightweight, and flexible, air-bed based solution enhanced the acoustics of the hall, benefiting the musicians and conductors.
The innovations produced have produced substantial refurbishment savings for the Royal Opera House(£1m+) and Henry Wood Hall(£250k).
Locations
Across London
Partners
Royal Academy of Music; Royal Opera House; St Paul's Cathedral; Henry Wood Hall
More information about Sounding Out London Concert Halls
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
Small Business Clinic
London Metropolitan University
London Metropolitan University offers free business services via its brand-new Small Business Clinic to London and UK-based companies, new enterprises, sole traders and start-ups, where its dedicated and entrepreneurial students work with and for clients to develop and enhance businesses, supervised by one of London Met’s academic tutors. It offers free services to small businesses in a number of different areas such as: business, marketing and management, food science and food start-ups, and data analytics and digital media.
Locations
Across Islington and Tower Hamlets and Hackney
Partners
Numerous Businesses
More information about Small Business Clinic
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Singing for Lung Health
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Singing for Lung Health, a free weekly singing group established by Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in partnership with Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, aims to improve the mental and physical wellbeing of individuals living with long-term lung conditions such as COPD, Bronchiectasis or Asthma. The group was created in response to the increasing awareness of singing’s positive benefit for those with chronic lung conditions, helping to manage feelings of breathlessness and provide a sense of community and lift mood.
Recognition of the benefit of singing for those with long term health conditions, alongside continued need, has encouraged Trinity Laban to continue investing in the health of the local community as a cultural catalyst, securing local borough funding to establish two more Singing for Health groups in the Borough of Greenwich, one focused on Parkinson’s, and one on Pain Management, alongside a new lung health group.
70% of patients reported improvements in symptoms after 8 weeks of sessions according to the COPD questionnaire and overall patients reported improvements in their breathlessness after each class (using the MRC Dyspnoea Scale).
Locations
Greenwich, Lewisham
Partners
NHS Lewisham and Greenwich Trust
More information about Singing for Lung Health
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
So You’re Interested In…?
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
A bespoke online outreach programme developed in collaboration with Backstage Niche and other partners, exploring different backstage careers and progression routes. Backstage Niche works to inform and encourage the younger generation from various Global backgrounds to consider the exciting possibilities of a career in backstage theatre. Their aim is to plant a seed in their minds at a young age and expose them to the vibrant world of theatre which exists behind the curtain and not just onstage. Over 110 young people accessed these sessions.
Locations
Partners
Backstage Niche
More information about So You’re Interested In…?
Category: Business and Industry, Creative
South London Observatory
London South Bank University
LSBU (led by Andrew Jones), in consultation with local partners, developed the South London Observatory (SLO): this is a data repository operating system underpinned by a GIS platform. It enables the visualisation, analysis, and interpretation of socio-economic data and their spatial patterning in the south London boroughs adjacent to LSBU. Moreover, it enables the identification of trends and changes over time, or the spatial impacts of economic restructuring, regeneration, and redevelopment.
The SLO has enabled Lambeth Council to make decisions that are informed by key parameters of importance identified by the SLO.
The SLO is now being converted into a web-based platform, acting as both a community resource and a portal to the work of LSBU’s Urban, Environment and Leisure Studies (UELS) team and Local Economy Policy Unit (Lepu).
In terms of influencing existing local government policy, especially in relation to COVID-19, LSBU has discussed with stakeholders, the possibilities for data sharing, including postcode data (points) on COVID-19 deaths and cases, which could support an investigation into whether there is any spatial patterning in the epidemic, highlighting areas of particular vulnerability in support of future public health planning. Further meetings have been scheduled with Lambeth to provide data analysis insights to influence their COVID-19 policies.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Borough Council
More information about South London Observatory
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Super-recognisers
University of Greenwich
Stimulating public awareness, understanding and interest in super-recogniser facial identification and its role in effective application of the law. Research into face recognition in CCTV footage initially on Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officers, focused on testing for those individuals who are classed as super-recognisers (defined by exceptional unfamiliar face memory and matching ability).
The aim was to apply the skills of such officers to enhance suspect identification and increase the rate of accurate prosecution and sentencing. The establishment of tests and protocols for identifying super-recognisers in the police was subsequently extended to a number of international police forces, as well as members of the general public for the purposes of further research and public engagement.
Locations
Greenwich
More information about Super-recognisers
Category: Education
Student Nurses and Midwives Support Covid-19 Effort
City, University of London
Hundreds of nursing and midwifery students studying at the university in their final or second year of study, have elected to undertake extended clinical placements within the NHS to support the fight against Covid-19.
More information about Student Nurses and Midwives Support Covid-19 Effort
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Student Knowledge Exchange
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
The Student Knowledge Exchange project is focused on student involvement in delivering better patient experience in the NHS and is jointly funded by Research England and the Office for Students. The project builds on collaborative work that has taken place between Central teams and the NHS for a number of years. Activities have traditionally been run in hospital settings only, however in 2020-21, as a result of the national lockdown, work was supported in broader related settings, such as within residential contexts. This adaptability has allowed students to support NHS Staff on Covid wards where possible, whilst bringing their work to related locations such as One Housing Association.
The project provided a multi-intervention approach, further embedding knowledge exchange activities that are currently underway to address social isolation, improve patient wellbeing and staff morale. Central students working with patients on the project employed key applied theatre techniques alongside storytelling and social interaction, empathy training, bespoke films and Virtual Reality 360 technologies.
The project provided a multi-intervention approach, further embedding knowledge exchange activities that are currently underway to address social isolation, improve patient wellbeing and staff morale. CSSD students working with patients on the project employed key applied theatre techniques alongside storytelling and social interaction, empathy training, bespoke films and Virtual Reality 360 technologies.
Locations
Northwest London
Partners
NHS; Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust; Reseach England; OfS
More information about Student Knowledge Exchange
Category: NHS / Health
STEM Professions Careers Morning
University of East London
UEL hosts a STEM Professions morning, taking place this year at Jo Richardson Community School, Castle Green, Gale Street, Dagenham, RM9 4UN on Thursday 18 November from 09:30 until 12:00.
Organisers are keen to recruit presenters to talk about various fields of employment linked to the STEM professions. 160 Year 9/10 students (aged 13/14) from all the borough schools have been invited. At the start of the morning the students are split into groups of about 15. Each presenter would talk about their career and progression routes (usually HE level) to a group for 20 minutes before the group of students moves on to another presenter and the presenter repeats their talk to the next group. The result of this carousel system means that during the morning the students would hear from six facilitators.
Locations
Barking and Dagenham
Partners
Barking and Dagenham School Improvement Partnership
More information about STEM Professions Careers Morning
Category: Education
Supporting businesses in Hillingdon
Brunel University London
Brunel continues to foster links with local businesses, via the Co-Innovate project. The Help To Grow project for SMEs within the Brunel Business School and also acts as a focus for innovation and entrepreneurship through the Central Research Laboratory.
The University established the successful Central Research Laboratory in Hayes, the UK’s first product-based accelerator for start-ups, in partnership with U + I and this has become a model which is to be rolled out nationwide by its partner. To date, over 100 businesses have been supported, and in 2021 Brunel secured £1.6M from Research England, to work with their partners U+I to launch their new accelerator programme Making the Future Digital, extending the support they provide for graduates start-ups while also growing the local economy.
The University also actively supports businesses through up-skilling, providing recovery-funding, project based work and undergraduate placements (c.1,400 per annum). Their ability to develop partnerships across industry and local and central government is important to the local economy, especially as the region looks to forge an economic recovery. The University is an active supporter of Chambers of Commerce and local business organisations such as West London Business.
Locations
Hillingdon
Partners
U+I
More information about Supporting businesses in Hillingdon
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Student Placements
CU London
CU London has worked extensively with local businesses and Barking and Dagenham Council to develop fruitful working relationships, and many of its students take part in placements, providing support to organisations such as Healthwatch and St Luke’s Hospice, as well as schools across the area including William Bellamy and Henry Green Primary Schools.
Locations
Barking and Dagenham
Partners
Barking and Dagenham Council, Healthwatch, St Luke's Hospice
More information about Student Placements
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
The Camden Renewal Commission
UCL
The Camden Renewal Commission was set up by Camden Council and University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) and brought together commissioners representing Camden’s community, voluntary sector, business and academic community to work on developing practical solutions to help create a fair, sustainable society and address the inequalities that exist in Camden.
The Commission first met in September 2020. The Commission’s priorities were set by resident experiences of life in Camden, having heard stories from people in Camden about their experience in particular over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. A strong theme within the Commission has been ensuring every Camden resident can play a part in addressing the issues that matter to communities across the borough. IIPP has continued to engage with Camden and its missions. With funding from UCL’s HEIF Knowledge Exchange & Innovation Fund programme, IIPP is supporting the delivery of the missions and learning from Camden’s implementation approach through a series of knowledge exchange workshops with the Council and its key stakeholders.
IIPP hopes to strengthen its work with Camden as a ‘Studio Lab’ supported through a new partnership with the Laudes Foundation. The Studio Lab will enable IIPP researchers to engage Camden’s team of policy designers through a process of ‘practice-based theorising’. The project shaped and developed 4 renewal “missions” for Camden: (i) By 2030, those holding positions of power in Camden are as diverse as our community – and the next generation is ready to follow; (ii) by 2025, every young person has access to economic opportunity that enables them to be safe and secure; (ii) by 2030, everyone eats well every day with nutritious, affordable, sustainable food; and (iv) by 2030, Camden’s estates and streets are creative and sustainable. As these missions were being developed in Camden, the Mayor of London and Greater London Authority subsequently adopted missions as part of the London Recovery Programme which seeks to oversee long-term economic and social recovery, reshaping a fairer, more equal, green, resilient city than existed before the pandemic.
Locations
Across Camden
Partners
Camden residents; Camden Council; UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
More information about The Camden Renewal Commission
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
The Citizens Project
Royal Holloway, University of London
Citizens is a three year project that launched in January 2017 to explore, research, share and map the history of liberty, protest, rebellion and reform from Magna Carta to the Suffragettes and beyond. Supported by the Historical Association, the History of Parliament, the Parliamentary Archives and others, they aim to create a rich new digital hub of online learning resources aimed at GCSE and A Level students.
Locations
Englefield Green and Egham, Surrey (project pinned at Royal Holloway's Central London campus)
Partners
AQA, The National Archives; People's History Museum; UK Parliament; History of Parliament and the Historical Association; National Lottery Heritage Lottery Fund;
More information about The Citizens Project
Category: Business and Industry, Education
The Compass Project
Birkbeck, University of London
The Compass Project supports refugee and asylum seekers to access HE and was developed in partnership with Article 26 (part of the Helena Kennedy Foundation), Student Action for Refugees (STAR) and Haringey Council, building on a partnership which had significantly increased the number of people from Tottenham studying certificate-level qualifications at Birkbeck.
Alix Partners (Z Foundation), Allen & Overy, Santander, Texel, Travers Smith and private philanthropists kindly support this outreach programme, helping to ensure that this continues as a sustainable part of Birkbeck’s mission.
Haringey
Locations
Haringey
Partners
The Helena Kennedy Foundation, Student Action for Refugees (STAR), Haringey Council, Alix Partners, Allen & Overy, Santander, Texel, Travers Smith
More information about The Compass Project
Category: Communities, Education
The Camden Renewal Commission
UCL
The Camden Renewal Commission was set up by Camden Council and University College London’s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) and brought together commissioners representing Camden’s community, voluntary sector, business and academic community to work on developing practical solutions to help create a fair, sustainable society and address the inequalities that exist in Camden. The Commission first met in September 2020. The Commission’s priorities were set by resident experiences of life in Camden, having heard stories from people in Camden about their experience in particular over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. A strong theme within the Commission has been ensuring every Camden resident can play a part in addressing the issues that matter to communities across the borough. IIPP has continued to engage with Camden and its missions. With funding from UCL’s HEIF Knowledge Exchange & Innovation Fund programme, IIPP is supporting the delivery of the missions and learning from Camden’s implementation approach through a series of knowledge exchange workshops with the Council and its key stakeholders. IIPP hopes to strengthen its work with Camden as a ‘Studio Lab’ supported through a new partnership with the Laudes Foundation. The Studio Lab will enable IIPP researchers to engage Camden’s team of policy designers through a process of ‘practice-based theorising’. The project shaped and developed 4 renewal “missions” for Camden: (i) By 2030, those holding positions of power in Camden are as diverse as our community – and the next generation is ready to follow; (ii) by 2025, every young person has access to economic opportunity that enables them to be safe and secure; (ii) by 2030, everyone eats well every day with nutritious, affordable, sustainable food; and (iv) by 2030, Camden’s estates and streets are creative and sustainable. As these missions were being developed in Camden, the Mayor of London and Greater London Authority subsequently adopted missions as part of the London Recovery Programme which seeks to oversee long-term economic and social recovery, reshaping a fairer, more equal, green, resilient city than existed before the pandemic.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Camden residents; Camden Council; UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
More information about The Camden Renewal Commission
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
The ARENA project
University of East London
ARENA – a project designed and delivered by the Sustainable Research Institute at UEL, supports London start-ups, spin-outs and SMEs seeking to develop and commercialise their innovative ideas, products and services in the areas of resource efficiency, urban green infrastructure, and nature-based solutions for urban resilience.
ARENA aims to build on innovation strengths to contribute to London’s aspirations of a world-leading low carbon city in harmony with the natural environment. ARENA delivers free and bespoke expertise and advice directly in accordance with a businesses’ innovation needs. Subject area experts, researchers and innovation practitioners provide: (i) market knowledge and networks – support to enhance the commercial validation of innovations to increase their market deployment and uptake; (ii) research and development support – In-lab research support, testing and technological validation for early-stage innovations; (iii) demonstration trials and assessment – facilitation of demonstration pilots, performance monitoring and assessment in a real-world environment – the new Ecology Centre and Urban Living Lab at Barking Riverside; (iv) promotion and showcasing – publicity and promotion at Barking Riverside Ecology Centre; and (v) market rollout and procurement support – brokerage to appropriate private and public sector clients.
Locations
Newham, Barking and Dagenham
Partners
Barking Riverside Ltd (Barking Riverside Urban Living Lab) (Barking Riverside Ecology Centre)
More information about The ARENA project
Category: Business and Industry, Sustainability
The Courtauld Gallery
The Courtauld Institute of Art
The Courtauld cares for one of the greatest art collections in the UK, sharing these works with the public at The Courtauld Gallery in central London, as well as through loans and partnerships. Founded on the belief that everyone should have the opportunity to engage with art, The Courtauld works to increase understanding of the role played by art throughout history, in all societies and across all geographies – as well as being a champion for the importance of art in the present day. This could be through exhibitions offering a chance to look closely at world-famous works; accessible and expert short courses; events bringing art history research to new audiences; digital engagement, innovative school, family and community programmes; or taking a formal qualification. The Courtauld’s ambition is to transform access to art history education, by extending the horizons of what this is, and ensuring as many people as possible can benefit from the tools to better understand the visual world around them.
Locations
City of Westminster
More information about The Courtauld Gallery
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Creative
Training Nurses at NHS Nightingale Hospital
City, University of London
Leanne Aitken, Professor of Critical Care at City, University of London has supported and continues to support the education and training efforts of nurses at the newly developed ‘NHS Nightingale Hospital’ in East London.
Locations
NHS Nightingale Hospital
More information about Training Nurses at NHS Nightingale Hospital
Category: NHS / Health
UEL Community Clinics: Tax Clinic
University of East London
The Tax and Accountancy Clinic offers small and medium enterprises (SMEs) a full range of advice and services. The clinic provides financial statements, supports the completion of self-assessment tax returns and provides advice to assist business owners plan for their future and minimise the negative impacts on their businesses during the pandemic.
Locations
Newham
More information about UEL Community Clinics: Tax Clinic
Category: Communities
UEL Community Clinics: Legal Advice Centre
University of East London
UEL students have been trained to deliver pro-bono legal advice, under supervision, on the following topics: consumer rights, family law, tenants’ rights and welfare applications. Students also created leaflets designed to help users understand legal topics in an accessible way. Services were delivered to Newham residents who required access to free legal advice to address a range of issues related to housing, social security benefits and employment.
The Community Clinics have assisted its users to understand legal processes and find ways to address any challenges they have encountered as a result of Covid and other socio-economic factors. Of particular note over the last 12 months, the Legal Advice Centre has helped people assert their tenant rights, submit successful Universal Credit claims and negotiate Child Arrangement Orders.
Locations
Newham
More information about UEL Community Clinics: Legal Advice Centre
Category: Communities
Town House
Kingston University London
Kingston University’s Town House has been named the winner of the 2021 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize – confirming it as Britain’s best new building. Designed by RIBA Gold Medal-winning Grafton Architects, the landmark building on the University’s Penrhyn Road campus received the highest accolade in UK architecture at a prestigious ceremony at Coventry Cathedral.
Opened in January 2020, Town House has proved a collaborative catalyst for the whole Kingston community and its impact can be felt across the Borough. The ambition was to create a sense of place and build a bridge between the University and its surroundings. The University wanted the building to be a civic beacon – a physical symbol of the importance of shared learning experiences and community in an increasingly digitised world. The new building does this admirably on a very practical level and also symbolically. Designed to be open access there are no barriers to access and the community can explore the building, use the cafes and library, view exhibitions and watch live performances.
Locations
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
Partners
Grafton Architects, Willmott Dixon Construction
More information about Town House
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Together as One
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art collaborated with the Kensington and Chelsea Art Week (KCAW) for Together as One, which is a site-specific artwork that celebrates the power of the Notting Hill community as a symbol of harmony and unity for a better tomorrow. Supported by London Projects and Studio Indigo, the 55-metre-squared hand-painted mural depicts scenes from local history and the site’s architectural restoration. The design is divided into three scenes: the first tells the story of the rural Knottynghull village populated with pig farming and the pottery industry. The second represents an early Portobello Market when the vendors were selling fruit and vegetables. The third presents the intimate moment of a family preparing for the annual Notting Hill Carnival.
Locations
Kensington & Chelsea
Partners
London Projects; Studio Indigo, Kensington and Chelsea Art Week (KCAW)
More information about Together as One
Category: Communities, Creative
Tottenham London Academy of Excellence Partnership
Royal Veterinary College
RVC has partnered with Tottenham London Academy of Excellence (LAET) since April 2021, with the goal of widening access to university for students from Widening Participation backgrounds.
RVC has seven in person programmes undertaken and in progress, which represent considerable health and safety considerations to ensure that these run safely onsite whilst ensuring Covid precautions are adhered to. In July 2020, 60 Year 12s attended a 3 day Biosciences Summer school, and took part in biology practicals and career activities run by RVC scientists and student ambassadors. These sessions were hybrid so that both RVC staff and LAET pupils could take part either onsite or online. Throughout July and August, RVC’s Animal Aspirations student -led diversity initiative ran Year 7, 8 and 9 workshops for feeder secondary schools, with 40 pupils attending each session, as well as an LAET dog who was the star of the show.
In Autumn half term, Animal Aspirations ambassadors are working with RVC Access staff to deliver a six week ‘Junior Vet Club’ after school club at Chestnuts Primary school for 20 pupils. These after school club programmes will subsequently be repeated in the most disadvantaged feeder primaries for LAET in the following half terms until Summer 2022. In December 2021, RVC’s MSci students are delivering a Cafe Scientifique science fair, explaining their research projects using fun interactive formats, for 60 LAET Y12 and 13 students. In Summer 2022, we are piloting an online Neuroscience work placement project for Y12s.
RVC’s in-person engagement is supported by online longitudinal programmes such as Biology Champions (weekly live events, A level curriculum content and career inspiration- over 2,700 signed up) and Animal Academy (targeted nurturing support network and events for under-represented groups).
https://www.laetottenham.org.uk/ ; https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/rvc-is-open-for-all/visit-us/biology-champions ; https://www.animalaspirations.com/
Locations
Hackney; Haringey; Enfield
Partners
Tottenham London Academy of Excellence (part of the Chrysalis East Partnership), Duke's Aldridge Academy, Gladesmore Community School, Park View School, Woodside High School, Chestnuts Primary School, Lea Valley Primary School, Lancastrian Primary School, The Willow Primary School (Hackney, Haringey, Enfield boroughs) Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Society of Biology, Physiological Society, Zoological Society of London, Biochemical Society, Royal College of Pathologists
More information about Tottenham London Academy of Excellence Partnership
Category: Communities, Education
Trellis: cocreation between artists, researchers and communities
UCL
Trellis is a programme of knowledge exchange between researchers, artists, and communities in east London. The programme aims to build mutually beneficial relationships that explore areas of research in new and inspiring ways. Beginning in 2018, Trellis has allowed local, east London artists to develop their practice by working in collaboration with UCL researchers, and the participation of all three partners (researchers, communities, artists) has led to longer term collaboration and impact. From 2022-2, UCL researchers aim to embed Trellis even more deeply in the local community and contribute to career development for local artists.
Locations
Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest
Partners
No formal partners.
More information about Trellis: cocreation between artists, researchers and communities
Category: Communities, Creative
Working with Networks to Maximise Impact
Rose Bruford College
As a small institution, it is vital that Rose Bruford College works within other networks in order to achieve greater impact. The College is a member of AccessHE and the College’s Outreach Manager chairs the organisation’s art and design forum; steering its members to link with cultural providers and consider bridging programmes. Student ambassadors are also delivering an online programme written by Brunel University London.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
UKADIA (UK Art & Design Institutions Association); PAL (Participatory Arts London) ; LEAN (Lewisham Education Arts Network); Kent Youth Arts Network; LTC
More information about Working with Networks to Maximise Impact
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Working with London Uni Connect Partnerships.
St Mary's University, Twickenham
St Mary’s supports AimHigher London’s Uni Connect events (including hosting the 3-day Spring School on campus). They have a long-standing partnership with London Higher’s core AccessHE division, an organisation that supports universities conducting widening participation work mainly in London. They are represented at AccessHE’s Forums, and work with the team to support their Uni Connect work. St Mary’s University has also contributed a free online Law course for the AccessHE Online digital platform. As a partner with Linking London’s Uni Connect project, they have developed Post-16 programmes and resources for the west London target wards.
Locations
Richmond upon Thames
Partners
AimHigher; AccessHE; Linking London
More information about Working with London Uni Connect Partnerships.
Category: Communities, Education
Windrush Justice Clinic
University of Westminster
The Windrush Justice Project is a collaborative project in its pilot phase that provides advice and assistance to victims of the Windrush scandal in making claims for compensation. It is currently fundraising for a caseworker and coordinator to enable to the WJC to develop and expand so that they are able to assist more victims of the Windrush scandal to claim compensation. The University of Westminster’s own Legal Advice Clinic has hitherto advised and assisted 14 clients with compensation claims and four clients regarding their immigration status. The Windrush Justice Clinic partners have advised and assisted over 40 clients with their claims for compensation.
Locations
across London
Partners
London South Bank University Legal Advice Clinic, Kings London Legal Clinic, Southwark Law Centre, North Kensington Law Centre, JCWI, Claudia Jones Organisation, Windrush Compensation Project and Jigsaw House Society
More information about Windrush Justice Clinic
Category: Communities
Wimbledon Bookfest
University of Roehampton
The University of Roehampton is the principal partner of Wimbledon BookFest, a leading literature, culture and arts festival, and supports the delivery of a range of linked events for school and colleges and the general public in the local area. The partnership provides students from the University with paid and voluntary placement opportunities, while staff and academics will feature as speakers and judges. The event allows the University to engage with BookFest’s wider education programme, which works with over 70 schools across London. The University has a long-term commitment to continue to support the aims and objectives of Bookfest. Over 1,000 children and young people attend the Bookfest and engage with its outreach activities each year.
Locations
Wimbledon Common, Roehampton, Putney, Wandsworth, Merton and surrounding areas.
Partners
Wimbledon BookFest
More information about Wimbledon Bookfest
Category: Communities
World on our Doorstep
University of East London
Newham Creative People and Places (Arts Council England), ‘World on our Doorstep’, will empower local people to access, participate, create & curate arts in local spaces celebrating the richness of the most culturally diverse borough in the country. It places community at the heart of decision-making about what they want to do & see in their communities in development of a CPP that co-designs & delivers excellent and inspiring art. By bringing arts to people’s doorstep they want to radically redefine what culture means to the people of Newham with its broadest definition of who they are; how they live and what they do, by focusing on activities in local parks & green spaces, championing the homegrown, creativity & culture and working with the widest range of cultural and cross-sector partners.
Locations
London Borough of Newham
Partners
Community Links (Lead), Caramel Rock, Faithful Friends, National Cricket League
More information about World on our Doorstep
Category: Creative
Working with Local Boroughs
Birkbeck, University of London
Newham’s motto is ‘Progress with the People’, a sentiment which Birkbeck has used in its approach. Activities have strong community involvement, are highly responsive to community needs, and are supported by both the local authority and the London Legacy Development Corporation.
Birkbeck provides small-group skills workshops on CV-writing, writing applications and running community surveys.
Camden is the home of Birkbeck’s primary campus where the institution works with the local council to tie campus improvements to better opportunities for residents. A recent planning application included six scholarships and employing two construction industry apprentices from Camden on the project.
Locations
Newham; Camden
More information about Working with Local Boroughs
Category: Communities
Islington Civic University/Anchor Institution Agreement
London Metropolitan University
London Met is in the final stages of agreeing the Islington Civic University/Anchor Institution Agreement – a new anchor institution network for Islington, bringing together like-minded, locally rooted organisations to help build a fairer and more inclusive borough.
It sets out ideas that could form the basis for a network and a set of shared ambitions and targets. So far this has already meant:
- The creation Health and Social Care Academy, which has brought an increasing number of local partners together to shape and own a cross-organisational employment strategy delivering 100+ new jobs per annum & apprenticeships, as well as developing pilot projects to retain more adult social care expenditure within the local economy and exploring new opportunities on the net zero carbon agenda.
- The London Living Wage Action Group, which has helped secure LLW Place Accreditation for the borough bringing together a strong cross-sectoral platform of businesses and organisations committed to promoting fair pay and good work for local residents.
- Businesses for Islington Giving Alliance (BIG Alliance) was set up in June 2012 by Islington Giving, Macquarie Group and the East London Business Alliance (ELBA) to strengthen links between businesses and community organisations and educational institutions across Islington, supporting meaningful community investments for businesses involved in doing good.
Anchor institutions deliver against four roles: (i) as an employer – adopting progressive policies on recruitment, pay & conditions and careers to fully harness the talents of our local workforce and future generations; (ii) as a purchaser – actively supporting existing and emerging local businesses to deliver affordable, quality goods and services thereby maximising local social value and wealth creation; (iii) as a landlord and asset manager – managing and developing buildings and spaces to create more accessible, sustainable and better places and; (iv) as a leader – committing to a shared ambition for Islington and embedding these values into day to day activity to ensure they make a difference.
Locations
Islington
Partners
Islington Council, City University, City & Islington College, Whittington Hospital, Peabody Trust, more adding soon
More information about Islington Civic University/Anchor Institution Agreement
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Education
Local Authority Alcohol Interventions: Cumulative Impact Policy
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
LSHTM has evaluated and found some evidence of impacts of Islington’s Cumulative Impact Policy (CIP). CIPs increase the powers of local licensing committees to reject applications for licensed premises selling alcohol. They can impact the types of premise allowed to operate in an area, while preventing premise or premise-type considered problematic by the local authority.
Pliakas, T.; Egan, M.; Gibbons, J. ; Ashton, C. ; Hart, J. ; Lock, K.; Increasing powers to reject licenses to sell alcohol: Impacts on availability, sales and behavioural outcomes from a novel natural experiment evaluation. Preventive medicine, (2018).116, DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2018.09.010.
Locations
Islington
Partners
NIHR School for Public Health Research
More information about Local Authority Alcohol Interventions: Cumulative Impact Policy
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, NHS / Health
Lister Community School – Post 16 Options Day
University of East London
The day is focused on ‘life after school’, where participants talk about their journey upon leaving school; further education; employment; the sector they were working in; giving advice on this journey.
Volunteers decide how they want to run the session and it is an informal opportunity for pupils at Lister Community School.
Locations
London Borough of Newham
Partners
Lister Community School
More information about Lister Community School – Post 16 Options Day
Category: Education
Local Enterprise Hub
Anglia Ruskin University London
The Hub is designed to work with budding entrepreneurs to support the creation of local small business start-ups. Primarily working with individuals from a widening participation background, the initiative aims to provide the expertise, encouragement, and support networks to enable individuals to move from idea to launch; offering a real alternative to employment and encouraging innovation and creativity.
In 2022, ARU London will hold a 1 day festival followed by a Hackathon aiming to launch 100 businesses in 48 hours.
Locations
Tower Hamlets and Camden (ARU campuses) and virtually.
Partners
12Ronnies and IdeasNest
More information about Local Enterprise Hub
Category: Business and Industry
Listen and Respond
UCL
The voluntary and community sector (VCS) has a crucial role to play in dealing with the immediate impact of Covid-19 – particularly for the most vulnerable in local communities – as well its longer-term effects. In turn, UCL has an important role to play in supporting the sector and a strong track record of work undertaken by academic and professional services staff and students to build on. The emergency has already shown that UCL staff and students are keen to continue to make a difference. The principle aim of UCL Listen and Respond is to better connect VCS organisations with people and groups within UCL who are interested and able to provide support.
There is also potential to work in partnership with Local Authorities around specific areas of advice and guidance. The work is designed to fully align with UCL’s commitment to being a publicly engaged university, to making a difference to London and Londoners, and to the vision for UCL East. As part of this work UCL has funded a series of projects connecting UCL staff and students with community organisations, around an identified issue resulting from Covid-19.
It established the Rapid Evaluation Advice and Learning Service with Camden Council, who were required to re-engineer almost all of their key services, from child support to business growth, within a matter of days at the onset of the Covid-19 lockdown. The local authority has identified a need to monitor, evaluate and learn from their performance, and has sought out advice and expertise from UCL. This pilot project is exploring how the skills and expertise of UCL staff and students can be utilised to support Camden Council to reflect on and evaluate their service delivery during the Covid-19 outbreak, and to use this learning to inform future service delivery to local people.
UCL will continue to draw from Listen and Respond and its separate elements (funded community partnership projects, the REAL Service and the student hackathons), and the partnerships which it has informed, to support the establishment of the new UCL East campus, as an open, accessible and engaged university campus.
It will do this by: (i) empowering staff and students to be agents for change in the community; (ii) enabling and supporting productive relationships with local communities; (ii) working with Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park partners to support the delivery of the Olympic legacy; and (iv) communicating and engaging with local communities to deliver successful construction and transition to operation.
Locations
Camden; Newham
Partners
Community partners, particularly those in Camden and Newham around their current and future campuses .
More information about Listen and Respond
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
LSE Community Engagement Programme 2021
London School of Economics and Political Science
LSE created 7 teams, each with 7 students, working with 7 partner charities. Each team acted as voluntary consultants exploring an issue the charity was facing and providing a set of recommendations. They also did personal and group reflections on the experience. The project was aimed at students who had done little, or no, volunteering before.
The charities received reports based on the issue they were facing and fedback that this would inform their work going forward. The students reported that they have a better understanding of the issue and were more likely to volunteer and engage in other civic activity in future.
‘Sparky’, ‘intelligent’, ‘warm’, ‘hardworking’, ‘independent’, ‘not afraid of thinking innovatively or asking us the tough questions’, ‘professional’, ‘dedicated’, ‘enthusiastic’, ‘thoughtful’ and ‘fantastic’ were some of the words which the charities used to describe the LSE volunteers.
LSE is expanding the Community Engagement Programme to 9 charities in 2022.
Locations
Pan-London, including Islington
Partners
Age UK Islington, CARE International, Centrepoint, City Year UK, CoachBright, SGS Students' Program and St Mungo's.
More information about LSE Community Engagement Programme 2021
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Mudlarks Project
Royal College of Art
Local primary schools were partnered with organisations in the borough who provided a different approach to thinking about our environment, to raise awareness and influence local change in environmental practices. Five students from the Royal College of Art School of Communication worked with lecturer Laura Gordon to design and deliver workshop sessions for Year 4 pupils. They co-produced a beautiful calendar which gave daily tips about how to reduce, reuse and recycle plastic.
Locations
Hammersmith & Fulham; Kensington and Chelsea; City of Westminster
Partners
Urbanwise
More information about Mudlarks Project
Category: Education, Sustainability
Night at the Vet College
Royal Veterinary College
‘Night at the Vet College’ (running since 2012) is hosted every six months with external sponsorship and involvement from RVC’s hospitals, academics and students, and external experts. These events are aimed at the public (ages 16+) and showcase their academics’ work with: stalls; discussions; and demonstrations.
They have focused on diverse zoological interests including: ‘Awake’ (November 2018, in partnership with Physiological Society and Kentish Town Farm); ‘Dawn of the Dinos’ (April 2019) and ‘Life at the Limits’ (November 2019). Their Spring 2020 event, ‘Reproduce’ (postponed due to Covid-19 restrictions), was supported by the Society for Reproduction and Fertility. Past events have also been sponsored by industry.
The Life at the Limits event welcomed over 500 people who took part in live experiments, heard expert talks, and saw birds of prey in action. From 2013-2019 the majority of 800 free tickets were booked, resulting in an average of 550 attendees at each event.
Locations
Camden
Partners
External experts; Physiological Society; Kentish Town Farm; Society for Reproduction and Fertility
More information about Night at the Vet College
Category: Communities, Education
Nurse-led Discharge Tool for People with Learning Disabilities Leaving Secure Services
London South Bank University
LSBU has co-produced a nursing discharge assessment for people with learning disabilities leaving secure services, with the aim of reducing the need for readmissions.
Locations
Across London
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
PACE-UP
St George's, University of London
PACE-UP explored whether giving adults between 45 and 75 years old a pedometer and physical activity diary would increase the amount of time they spent walking per week. The pedometer and physical activity diary greatly increased walking, both in terms of number of steps and time spent walking, and these changes persisted for up to 3 years. The study also demonstrated long-term health benefits from increased walking in terms of reduced number of heart attacks, strokes and fractures. The materials developed for the study are available publicly on St George’s website.
Locations
Battersea, Mitcham, Tooting, Putney; Merton, Wandsworth, Sutton
Partners
7 GP practices in S/SW London
More information about PACE-UP
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Partnership with Charlton Athletic FC and the Charlton Athletic Community Trust (CACT)
University of Greenwich
The University has an ongoing Community Partnership with a local Football Club, Charlton Athletic and the Community Trust. This involves research, student-focused enterprise events, subsidised tickets, student internships and volunteering.
The University is also the shirt sponsor for the Woman’s team at the club; the shirt sponsorship is for the 2021/22 season but partnership has been going for many years. The existing partnership enables the university, club and trust to share expertise, research and facilities, giving sports science and coaching students at the University of Greenwich opportunities to work and volunteer alongside players and professional football club staff. There is also a yearly partnership day to celebrate the collaboration.
Locations
Greenwich
Partners
Charlton Athletic FC and CACT
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Partnership with the Liliesleaf Trust UK (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
London Met is proud to announce its new strategic partnership with the Liliesleaf Trust UK (TLTU), a charity working to advance public knowledge of the international movement against apartheid and the contemporary relevance of learning from this heritage, particularly within anti-racist and social justice focused missions.
Through this exciting new partnership, TLTU will support research taking place at London Met with access to the lived experience of the movement against apartheid from within the Trust’s board, advisory groups and networks’ archival materials. The Trust will also offer work-based learning and volunteering opportunities to students and co-create a shared programme of arts and curatorial-based community engagement activities.
In turn, London Met will provide access to relevant academics and research centres linked to TLTU’s work, and will also work with the Centre as an official London Met Lab: Empowering London partner, empowering local communities and addressing social issues.
Partners
Liliesleaf Trust UK
More information about Partnership with the Liliesleaf Trust UK (London Met Lab project)
Category: Communities, Education
Partnership with Crystal Palace F.C.
University of Roehampton
The University of Roehampton initially joined the club as a local partner in the summer of 2018 and, since then, Roehampton students have been offered a wide range of project work and placement opportunities by the club. Crystal Palace FC supply guest lecturers, attend careers events and regularly invite students to Women’s and Men’s games. Palace For Life Foundation, the official charity of the club, and the University also collaborate on projects to engage with young people and schools to raise aspirations in Croydon and beyond, and the University’s women’s football team work closely with the Crystal Palace Women’s team on a range of initiatives, including joint training. The University of Roehampton will provide academic expertise to the club and Foundation, and provide the club’s staff access to Roehampton degrees.
Locations
Wandsworth, Croydon
Partners
Crystal Palace Football Club
More information about Partnership with Crystal Palace F.C.
Category: Communities
Partnership with Providence Row Housing Association
Coventry University London
A Homeless Action Week bake sale raised £1500 for Providence Row, and Coventry University London staff member Reece Turner raised £800 by completing the Tough Mudder. Several staff members also completed volunteering placements with the charity, volunteering with the music group, English classes, art group and the gardening scheme.
Partners
Providence Row
More information about Partnership with Providence Row Housing Association
Category: Communities
Print Your City
London South Bank University
Print Your City is an education/research project which will help to disseminate the importance of recycling plastic throughout several primary schools. With additive manufacturing techniques, LSBU’s Digital Architectural and Robotics Lab (DARLAB) will deliver a series of demonstration, workshops in various school using robotic technology to give a new life to plastic.
Locations
Southwark Council; various primary schools in SE5, SE15 areas.
Partners
Southwark Council, nlayers3D, Veolia
More information about Print Your City
Category: Communities, Creative, Sustainability
Production of NHS visors during the Covid-19 pandemic
Imperial College London
An entire floor of Imperial’s Translation & Innovation Hub (I-HUB) in White City was converted to assemble the visors, which will support Trust staff on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis.
Tens of thousands of visors were distributed across Trust hospitals. The project was led by Imperial College Advanced Hackspace and the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare Associated Infections and Antimicrobial Resistance at Imperial, in partnership with the Trust and their Infection Control team. Together, they developed, optimised and evaluated the visors to ensure they were appropriate for use.
Rolls Royce Motor Cars has worked to further support the Trust with visor production, providing kits for the team of Imperial volunteers to assemble the first 7,000 visors. The project was supported by Imperial’s donor-backed COVID-19 Response Fund, which provides rapid support to projects with the potential to make a major impact in the fight against the novel coronavirus. The project received £5,000 of seed funding from the Fund to establish its production line of visors and to enable development of the initial prototypes.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
Rolls Royce
More information about Production of NHS visors during the Covid-19 pandemic
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
Queen Mary Arts & Culture Support Centre
Queen Mary University of London
The arts and cultural sectors are facing huge challenges during the Covid-19 crisis. Queen Mary, University of London is keen to help. Its Arts & Culture Support Centre is pleased to announce a series of new initiatives to support people working in the arts including health and wellbeing events, research and reports, online advice and one to one support.
Locations
Tower Hamlets; Hackney
Partners
Something To Aim For (STAF)
More information about Queen Mary Arts & Culture Support Centre
Category: Creative, NHS / Health
Re-imagining Kingston Town Centre’s Streets & Spaces
Kingston University London
Utilising the creative and design expertise of its students, Kingston University has played a leading role in delivering and commissioning ‘Re-imagining Kingston Town Centre’s Streets & Spaces’, a public realm strategy with community and business engagement, and cocreation at its heart. It sets out transformational and tactical project ideas to inspire change and coordinate investment in the town centre. A central aim of the project was to inspire a range of ideas across the community, and help foster greater collaboration with the University’s student community.
The strategy has since been adopted by Kingston Council, is being used by the town planners for developer contributions, and is serving as an evidence base for future funding opportunities. To date, Kingston has been successful in receiving nearly £1m of funding to transform a vacant undercroft, adjacent to Kingston’s historic bridge, into a ‘Factory of the Futures’ that will provide much needed space for the creative industries and opportunities for young people, creating new reasons to visit the town centre.
More information about Re-imagining Kingston Town Centre’s Streets & Spaces
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Creative
Raising the Alarm: The Sound of the (London) Underground
London South Bank University
After the 7/7 bombings, London Underground decided it needed to upgrade the public address systems on London Underground. Working with TfL and Marconi/Telent the PA/VA, LSBU helped upgrade the sound systems to improve speech intelligibility on three Underground lines (Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly). The solution reduced electricity bills, improved speech communication and aided fire safety – benefitting 1.4 billion passenger journeys.
Locations
Across London
Partners
Telent, London Underground
More information about Raising the Alarm: The Sound of the (London) Underground
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre (LAC)
Queen Mary University of London
The Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre (LAC) provides a free, accessible, client-centred advice service to the public. Acting as a first-tier advice agency, the centre provides preliminary advice on the strength of a client’s case, the processes to be followed, and an explanation of complex legal issues. The LAC has two central aims: educating students, and engaging and supporting the community through the provision of pro bono legal advice.
These aims are achieved by providing students with the opportunity to learn legal and non-legal skills through clinical based teaching, learning, and experiences, ensuring students understand the value, importance and impact of pro bono work for the community and themselves and striving for every individual to be able to access justice.
In addition to the regular advice appointments provided, the LAC also runs a number of community projects aiming to promote and encourage the active engagement of students with the local community.
Since its opening in 2006 the Centre has advised over 1481 clients. In 2018-19 the Centre had over 100 student volunteers working across various projects as well as over 100 volunteer barristers and solicitors. The LAC provides an estimated £1 million of in-kind legal support annually. In the 2019/20 academic year, the LAC held 292 client appointments (3,175 since opening in 2006) and secured £65,475 of Social Welfare Benefits for clients.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
Partners
Members of the community, students, volunteer barristers; also primary and secondary school students and teachers
More information about Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre (LAC)
Category: Communities
Relational States of Dalston Research Project
University of East London
Relational States of Dalston was research project in collaboration with the London Borough of Hackney, that originated from the design studio teaching of UEL lecturers Carsten Jungfer and Fernanda Palmieri at the Department of Architecture at the University of East London. Seven graduate architecture students worked as co-researchers to produce a socio-spatial stakeholder analysis that became part of Hackney Council’s evidence base informing the draft Dalston Plan published in 2021 (supplementary planning document).
The funded research focussed on key places within Dalston, that contribute to the formation of unique urban conditions, that are perceived as desirable nodes for culture, community organisations and creative enterprises.
The researcher team developed a method for analysis of existing urban & architectural contexts, that combines aspects of ‘social arrangements’ and ‘spatial conditions’ through relational and multi-dimensional narrative, that allowed to gain a broader understanding of inherent relational complexities and processes connected to urban transformation.
As part of the engagement process fifteen community stakeholders listed below, were visited, interviewed and invited to participate to collaborative drawing workshops held at the Bootstrap Gallery in Dalston, where the final research outcome was also exhibited during 2018.
Community Stakeholders: Age UK, Cafe Oto, Bootstrap Charity, Dalston Square Tenant & Resident Association, Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, EartH, Forest Road Youth Centre, Hackney Cooperative Development, Hackney CVS, Hackney Pirates, Ridley Road Market, Rio Cinema, Tropical Isles Carnival Youth Group, Vortex Jazz Club, V22 art organisation
Locations
London Borough of Hackney
Partners
London Borough of Hackney, Planning Department
More information about Relational States of Dalston Research Project
Category: Communities, Education
REFRAME Workshops Tackle Burnout among GPs
University of Westminster
Prof Damien Ridge, Prof David Peters and Dr Justin Haroun at the University of Westminster’s Centre for Resilience have worked extensively with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust since 2014. Through this partnership, the researchers translated their research into burnout among GPs into a pilot resilience-building programme aimed at Junior Doctors, which was then further developed into the “REFRAME” workshops: half day, intensive resilience-training programmes, aimed at helping doctors to better cope and perform safely and competently under pressure. These workshops have been delivered since 2016. Guys has provided funding for a research project with Westminster on burnout and readiness to change amongst a group of consultants, which the Deputy Medical Director states: ‘reflects our long-term commitment to positively impacting on staff health and wellbeing for the betterment of both our patients and staff, which our collaborations with the Centre for Resilience has already significantly advanced’.
Of the doctors surveyed from the first trained cohort, 85% said they were inspired to make at least one change in their working practice, and 74% later confirmed that they did so. Among the qualitative feedback received, participants stated: “The technique of slow breathing has helped me to calm down several times when I was under severe stress”; “I have managed to reduce my stress levels in acute situations”. Of the second cohort of 68 Guys’ health professionals, 75% showed a marked improved in stress and well-being two months after the workshop, compared to those who made no changes to their working practice.
REFRAME is now provided to Foundation Year doctors as part of their mandatory training. Attendance is also compulsory for the Junior Doctors Leadership Group, who provide peer support to such staff. This makes Guys’ ‘the only provider organisation to mandate resilience awareness and training for foundation year doctors’, according to the Deputy Medical Director at the Trust, who adds: ‘Participating in this work with the University of Westminster has had an impact on how we, as an organisation, think about staff wellbeing. It has moved wellbeing up the agenda over the years.’
Locations
Southwark
Partners
Deputy Medical Director Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
More information about REFRAME Workshops Tackle Burnout among GPs
Category: NHS / Health
Research for the Wellbeing of Londoners
University of West London
The University has a long-standing history of public engagement, with an exclusive focus on engaging with real-world issues that carry benefits for everyone, particularly those in more disadvantaged social groups. The University of West London’s Strategic Plan (Achievement 2023) places public engagement at the heart of its mission.
It aims to produce the sorts of graduates, research, and enterprise that enhance the local, regional, national and international communities the university serve. Since its origin more than a century and a half ago, the University of West London and its precursors have been intertwined with the locality. Local residents understand the enormous benefits the University brings and collaboration and partnerships have never been stronger. In the coming years it aims to connect both the Ealing Master Plan and the Hounslow Regional Plan to make the University a lynchpin of community interaction.
More information about Research for the Wellbeing of Londoners
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Research Project Measuring Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Impact for Infrastructure Projects
London South Bank University
Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is difficult in many industries since targets have been set at the national level rather than project level. To rectify the problem, LSBU has undertaken research project creating a range of models, processes and analytical tools to measure the impact of infrastructure projects. The project involved academic, government and industry partners, including the Environment Agency and Thames Tideway Tunnel, working together to implement the new framework for measuring sustainability on infrastructure projects. The Thames Tideway Tunnel is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Europe, with a budget of £4.9billion and a primary purpose to reduce sewage overflows into the River Thames.
The research project, which was led by LSBU, helped Thames Tideway to extend the mapping of its legacy commitments to the SDGs at the target level, which allows these commitments to be clearly articulated to stakeholders according to the SDG framework. Such legacy commitments include, for instance: Creating more than 4,000 direct sustainable jobs; using river transport to remove the majority (90%) of material excavated to create the main tunnel; and working with charity partners to employ one ex-offender per 100 workers on the project.
Locations
Across London
Partners
The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE); University College London (UCL); the Building Research Establishment (BRE); and the Environment Agency
Category: Business and Industry, Sustainability
Response to the Greater London Authority’s Health Inequalities Strategy Consultation
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
LSHTM responded to the Greater London Authority’s Health Inequalities Strategy consultation, including a half day meeting with GLA representatives, UCL guests and LSHTM colleagues. It also held Improving Health London-wide – an event showcasing LSHTM research in London.
Locations
Camden
Partners
GLA; UCL
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
Richmond Employment & Skills Taskforce
St Mary's University, Twickenham
The Vice-Chancellor of St Mary’s, Anthony McClaran, sits on the Richmond Employment & Skills Taskforce, which aims to combat the impact of Covid-19 and its effects on the local labour market and residents of Richmond. The objectives of the 2020/21 strategy are: to increase the number of learners attending education and training specially from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those with disability and elderly; to meet the needs of individuals and the community in Richmond ensuring where appropriate effective pathways into employment; and to increase participation and progression from Community Learning course, into accredited programmes, apprenticeships and employment. The group will met every three months to continue its work.
Locations
Richmond Upon Thames
Partners
Richmond City Council
More information about Richmond Employment & Skills Taskforce
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Education
RinD
Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Alongside work with young people, the Outreach team at Central collaborated with mezze eade and Romana Flello from The London Consortium RinD project to present a series of online teacher workshops exploring Anti-Racism in Arts Classrooms. This series included an introductory workshop, two sessions exploring texts by Global Majority writers, and a final session exploring how to apply these approaches to practice and utilise them in school settings.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Mezze eade; Romana Fiello of The London Consortium RinD project
Category: Communities, Education
Rollin’ with The Punches (London Met Lab project)
London Metropolitan University
Fight 4 Change has recently launched Rollin’ with the Punches, a boxing-based mental health intervention, partnering with London Metropolitan University including conducting associated research.
Partners
Fight 4 Change
More information about Rollin’ with The Punches (London Met Lab project)
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Rose Theatre
Kingston University London
Kingston University was instrumental in bringing the Rose Theatre to Kingston and continues to offer it financial and artistic support.
Locations
Kingston upon Thames
Partners
Rose Theatre
More information about Rose Theatre
Category: Creative
Royal Holloway Volunteering
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway Volunteering is an award winning service supporting students and staff to engage as volunteers within the wider community and beyond since 2002. In 2017 Her Royal Highness, Anne, The Princess Royal presented the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in recognition of ‘Helping build strong communities by inspiring students to volunteer and lead projects to support local organisations.’
The Volunteering student leadership programme recruits 50 students each year to coordinate community projects in partnership with voluntary organisations such as; ESOL Tutoring with refugee families, or Food Recycling Scheme which reduces waste whilst helping those in need. New initiatives can benefit from funding such as STEAM stars primary school based robot building workshop series – the team takes an active role in multiagency task groups setup to support more vulnerable communities in the locality.
This academic year, the Volunteering Hub was opened at the heart of campus, increasing access and better profiling the five streams of activities actively supported; Community Action, Social Action, Community Research, Volunteering Abroad, and Sports Volunteering. An online Volunteering platform brings together charities looking for new volunteers with students searching for their perfect volunteer opportunity.
Locations
Englefield Green and Egham, Surrey (project pinned at Royal Holloway's Central London campus)
Partners
ESOL Tutoring; Food Recycling Scheme; Runnmyede Borough Council
More information about Royal Holloway Volunteering
Category: Communities
Royal Holloway, University of London’s Legal Advice Centre
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway, University of London established a Legal Advice Centre at the start of 2020, providing free legal advice and information to the local community, and to other areas across England.
At the student-led Centre, under the supervision of qualified legal professionals, members of the local community can get free legal advice or information on a variety of areas. At the Legal Advice Clinic student volunteers will provide free initial legal advice and information to clients under the supervision of practising solicitors.
Locations
Englefield Green and Egham, Surrey (project pinned at Royal Holloway's Central London campus)
More information about Royal Holloway, University of London’s Legal Advice Centre
Category: Communities
Royal Holloway, University of London’s Science Festival
Royal Holloway, University of London
Royal Holloway has been running its hugely popular annual Science Festival for over 25 years. This one day event showcases and celebrates science with staff, students and the local community, and is regularly attended by around visitors at the university’s campus in Egham, Surrey. In 2020-21, due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Science Festival open day was replace with digital activity, however it is planned to return in 2022. Royal Holloway has a thriving science community with world-class, pioneering research across the spectrum of science, and it is important for them to engage the next generation in these subjects and make it fun as part of the national celebrations in British Science Week.
Locations
Englefield Green and Egham, Surrey (project pinned at Royal Holloway's Central London campus)
Partners
Runnymede Borough Council
More information about Royal Holloway, University of London’s Science Festival
Category: Communities, Education
Specialised Research to Support Evidence-based Policy Formation
London School of Economics and Political Science
LSE invests in specialised research expertise in areas including housing, city planning, and social inclusion to support the development of evidence-based policy promoting growth in London. This research is concentrated particularly in LSE London, LSE Housing and Communities and the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE). Much of it is commissioned by and/or jointly conducted with and for civil society and policy groups, and co-production of research with policy-makers and practitioners is an important part of LSE’s approach. LSE London and LSE Housing and Communities work with end-users including think tanks, local authority institutions, professional organisations, London housing associations and social housing residents.
Locations
Pan-London, including Islington
Partners
GLA, Centre for London, London Councils, RICS, RTPI, TCPA, Academy of Urbanism
More information about Specialised Research to Support Evidence-based Policy Formation
Category: Communities
Spotlight on Science
St George's, University of London
Spotlight on Science is a public lecture and YouTube video series where members of St George’s research community present their results with a wide public audience. It is hoped that this virtual programme will continue whilst restarting an in-person lecture series. This project has improved the communication skills of researchers at St George’s and widened knowledge of their research areas among target audiences, including the general public.
Locations
Tooting
Partners
Alumni and local community groups
More information about Spotlight on Science
Category: Communities, Education
St George’s Museum of Human Diseases
St George's, University of London
The St George’s Museum of Human Diseases works with schools in the local community to offer activities and workshops and allow young people to visit and explore the collection.
The University is now expanding on this work through the newly launched St George’s STEM Network. Students and staff are working together to develop a new and exciting programme of activities and resources to engage with and involve more schools from their local community. The STEM Network aims to raise aspirations of school students in the local community and help young people understand more about the wide range of careers in healthcare.
Locations
Wandsworth
Partners
Schools in the local community
More information about St George’s Museum of Human Diseases
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
St Mary’s in Richmond upon Thames
St Mary's University, Twickenham
St Mary’s University is part of its local community in West London and has established strong relationships with many local employers and community organisations. As an active member of the South London Knowledge Exchange Partnership, host of the local Business Improvement District and close partner of the Local Authority, they work across South and West London with councils, other universities and business organisations to provide skills development and support the growth of local businesses. St Mary’s is in Richmond upon Thames in West London, with the majority of its students from London and Southeast England, often from disadvantaged communities. They have close relationships with schools and businesses in the region: education students undertake school placements and students in many other subjects undertake work placements as part of their degree. St Mary’s gather intelligence from partner organisations to identify local skills and growth needs.
The University’s The Exchange arts venue reaches beyond Twickenham and Richmond into more deprived communities nearby in areas such as Hounslow and Ealing. The Exchange has a strategy of contributing to local communities through the arts and wellbeing activities, providing access that may otherwise not be available, and reaching communities who do not usually interact with a university.
Locations
Richmond upon Thames, Hounslow, Ealing
Partners
The Exchange; South London Partnership; BIG South London; RUT, KUT, Merton, Croydon & Sutton Councils
More information about St Mary’s in Richmond upon Thames
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
STEM Ambassadors
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is committed to supporting science, maths and social science-related learning at schools and colleges. It has a growing community of staff and research degree students who are STEM Ambassadors and regularly give workshops related to their research as well as discuss their career paths with pupils.
Locations
Camden, Westminster and Islington
Partners
STEM Learning
More information about STEM Ambassadors
Category: Education
Supporting London’s Clinical and Public Health Services
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Many of LSHTM’s clinical academics work in the NHS in London, for example at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases; UCLH; St Mary’s Hospital; St George’s Hospital; and the Central and North West London Foundation Trust. Other members of staff work as general practitioners and public health physicians. LSHTM are also part of UCL Partners, an academic health science centre located in London – it is the largest such health science centre in the world, treating more than 1.5 million patients per year. It has an annual turnover of approximately £2 billion and includes around 3,500 scientists, senior researchers and consultants.
Locations
Camden
Partners
London Hospitals; UCL Partners
More information about Supporting London’s Clinical and Public Health Services
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
Surveying Independent BAME High-Street Businesses in Lewisham
London South Bank University
The COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic impact on the UK’s high street retailers. Retail sales fell by nearly 2% between 2019 and 2020, (the largest fall on record), while online sales rose to take up nearly 34% of the total. Independent retailers on local high streets, always dependent on passing trade, faced the devastating cash flow impact of enforced closure or, if they remained trading, reducing or collapsing footfall density. Following the easing of restrictions on non-essential retail and hospitality businesses in April 2021, the Economy & Partnership Team at Lewisham Council commissioned LSBU’s Business School to carry out a survey looking into the number of Independent and Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) businesses on Lewisham’s high streets, as well as the lack of footfall that may be affecting their survival.
Trained student researchers from LSBU made repeated visits to Lewisham’s ten high streets and were able to interview 94% of independent businesses. The challenges businesses faced included a lack of footfall, problems surrounding branding and awareness and cash flow problems requiring outside intervention. The report made a number of recommendations, including a programme of support and advice from the Council, individual high street marketing strategies, and a view to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship to tackle shop vacancies.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
The London Borough of Lewisham
More information about Surveying Independent BAME High-Street Businesses in Lewisham
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Tackling ‘County Lines’
University of Greenwich
At the University of Greenwich, another local issue but a national problem is domestic abuse, gang culture and county lines relating to the movement of drugs by vulnerable youth from urban areas to county towns. The County Lines Professional Training Programme was launched in 2018, focusing on indicators to identify vulnerable children targeted by gangs, and on how multiple agencies can deal with this important issue – the work continues to have significant national impact.
Locations
Greenwich, Lewisham, Bexley, Bromley
Partners
Metropolitan Police; Statutory agencies
More information about Tackling ‘County Lines’
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Education
The Elephant Trumpets
Royal College of Art
The series of projects, ‘The Elephant Trumpets’, will specifically focus on civic engagement in London’s Elephant and Castle – an area undergoing development and gentrification. ‘Everybody Needs Somebody’ was the first in the series of events exploring the concept of ‘crowd powered change’.
Locations
Southwark
Partners
AHRC, the Guardian, Changify.
More information about The Elephant Trumpets
Category: Creative, Education
The Evaluation Exchange
UCL
The Evaluation Exchange is for voluntary and community sector organisations wanting to improve their capacity to evaluate their work, and UCL postgraduate students and researchers who want to put their research and evaluation skills into practice in a real-life setting.
In Autumn 2021, 13 organisations in Camden and Newham were matched with multidisciplinary teams of postgraduate students and researchers. The teams and their organisation will work together for 6 months and collaboratively solve an evaluation challenge facing the organisation.
The Evaluation Exchange has proven to be an effective method to increase skills in evaluation of both UCL researchers and staff from the voluntary and community sector, as well as making a real difference for how organisations can understand and articulate their impact.
The Evaluation Exchange is delivered through a collaboration between UCL, Compost London and Voluntary Action Camden.
Locations
Newham; Camden
Partners
Compost London; Voluntary Action Camden; IoE-led ISIKLE
More information about The Evaluation Exchange
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
The Greenhouse
University of the West of Scotland, London Campus
The Greenhouse at Republic was established in 2021 to provide a space for early-stage entrepreneurs and start-ups within the community, and from UWS London’s student body, to grow their businesses.
In creating this space, UWS London has partnered with Trilogy and The Trampery; both of whom have a mission to create social value locally. UWS hopes to use its convening power to provide opportunities and make connections that benefit the people who live in its neighbourhood. Working in Tower Hamlets, an area of widespread deprivation, it is anticipated that the business incubator will help create long-lasting jobs, and drive economic growth within this community.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
Partners
Trilogy, The Trampery
More information about The Greenhouse
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
The Greenwich Book Festival
University of Greenwich
A significant annual event is The Greenwich Book Festival, inclusive, diverse, welcoming to all ages and affordable with open access to the site, free activities and low-cost events as part of its rich mix of programming. The site is fully accessible to those with disabilities. The Friday schools programme is fully sponsored and works with state primary schools across the Royal Borough of Greenwich at no cost to their school or parents. The event is held on a yearly basis.
Locations
Greenwich
More information about The Greenwich Book Festival
Category: Communities, Education
The Health and Sport Engagement (HASE) project
Brunel University London
The project took a community partnership approach to engage inactive people in sustained sporting activity to promote physical activity, health and wellbeing. It was co-designed with participants, sports coaches and public health professionals to ensure that sports projects were tailored to the needs of participants and harnessed the expertise of delivery experts.
Whether the sports are familiar ones such as swimming and badminton, or novel ones such as new age kurling, providing options that are tailored to people’s abilities and confidence makes the difference between success and failure for local authorities.
The study – led by a team of researchers from Brunel University London, and funded by Sport England – found that conducting focus groups with potential participants from the community, offering ‘taster’ sessions, and working and learning alongside local sports coaches and public health professionals, all resulted in a tailored community sports programme with increased levels of engagement.
It was part of Sport England’s national Get Healthy Get Active initiative, which aims to improve understanding of how sport can be used to raise population rates of physical activity.
Locations
Hounslow
Partners
Sport England, local communities
More information about The Health and Sport Engagement (HASE) project
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
The Hillingdon Literary Festival (HiLF)
Brunel University London
The Hillingdon Literary Festival is a free weekend of readings, workshops, performances and debates aimed at Hillingdon residents of all ages, providing the community with the opportunity to engage with leading authors in the literary world.
Locations
Uxbridge, Hillingdon
Partners
Arts Council England, London Borough of Hillingdon, Waterstones
More information about The Hillingdon Literary Festival (HiLF)
Category: Communities
The Lewisham Deal
Goldsmiths, University of London
The Lewisham Deal aims to bring significant benefits to the community and boost investment in small and medium-sized enterprises. It includes a focus on high-quality apprenticeships, promoting the Living Wage and additional investment in the local economy. Together these organisations employ thousands of people and spend hundreds of millions of pounds through procurement.
Locations
Lewisham
Partners
Lewisham Council, Lewisham Homes, Phoenix Community Housing, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust and Lewisham College.
More information about The Lewisham Deal
Category: Business and Industry
The LSBU Lambeth Retrofit Skills Project
London South Bank University
The Borough of Lambeth has declared a climate emergency. This project helped inform their strategy in reducing carbon emissions from the existing housing stock. There are a wide range of green skills gaps and this project used interviews and stakeholder workshops to identify these gaps and the networks through which Lambeth council can address them to better deliver local retrofit solutions.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
London Borough of Lambeth
More information about The LSBU Lambeth Retrofit Skills Project
Category: Communities, Sustainability
The OLIve Project – Open Learning Initiative Project
University of East London
A 12-week course was designed and delivered for refugees and asylum seekers in the UK. The aim of the course is to introduce refugees and asylum seekers to Higher Education. The OLIve Project offers refugees and asylum seekers the opportunity to find out the skills and knowledge that are required in order to apply for and succeed in Higher Education in the UK. It also provides information about pathways and opportunities that can be accessed both during and after completion of a degree.
The course assists with English language proficiency as it delivers modules and workshops in English language and academic writing, research skills, academic tutoring and introduction to academic discussions.
The OLIve Project participants do not have automatic access to a UEL academic programme upon completion of this course, however, they do benefit from a highly increased chance of having the necessary tools and information at their disposal that will enhance their probability of successfully applying for and completing a Higher Education qualification in a UK based institution.
Locations
Newham
More information about The OLIve Project – Open Learning Initiative Project
Category: Communities, Education
The Projects Office
London Metropolitan University
Established in 2004 to provide professional support for students and staff from the School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University, the Projects Office is a supportive, professional environment for students to develop and contribute to community projects. It favours projects with a clear social purpose and co-ordinates carefully chosen work placements. Many of these projects address challenges pertaining to the future of the city, including housing and climate change.
Locations
Across London, especially Tower Hamlets, City of London, Islington and Hackney.
More information about The Projects Office
Category: Communities, Creative, Sustainability
The Southwark Health Skills Centre
London South Bank University
In summer 2021, LSBU opened the Southwark Health Skills Centre. The Centre, created in partnership with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Health Education England, provides the people of Southwark and surrounding boroughs with access to career pathways in health and social care, whatever their age or educational starting point. Its aim is both to educate and train new recruits and to upskill existing staff. It offers a range of opportunities for all, from schoolchildren through to existing health and social care employees, including health sector outreach; careers inspiration; recruitment and education advice; and health sector specific employability programmes.
The Centre also plays a central role in supporting the Trust’s strategy to develop local talent and build a workforce pipeline that reflects the diversity of the population that it serves. The Centre offers education and training from pre-entry to post-doctoral level, for clinical and non-clinical roles, with each delivered by experts from the relevant institutions within LSBU Group and supported by staff from Guy’s and St Thomas’. The Centre draws especially on the expertise of LSBU’s Institute of Health and Social Care, which is a leading provider of health and social care education and training; South Bank Colleges; and South Bank UTC, with its specialisms in Health and Social Care and Health Engineering, of which Guy’s and St Thomas’ is also a sponsor.
Locations
Southwark
Partners
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust; Health Education England
More information about The Southwark Health Skills Centre
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
This Girl Can: Lambeth
London South Bank University
LSBU’s research with young women in Lambeth provided insight into the factors that influence their participation and attitude to sport and physical activity. The participants benefited from improved physical fitness, mental health and attitudes to active lives all attained in a cost-effective manner. This formulated recommendations for effective strategies to engage young women that have informed the practice of exercise providers, shaped public health education, and community sports policy and delivery nationally and internationally. The recommendations have informed Lambeth Council’s approach for future service commissioning and sport and leisure provision.
More information from LSBU about the project: https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/about-us/news/new-study-calls-for-five-big-changes-to-increase-women-and-girls-access-to-physical-activity
A BBC article following the paper’s publication: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/58342264
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Council; Fight4Change; St Matthew’s project; BigKid Foundation; Streatham Youth and community Trust; Sustrans; LSBU’s Academy of Sport
More information about This Girl Can: Lambeth
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
The Quaran-tin Workout
St Mary's University, Twickenham
A St Mary’s senior lecturer and physiotherapist devised an online exercise plan and e-book of exercises for the elderly during lockdown using only a chair and two tins. It was initially set up on WhatsApp before being uploaded to YouTube. It served Londoners as well as a community that grew to include people from Turkey, Sweden and Australia. After completing 91 consecutive workouts, the online channel was featured on BBC news.
Locations
Online
More information about The Quaran-tin Workout
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
TL Ignite
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
TL Ignite is supporting 24 emerging local artists to develop their entrepreneurial expertise and establish sustainable careers through one-off grants and bespoke professional support. The scheme strengthens Trinity Laban’s ties with the local creative community, building a vital network to help boost the post-pandemic recovery of performing arts in Southeast London. Trinity Laban hopes to run the scheme annually.
Through seed-funding and a curated programme of knowledge exchange, TL Ignite aims to empower these newly graduated and early-career creatives to identify and realise development opportunities, find new ways to connect with audiences, build their networks and monetise their work. The recipients, who are all in the first five years of their careers, will use the award for project realisation, digital creation and professional development, enabling engagement with local communities and the creation of new work.
Locations
Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lewisham and Southwark
Partners
Local creative practitioners
More information about TL Ignite
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Creative
Upstream
Imperial College London
Upstream is a partnership between Hammersmith & Fulham and Imperial College London that was set up in January 2018. Upstream is a unique partnership between Imperial College London and Hammersmith and Fulham Council that aims to support collaboration, enterprise and innovation in the borough.
The publication showcases the positive impact of these organisations, and aims to inspire further collaboration by fostering strong, local networks. Team Upstream’s work is driven by the belief that local networks which facilitate collaboration and learning can accelerate the growth of organisations and places.
Imperial’s vision is for Hammersmith & Fulham to have an inclusive, thriving ecosystem of ambitious science, tech and creative organisations, with the White City innovation district a global beacon of growth through innovation. Upstream supports science, technology and creative businesses and organisations of all sizes. The key elements of the work involves; Fostering professional connections; Convening organisations that can solve common challenges better by working together; Creating social and serendipitous opportunities for the community to interact; Shining a light on innovative science, tech, creative organisations and sign-posting assets and amenities
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Council
More information about Upstream
Category: Business and Industry
Uncovering Surbiton
Kingston University London
A group of Kingston University Museum and Gallery Studies MA students helped to create a Kingston Museum exhibition delving into the lives of the residents of Cleaveland Road in Surbiton. Residents recorded stories of treasured possessions, and together with items discovered on the street, this provided a rare insight in to the social, cultural and economic history of Surbiton.
Locations
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
Partners
The Community Brain
More information about Uncovering Surbiton
Category: Communities
Urban Scholars Programme
Brunel University London
The Urban Scholars Programme at Brunel University London is a unique, sustained 3-year intervention programme which provides enriched learning experiences for students aged 12 -18 from inner London schools. The students are selected on the basis of their academic talent or their potential to achieve highly. Many of the students come from socially deprived areas where their talents may not lead to successful examination results or high aspirations. The scholars come from 31 schools across London, they attend sessions delivered on the Brunel University London campus for one Saturday a month for three years.
Locations
London
Partners
SHINE Trust, Education and Development Trust, The Moody’s Foundation
More information about Urban Scholars Programme
Category: Education
UWL Wellbeing Module
University of West London
UWL will be creating and embedding a “Wellbeing Module” that will be built into new students’ curriculum, teaching them important life skills such as budgeting, cooking healthy meals from scratch as well as developing confidence and communication skills as well as psychoeducational content such as the importance of sleep, diet and exercise in managing and promoting positive mental health and wellbeing.
It is hoped this module will reduce withdrawals and improve retention, support progression onto the next year of study as well as improving students self-reported mental health and wellbeing.
Locations
West London (Ealing and Brentford) and Berkshire (Reading)
Partners
The West London NHS Trust
More information about UWL Wellbeing Module
Category: NHS / Health
Wellhome Project
Imperial College London
Children growing up in the UK today represent an ‘indoor child generation’, with most of their activities taking place primarily in homes and schools, with chemically diverse environments.
Despite its importance in human exposure terms, links between indoor air quality and public health is an under-researched area, with greater emphasis placed on outdoor air quality.
Working in partnership with local community, the WellHome consortia will focus on the quality of air inside and outside over 100 homes with an asthmatic child selected from across the social spectrum. Their intensive monitoring approach, linking toxicological assessments of chemical and biological pollutants with individual activity and health data, aims to identify triggers for worsening of their condition and thus improve quality of life.
Imperial’s Professor Frank Kelly, Battcock Chair in Community Health and Policy, within the School of Public Health is leading the study. One multi-disciplinary team will follow 100 households in West London with at least one child with asthma and monitor chemical and biological pollutants within their home. With many children now spending most of their time indoors, whether at home or school, this study will significantly improve understanding of the link between air quality and asthma symptoms.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
Nova New Opportunities, Bubble & Squeak, Greater London Authority
More information about Wellhome Project
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
West London Alliance (WLA)
University of West London
The University of West London has a wide regional, national and international role and defines its local area for the purposes of Regeneration and Local Growth as the London Councils (Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow) that form the West London Alliance (WLA). Within this region, they see themselves as highly embedded in the two boroughs in which their campus sits: Ealing and Hounslow. Their reach extends along the Thames Valley through their healthcare related work, and globally through educational partnerships. UWL is a core member of the Heathrow Skills Partnership (HSP), working collaboratively with Heathrow and its supply chain to both ensure and develop pipeline of skills to a key sector in West London. This pandemic-related working partnership has resulted in UWL supporting West London Business and the West London Alliance (in particular its Prosperity Board), and in the four local HEIs working collaboratively on growth & regeneration, social inclusion & mobility, and how they collectively better communicate the roles HEIs can and do play in the local economy.
Locations
Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow
More information about West London Alliance (WLA)
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
West London Vice-Chancellors’ Roundtable
Brunel University London
West London Business convened a grouping of the seven West London Universities to come together to focus on working collaboratively to contribute to the economic, health, social and cultural wellbeing of the communities and region they serve. This forum meets regularly to oversee a series of workstreams focused on: Growth and Innovation; Civic agreements and Communications and; Social Mobility and Inclusion.
This has spawned a further network where the Vice Chancellors and Principals of all local FE Colleges meet to direct a range of sector-based skills forums enabling skills issues to be tackled across the whole range of skills requirements and education provision.
The group has enabled the Universities to play an active and central role in the recovery process and to contribute strongly to important initiatives such as the West London Build and Recover Plan and relevant economic task forces and skills bodies.
Individual projects have led to: the development of the West London Digital Creative Network; the development of a process for ensuring entrepreneurs can benefit from closer working relationships between incubators such as the CRL (Hayes) and Imperial (White City; the formation of a local procurement forum; a mechanism where Universities can gift unspent Apprenticeship Levy to local SMEs and; the formulation of a joint network of FE and HE providers to address skills issues in the region and to develop collaborative approaches to specific sector skills challenges and opportunities.
The group also intends to focus on: developing strong frameworks for skills development in the region and to aid the local community with attracting funding from central and local government; promoting and enhancing the support available to entrepreneurs and encouraging new business formation post-pandemic; working more closely to widen participation and raise aspiration and; collaboratively bidding for research funding and inward investment to encourage innovation and sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
Locations
Across West London, including Barnet, Brent, Harrow, Ealing, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
Buckinghamshire New University; Imperial College London; Middlesex University London; Royal College of Art; University of West London; University of Westminster; West London Alliance; West London Business
More information about West London Vice-Chancellors’ Roundtable
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, NHS / Health
What the Tech?!
Imperial College London
Imperial’s White City Community Engagement team has been working with community partners to deliver science backpack activity kits to local families, provide tech support to elderly residents, and general support to local residents and community members during the COVID-19 lockdown.
As part of the College’s commitment to support families living around the White City Campus, the White City Community Engagement and Public Engagement teams have partnered with the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham’s (LBHF) Family Assist team to identify 241 children who would most benefit from receiving their own ‘Science Backpack’ during the lockdown.
The backpacks contain fascinating science-inspired activities that can be easily done from home, with all equipment provided. Backpacks have been hand-delivered to families living in the W12 postcode next to the White City Campus. Four different backpacks were designed to engage children aged from 6 to 16 years old. Younger children were equipped with over 20 science-focused activities that were designed to spark interest in STEM and create a sense of togetherness when working on the activities with their families.
Activities include exploring invisible ink, creating squishy circuits, and making an energy-saving car. For older children, activities were more in-depth, mentally stimulating, and aspirational. These included making their own synth kit and a solar-powered robot.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Council
More information about What the Tech?!
Category: Communities, Education
Wild Bloomsbury
University of London
The University of London is working alongside UCL and the Bedford Estates to increase and improve biodiversity and biomass in the Bloomsbury area. The intention is to bring more green spaces to the area, improve the existing green spaces and increase community and student use of these spaces. It will increase biodiversity, increase biomass and increase engagement with nature.
Locations
Camden
Partners
UCL Bedford Estates
More information about Wild Bloomsbury
Category: Sustainability
Being Human Festival
University of London
Being Human is the UK’s only national festival of the humanities. A celebration of humanities research through public engagement, it is led by the School of Advanced Study at the University of London, the UK’s national centre for the pursuit, support and promotion of research in the humanities. The festival works in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy to support humanities public engagement across the UK
Locations
Coordinated by the School of Advanced Study, based in Senate House, University of London, festival activities have taken place across the UK. Since 2017, the festival has worked with international partnerships – with activities to date taking place in locations including Melbourne, Singapore, Paris, Rome, and Princeton, New Jersey.
Partners
School of Advanced Study, University of London Arts and Humanities Research Council British Academy
More information about Being Human Festival
Category: Communities, Education
London Anchor Institutions’ Network (LAIN)
University of London
In 2021, during the COVID 19 Pandemic, the London Recovery Board, chaired by the Mayor of London, invited London’s largest and most economically, socially and environmentally powerful organisations to come together and support a sustainable recovery for the capital.
The Vice-Chancellor of University of London, Prof. Wendy Thomson CBE, joined the initiative on behalf of London’s Higher Education sector, and now co-chairs the Network steering group. The network promotes better practice in relation to hiring and skills, procurement, youth mentoring and sustainability across its members, and the University of London is, among other things, changing its procurement policy to support purchases from smaller and diverse businesses.
Locations
The LAIN is based in City Hall, with 17 founding members that work across the capital.
Partners
Association of Colleges BusinessLDN Film London Greater London Authority London Chamber of Commerce and Industry London City Airport London Councils London Fire Brigade London Jewish Forum Metropolitan Police Muslim Council of Britain NHS London Thames Water The Church of England The Trades Union Congress (London, East & South East) Transport for London University of London
More information about London Anchor Institutions’ Network (LAIN)
Category: Business and Industry, Sustainability
London Scholars Programme
University of London
The University of London’s London Scholars programme is a new £2m initiative (launched 2022) aimed at helping student from less advantaged backgrounds gain access to, and make the most of, a world-class university education. The programme support 30 students every year across the University of London federation.
The programme, which includes funding of tuition fees, free accommodation and pastoral care, is aimed at young people from an ethnic minority background, those who have been in care and those living in hostels and other homeless accommodation or who have been estranged from their family. It is eligible to students in London and from across the UK. The University is fundraising to extend the programme.
Locations
University of London; students across London and the UK are eligible.
More information about London Scholars Programme
Category: Communities
Mapping London Muslim Histories: Layers of London x Everyday Muslim Project
University of London
The Institute of Historical Research’s public history project Layers of London is partnering with the Everyday Muslim Project to tell the long and diverse history of Muslims in London to a much wider audience. Layers of London allows any Londoner to share their memories, photographs and stories on historical maps of the city. The Everyday Muslim Project is a long-term project to create a central archive of Muslim lives, arts, education and cultures from across the UK. In this collaboration, UoL is working with community archives to tell the stories of a range of influential, and everyday, Muslims, of very varied backgrounds, and their lives in London throughout the twentieth century.
Locations
Pan-London; the East London Mosque is located in the Borough of Tower Hamlets.
More information about Mapping London Muslim Histories: Layers of London x Everyday Muslim Project
Category: Communities
Pandemic Recovery: Emotion, Language and Health in Schools
University of London
In October and November 2021, the University of London’s Institute of Modern Languages Research worked with the writer, Neela Doležalová, to lead a series of creative workshops with pupils at the Gearies Primary School in East London. In the workshops, students from Years 4 and 6 were invited to explore the language of emotion surrounding their experience of the pandemic through a multilingual perspective (in their own languages, in translation, and in British Sign Language). The students wrote their own poems and stories, which were recorded by professional actors and played back to pupils at the school.
Locations
Gearies Primary School, Redbridge, London
Partners
IMLR/Being Human, Gearies Primary School, Neela Doležalová
More information about Pandemic Recovery: Emotion, Language and Health in Schools
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
Street Stories Dagenham: Victoria County History and London Borough of Barking & Dagenham
University of London
How can street names offer windows into history and heritage? The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham plans to build 50,000 new homes by 2037. Much of this new development is transforming post-industrial land, and creating new streets, zones and local centres. The Institute of Historical Research’s Victoria County History of Essex – the historic county covering the Barking & Dagenham area – is partnering with the borough to scope potential street names for these new developments. The project will also use existing street names as a way into celebrating the heritage of this lively, multi-cultural and historic borough.
Locations
Barking and Dagenham
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Supporting London’s Rare Book Trade:
University of London
Supporting London’s Rare Books dealers with research, internships, co-curated specialist exhibitions,, engaging with book fairs in London (e.g. Firsts London, the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association) and over the past several years, helping build and refresh employee base, building civic links between London rare books communities (dealers, buyers) with academic research in book history, UoL SAS/IES students, and the London/international rare books market (London is a world-leading centre for this).
Locations
Across London.
Partners
Firsts London Antiquarian Booksellers' Association
More information about Supporting London’s Rare Book Trade:
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
The Refugee Law Clinic at the University of London
University of London
The University of London’s Refugee Law Clinic was established in 2020 and is an innovative project providing pro bono legal advice for refugee clients. Our work provides some of the most disadvantaged communities with access to fair and equal legal representation, a basic human right which many asylum seekers in the UK struggle to find.
The clinic is supported by the Central University and by 10 of the University’s Member Institutions. It is based on a model of Clinical Legal Education for the University’s diverse student body and facilitates practical experience for students working on real cases under the supervision of a qualified expert lawyer. Delivered in partnership with two law firms, the Refugee Law Clinic also provides the opportunity for lawyers to undertake pro bono work within the clinic.
The clinic’s main legal focus is on advising and preparing fresh claims for asylum, an area identified as underserviced in the current legal landscape, and aims to complement the work of law firms and other service providers in London.
Partners
The UoL Refugee Law Clinic is an inter-collegiate project of the University of London and has committed involvement from ten of the University’s Member Institutions, who will each be sending students to volunteer in the clinic: Birkbeck, University of London City, University of London Goldsmiths, University of London Kings College London London Business School London School of Economics (LSE) Queen Mary University of London Royal Holloway, University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (SOAS) UCL The project has also partnered with two commercial law firms who will be sending volunteer lawyers to engage in the Clinic: Clifford Chance LLP Macfarlanes LLP The clinic also receives financial support from Migration Thames Valley's Migration Foundation and another charitable trust. It also receives support in training materials from HJT Training, and broader support from an Expert Panel, and the clinic's Governing Board.
More information about The Refugee Law Clinic at the University of London
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Untold London: supporting the The Mayor’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm
University of London
The Institute of Historical Research’s public history project Layers of London is partnering with the Mayor of London’s Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm‘s ‘Untold London’ project. Layers of London allows any Londoner to share their memories, photographs and stories on historical maps of the city. This partnership is supporting communities to tell their stories through Collections and Trails, including developing #HistoryOfMySchool teaching resources.
Locations
Pan-London.
Partners
The Layers of London Project is possible through the resources of a range of project partners. For full details of each partner, please visit https://layersoflondon.blogs.sas.ac.uk/project-partners/. Partners include: The Institute of Historical Research, which leads the Layers of London project. Historic England The British Library MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) The National Archives London Metropolitan Archives The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Heritage Services
Category: Communities, Creative
Agents of Change
Imperial College London
Agents of Change is a network for women who have an active interest in driving social change in the north of Hammersmith & Fulham. The programme is designed to address specific barriers that may prevent local women from increasing and sustaining their impact, equipping them to strengthen and empower both themselves and their local communities.
The vision of the programme is to bring together local female leaders of all ages, sectors and backgrounds to drive positive social change in the north of Hammersmith & Fulham. This is done through building an open and diverse network for local women to connect and share expertise; providing a platform for local businesses to work in partnership on local initiatives; and empowering and supporting local female community leaders through the 6-month Community Leadership Programme.
Established in 2018, Agents of Change aims to support, empower and connect its members through quarterly networking events. Agents of Change members may also be eligible to apply to Imperial’s6-month female Community Leadership Programme. The programme is supported by a consortium of local institutions: Hammersmith United Charities, Hammersmith and Fulham Council and The Lyric, all of who provide support infrastructure such as access to mentors, inspirational guest speakers, community and business leaders and industry experts – as well as providing funding and venue space.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
Hammersmith United Charities; London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham; The Lyric
More information about Agents of Change
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Design and engineering of scooters with North Paddington Youth Club
Imperial College London
Imperial College London has been working with North Paddington Youth Club to build electric scooters alongside the College’s engineers. The project follows a year-long partnership between Imperial and the youth group that has previously seen its members customise sneakers taking inspiration from Imperial’s research. North Paddington Youth Club’s members are aged 16-21.
The club offers underrepresented and underserved young people opportunities to engage in activities in a safe and welcoming environment. Projects like this are a key part of Imperial’s aim to collaborate with local young people who may face lack of opportunities, or multiple barriers, when engaging with science. The co-designed e-scooter project aimed to bring together Imperial researchers and local young people to design, build and customise scooters so they can grow their confidence and practical understanding of science. The project received funding from UKRI’s Making Connections grant scheme, in partnership with the UK Science Festival Network (UKSFN) and caught the attention of local e-scooter brand, Mycle, who supplied brand new scooters to the youth club.
Researchers from across the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Imperial’s Advanced Hackspace have been guiding the young people through the design and build process. It has been an opportunity for the researchers to gain new perspectives on their work and experience engaging with local young people as well as make connections with other researchers and departments which may lead to future collaboration.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham
Partners
North Paddington Youth Club; UK Science Festival Network
More information about Design and engineering of scooters with North Paddington Youth Club
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Embedding local young voices into the Great Exhibition Road Festival
Imperial College London
As part of the Great Exhibition Road Festival, Imperial has worked with local young people to give them the opportunity to design and produce an event at the Festival. The Young Producers are a group of young adults who are all aspiring to become producers of the future and an array of backgrounds all inspired to create content. In partnership with the Great Exhibition Road Festival and Imperial, this collaboration creates the opportunity for those with fresh and diverse experiences to inspire those attending the Festival.
The Young Producers embed local young voices and social values into the Festival by collaborating with local creative leaders, artists and researchers. They designed and delivered a new audience experience that fuses science and the arts as part of the Great Exhibition Road Festival in June 2022. The Young Producers came together with lens-based artist Nathaniel Telemaque and Imperial’s Dr Simon Foster to develop a drop-in event called Sonder.
The group aimed to inspire the thoughts and feelings of nostalgia of the ideal summer, encouraging participants to draw on their own personal experiences through visual and audio displays, while Dr Foster feeds in scientific facts about the sun.The name comes from the definition of the noun Sonder, the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
Locations
Kensington and Chelsea
Partners
Great Exhibition Road Festival
More information about Embedding local young voices into the Great Exhibition Road Festival
Category: Communities, Creative
Great Exhibition squared project
Imperial College London
The Great Exhibition² is an exciting, cross-curricular research and innovation project for schools and community groups in London including mentoring from world class Imperial College London postgraduate students. Imperial College London and Big Ideas are working with young people from schools and community groups based in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster to become ‘Great Innovators’.
The challenge is inspired by the Great Exhibition of 1851 where the best thinkers of the time responded to the changing world around them in new and imaginative ways, and showcased their designs and inventions for the world to see at the world’s first Great Exhibition.
The programme has been successfully running since 2020, with schools receiving free Educators Resource Packs, a classroom poster and additional resources for your project. In 2022, Imperial collaborated with 36 schools across London. Participants are led through planning, researching and designing their own ‘trailblazing inventions’ to help tackle the world’s most interesting and urgent issues. They will also receive mentoring throughout their project by today’s world-class thinkers – researchers from Imperial. Winners can see their ideas displayed at the Great Exhibition Road Festival.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham; Kensington and Chelsea; Westminster
Partners
Big Ideas; local schools
More information about Great Exhibition squared project
Category: Creative, Education
STEM Futures
Imperial College London
STEM Futures is a new multi-year programme of activities and support for students of Black heritage* who are interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine). Black people are currently underrepresented in STEM so it can be difficult for young Black students to find out first-hand what their next steps should be. This programme has been developed by Imperial to support young Black students to discover the wide range of subjects within STEM studies and to help them get into university.
Students can join the programme in either year 10 or year 12 and the programme is designed to be relevant at whatever point in school studies that students start. Students will attend around five events each academic year and aims for these to be delivered in person at Imperial’s South Kensington and White City campuses.
The sessions include masterclasses in science, engineering and maths subjects to support students with revision; lectures; advice and guidance on studying STEM subjects from university students of similar backgrounds and interests studying a range of degrees; study skills workshops; personal development workshops and careers sessions.
*This includes Black or Black British- African, Black or Black British- Caribbean, Other Black Background, Mixed- Black African and White, Mixed- Black Caribbean and White, or Other Mixed background (including Black African, Black Caribbean or Other Black background).
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster
Partners
Local schools
More information about STEM Futures
Category: Communities, Education
Algorithms to facilitate hospital staff rostering – REF2021
City, University of London
Developed in research at City, University of London, this e-rostering system was used at a major London NHS Hospital to reduce doctors’ fatigue, resulting in improved staff morale and patient care, and increased efficiency of workforce utilisation, providing considerable costs savings. The research also informed the 2016 Junior Doctors’ negotiation, provided evidence to a government inquiry into managing the supply of NHS clinical staff, helped to shape training capacity for Health Education England, and in 2020,helped a major London hospital redeploy junior medics as the COVID-19 pandemic evolved.
The Emergency Department at London’s NHS Whittington Hospital had been using ergonomic rosters for junior doctors since February 2016. These rosters were produced by a research team led by Professor Glass using their e-Rostering Software. The Whittington Hospital provides community care services to 500,000 people and an income of £295 million. The introduction of software to produce e-rosters uses algorithms to prioritise staff ergonomics (adhering to best practice from the literature in terms of fatigue minimisation so improving safety and efficiency at work) and work/life flexibility (e.g. annual and study leave preferences, exams, personal commitments and less than full time trainees) within the roster. In this way, individualised rosters are produced for each doctor which meet their particular needs, protect patients and doctors through fatigue reduction, ensures fair total hours distribution across the duration of their placement and fits work around life.
The pilot implementation at Whittington Hospital’s A&E was selected as an exemplar initiative for supporting doctors in training by NHS Improvement, noting that the optimised rostering system reduces fatigue for staff, protects staff and patients, reduces locum spend through redeployment of existing staff, honours training & personal commitments, while maintaining full-service cover.”
Locations
Islington; Haringey; Barnet; Enfield; Camden
Partners
Local hospitals
More information about Algorithms to facilitate hospital staff rostering – REF2021
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
Legacies of Biafra: speaking the unspoken through curation and film, raising awareness across generations and ethnicities, memorialising war – REF2021
City, University of London
Looking at the precursors for the Nigeria-Biafra war (1967-70), examining the war itself and considering its collective memory, ‘Legacies of Biafra’ takes a Janus-faced approach to history. Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the war, Dr Louisa Egbunike’s research centres Nigerian voices in a project encompassing a large-scale exhibition at the Brunei Gallery in London, feature-length documentary film, and public engagement events.
‘Legacies of Biafra’ has succeeded in opening conversations previously suppressed and expanding deeper understanding of the ‘invisible genocide’ against the Igbo people, not just within the Igbo community itself but outwardly across the global Nigerian community and the 12,000 exhibition visitors and film attendees in the UK, Ghana and Kenya.
Concurrent to the Legacies of Biafra exhibition held at the Brunei Gallery in London, which opened with a lecture delivered by Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri, Egbunike worked in close collaboration with filmmaker Nathan Richards to create a documentary in order to engage with a cinema-loving audience that might not necessarily visit museums and galleries. In the Shadow of Biafra[3.5],a 73-minute feature film showcasing some of Nigeria’s most prominent literary figures, had multiple preview screenings in the UK, Ghana and Kenya involving post-screening Q&A feedback sessions, and premiered on the 25th of January, 2020 at Curzon Bloomsbury on the Renoir screen before a full-capacity audience. Combined, the exhibition and film have raised and improved awareness of the Biafran war to a global audience of more than 12,000 visitors and attendees.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Brunei Gallery SOAS
Category: Creative
Neighbourhood Knowledge Management – REF2021
City, University of London
Professor Les Mayhew and Gill Harper have been developing a system for the exploitation of administrative data and estimating and profiling populations in a commercial capacity since 2000, under the name ‘Neighbourhood Knowledge Management’ (nkm), allowing better costing, planning and delivery of services.
To date over 60 projects, enabled by the methodology, have been completed for more than 20 local authorities, healthcare organisations, central government and the third sector following a wide range of commissions.
Specific examples can be found: i) on the local level in Professor Mayhew’s extensive collaboration with the London borough of Tower Hamlets; ii) in the charity sector and his work for Buttle UK; iii) at the national level via his expert testimony in Parliament and continued involvement inthe development and planning of the Census for the future. Mayhew, via nkm, was invited to lead the “Whole Systems Data Project” (WSDP) for the London borough of Tower Hamlets. The project targets health inequalities within Tower Hamlets and is the first of its kind to be launched in the field.
Around 20 local authorities have commissioned Professor Mayhew to conduct similar reporting of housing, ASB and private licencing schemes, including Enfield Council. Brent Council based its decision (in part) to extend it Selective Licensing Scheme on Mayhew’s work, and Ealing Council relied on Mayhew’s work for its “Impact of Poor Housing on Health” report as part of the Scrutiny Review Panel work which resulted in a slew of recommendations and a long-term drive for affordable housing in the borough.
Locations
Tower Hamlets; Brent; Ealing; Enfield
Partners
Local authorities; healthcare organisations; central government; third sector
More information about Neighbourhood Knowledge Management – REF2021
Category: Business and Industry, NHS / Health
Preventing Railway Suicide
Middlesex University London
Research conducted at Middlesex contributed to a decrease in suicides on the London Underground Network (LU) through practice changes, staff training and an award-winning public awareness campaign which “successfully changed people’s behaviour, increasing their intent to take action, as well as increasing their understanding of how to recognise that someone needs help”.
Impacts in other countries (e.g., Germany, the Netherlands) and contexts (including other public places and Criminal Justice settings) followed. Universities UK recognised Dr Marzano as a “Nation’s Lifesaver” for “saving lives and making a life-changing difference to our health and wellbeing”. She also received a “Lifesaver Award” from Transport for London (TfL).
Locations
Across the London Underground Network
Partners
TfL
More information about Preventing Railway Suicide
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Supporting Dementia Care Toolkit
Imperial College London
Imperial’s Helix Centre and the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) undertook a London-wide project to co-design and pilot new ways to test digital methods to provide better support for people living with dementia.
During the COVID-19 pandemic people living with dementia and their carers were vulnerable to the challenges of isolation and digital exclusion. The Helix Centre and LOTI saw this as an opportunity to take stock of new digital skills and techniques developed for community dementia support and created a “Digital Befriending Kit”.
The kit is intended to reduce isolation and boost digital inclusion for those living with dementia during the pandemic and beyond. The kit consists of an iPad, QR code reader app, iPad stand and Zoom Tickets, all designed to help people easily log into Zoom and be part of online community groups. In pilot studies, groups of people living with dementia and their carers have used the kit to take part in a wide range of activities such as poetry, bingo, singing and drawing.
Throughout the project, the Helix Centre and LOTI used a process of co-design where people living with dementia were integral in crafting the final outcome. The kits have been used across a range of London Boroughs, including Hammersmith and Fulham, Westminster, Lewisham and Newham.
Locations
Hammersmith and Fulham, City of Westminster, Lewisham and Newham
Partners
London Office of Technology and Innovation
More information about Supporting Dementia Care Toolkit
Category: NHS / Health
Multi-functional role of urban blue green infrastructure – REF2021
Middlesex University London
REF Impact Summary: Blue green infrastructure (BGI), the integration of green spaces and water management, is seen as essential to solving urban and climate challenges. Our research has directly contributed to the recognition of sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) as core components of BGI and providers of multiple ecosystem services within urban areas.
This work has delivered impacts on:
National legislation and guidelines – research directly informed Best Practice Guidelines to tackle urban flooding, used by all Local Authorities in England.
Policy development – based on research on diffuse pollution mitigation, use of road pollutant hot spot screening tool is considered best practice in London. Researchers’ work on urban stormwater is fully embedded within the ISO Guidelines for Stormwater Management in Urban Areas (2020).
Environment, society, quality of life and the economy – this data has evidenced the contribution of SuDS/BGI to sustainable urban development from social, technical and environmental perspectives.”
Locations
Pan-London
Partners
Local authorities (for implementation)
More information about Multi-functional role of urban blue green infrastructure – REF2021
Category: Sustainability
The Newham Plays- REF2021
Middlesex University London
REF Impact Summary: Created, produced and written by James Kenworth, and directed by James Martin Charlton, both long-term residents of Newham, the Newham Plays are a series of localist-focussed plays rooted in Newham’s history, culture and people. Performed in site-sympathetic locations in Newham, East London, they feature a ‘mixed economy’ casting of young people and professional actors. The series has originated a Pro-Localist approach to cultural engagement, in which the plays are partnered and supported by a nexus of local funders, partners and stakeholders. Key impact from this work includes:
Impact on the young people of Newham: it has given about 250 young people from diverse backgrounds the opportunity to engage in the arts and culture; playing a role in addressing historically low levels of cultural engagement in the borough. Participation in the plays and associated activities has developed the skills of the young people involved, built confidence and boosted self-belief.
Impact on the community in Newham: benefiting local organisations, raising awareness of Newham’s sites/ venues and the heritage of the borough, and enhancing cultural provision.”
Locations
London Borough of Newham
Partners
Plays submitted were partnered and supported by: The Royal Docks Trust, Community Links, and Ambition, Aspire, Achieve. The plays were delivered in collaboration with Gallions Primary School, Kingsford Community School, and Royal Docks Academy.
More information about The Newham Plays- REF2021
Category: Creative
Alevi integration in North London – REF2021
University of West London
REF Impact Summary: Dr Umit Cetin and Dr Celia Jenkins have engaged with the Alevi community in Enfield, North London. Working with the British Alevi Federation, the Prince of Wales Primary School and Alevi children and parents, the researchers devised RE lessons around Alevism in order to help the community to better integrate and gain self knowledge around their identity and religion. This intervention was based on their research which found high rates of suicide among young Alevi men due to confusion around their identity. It has produced excellent demonstrable impact in elevating the children’s and parents’ sense of self-worth and place in the wider community.
Locations
Enfield
Partners
British Alevi Federation, the Prince of Wales Primary School, Alevi children and parents
More information about Alevi integration in North London – REF2021
Category: Communities
Bringing women into construction at Thames Tideway and CFHP (Holloway) – REF2021
University of Westminster
REF Impact Summary: Professor Linda Clarke and her research team at ProBE (Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment) have provided consultancy work on inclusivity at Thames Tideway Tunnel, which resulted in several initiatives aimed at encouraging women to join the construction sector. These include a mentoring system, flexible hours, and the first Women Returners programme outside of the banking sector. Clarke has also been aiding the Community Plan For Holloway group who are lobbying for the former women’s prison site at Holloway to be rebuilt with social housing and a women’s centre. Clarke has written proposals on their behalf that have been adopted by the local council that will ensure sustainable new builds and the engagement of women in their construction.
Locations
Thames Tideway Tunnel site
Partners
Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment; Community Plan for Holloway group
Category: Business and Industry
The legacy of mega-events: affordable housing on London 2012’s Olympic Park – REF2021
University of West London
REF Impact Summary: Dr Penny Bernstock’s research has made a highly influential contribution to holding public agencies to account for providing affordable housing on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which was an important component of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy. When London won the bid for the 2012 Games, it was claimed that the hosting of a mega-event would be used to create an inclusive legacy. Campaigners and local authorities in east London have drawn on Bernstock’s policy-focused longitudinal research, and her expertise, to underpin their strategy and campaign for change. Her findings have been used in objections to a major planning application and responses to public consultations on expanding genuinely affordable housing opportunities. The research has also informed Citizens UK campaigning on the legacy from the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
Locations
Newham
Partners
Citizens UK (Planning for 2022 Commonwealth Games).
Category: Communities
Informing the climate strategy of City of London – REF2021
University of Westminster
REF Impact Summary: The research of Professor Maja Piecyk, Julian Allen and Marzena Piotrowska into freight transport has pioneered “portering” as a strategy to reduce carbon emissions created by last-mile deliveries in the era of e-commerce. Their research, pilot project for the TfL, and policy submissions focussed on this portering solution has had a significant influence in London. This includes recommendations for portering in the Mayor of London’s Freight and Servicing Action Plan (2019), and a strong commitment by the City of London Corporation to expanding portering in its Freight and Servicing Supplementary Planning Document (2018), its Transport Strategy (2019) and City Plan 2036 (2020). The adoption of portering for last-mile delivery is helping the City of London in its goal of meeting World Health Organization (WHO) air quality guidelines in 90% of the Square Mile by 2025.
Locations
City of London
Partners
TfL; City of London Corporation (strategy implementation)
More information about Informing the climate strategy of City of London – REF2021
Category: Business and Industry, Sustainability
Recognising the legacy of London French communities – REF2021
University of Westminster
REF Impact Summary: Dr Saskia Huc-Hepher has created the first community archive of websites created by the diasporic French community. This archive records the cultural contribution of the London French by snapshotting an array of websites from food blogs to upholstery service websites.Recording this legacy is especially important given the transient nature of migrant communities within the city. She has also presented her research to the French Consulate in London and helped them to enhance their digital communications with the French in London. Huc-Hepher’s work has also inspired other researchers to create community archives for other communities in London.
Locations
Pan-London
More information about Recognising the legacy of London French communities – REF2021
Category: Communities, Creative
Cultural Evaluation Training at QMUL
Queen Mary University of London
A training and research programme with East London arts and culture networks around evaluation methodologies involving Arts and Culture and the People’s Palace Project. This training programme supports individuals and organisations working in the arts and cultural sectors to make the case for the value of their work to funders, audiences and communities. Workshops delivered to participants primarily from East London are Artsadmin, Bow Arts, Donmar Warehouse, English National Ballet, Mile End Community Project, Spitalfields Music, and Whitechapel Gallery. Together with the organisations participating in the pilot, the project will establish a data bank for the East London cultural ecology, where shared findings and data generated by the project can help to make a collective case to funders and policymakers.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
Partners
Artsadmin, Bow Arts, Donmar Warehouse, English National Ballet, Mile End Community Project, Spitalfields Music, and Whitechapel Gallery.
More information about Cultural Evaluation Training at QMUL
Category: Communities, Creative
Cost of Living crisis support for students
University of Greenwich
In recognition of the impact that the cost-of-living crisis is and will continue to have on students, the University has developed a package of support for students. As well as having a number of established bursaries, such as the Care Leaver Bursary and the EU Bursary, open to new students from Europe, the university doubled the hardship fund for students who encounter sudden financial difficulties.
Working with GSU, the university initially launched Open Pantries on all three of its campuses to make sure students can get free food essentials, such as rice, pasta and beans, as well as toiletries and cleaning and sanitary products. These Open Pantries have now been changed into a voucher scheme, making it more flexible for students to use and allowing the university to track impact better.
In addition, the University has implemented the following:
• The University is funding and distributing free sanitary products in term 2 and term 3 for all campuses.
• Libraries have gone ‘fine free’ from 3 February and have stopped charging fines for overdue books.
• The Greenwich Hardship Fund has been made accessible to postgraduate research students.
• There is fresh produce available for free at the Avery Hill campus edible garden. The university is also offering free community breakfast and dinner several times a week.
• The catering team are also making leftover food available for free on Wednesdays and Fridays 30 minutes before closing.
• The University will launch a pilot scheme from 20th February for term 2 to allow students to apply for free Medway bus tickets (books of 10). This will run in the same way as the emergency food vouchers and is intended to support students experiencing hardship due to the cost of living.
Greenwich Students’ Union’s advice team offers help with money and has a cost-of-living plan on their website, where there are also tips on saving – such as charging devices on campus rather than at home – and help with budgeting. There is also debt advice available in conjunction with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau. Our alumni team have also done some fundraising to support with this.
More information about Cost of Living crisis support for students
Category: Communities
Not My Beautiful House
Kingston University London
This collaborative mould-breaking pop-up shop moved to the Ancient Market House, a listed building in the centre of Kingston in May 2022. The project was set up in 2021 with Mayor of London Funding, a crowdfunder and investment from Royal Borough of Kingston, as well as investment from Union of Kingston Students and Kingston University. Since moving to this venue, the scale and success of the initiative has grown exponentially. All the display furniture and units were manufactured and made by students and the exhibition stands made by alumni, all designed to be packed away and moved to our next location, with everything on wheels or able to be packed into a van. Students and graduates make up about 50% of our vendors, with the remainder coming from the local community. Stock ranges from vintage clothing to ceramics to prints and jewellery, many unique to the store. This gives a platform and space for those who do not have access to retail space.
With the cost of living crisis this is a key selling point, enabling those to make a living and experiment with selling different products. Over the summer of 2022, the number of sellers has doubled, footfall has increased by 200%, and sales have followed. So far, ‘Not My Beautiful House’ has hosted more than 250+ sellers, 100 events, 50 exhibitions, and 30workshops for both children and adults. In addition to the 40 students who were involved in the project’s initial conception, more than 250 artists have come onboard. The space is open to the general public on a daily basis, with free activities for all and opportunities for local artists to sell and exhibit their work.
A monthly Kingston Makers Market has also been developed, which lends a stall to anyone to come and sell their work, offering a test bed for new sellers. Staff offer pricing and marketing advice for anyone to sell their products, turning the standard retail model on its head. This has led to many other pop-ups in other locations across the borough and the team is now working on activities in New Malden. Workshops are often sold out and they hold super popular Manga Drawing and Pole Dance Life Drawing Classes as well as Open Mic nights, bands, yoga and poetry & music nights. The project has been featured on many websites as an exemplar of a pop-up shop and regenerating a vacant space, laterally within a historic building. It is now into its second year as a pop up – not bad for what was supposed to be a four month project! More information and pictures:
https://www.notmybeautifulhouse.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/notmybeautifulhousekingston/
Locations
Not My Beautiful House opened in its first location in May 2021, moving to its second location in May 2022, both in the Royal Borough of Kingston.
Partners
Union of Kingston Students, Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, Kingston First
More information about Not My Beautiful House
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Centre for Studies of Home
Queen Mary University of London
The Centre for Studies of Home (CSH) is a partnership between Queen Mary University of London and the Museum of the Home in Hackney. CSH exists to deepen and diversify understandings of home for academic and public audiences and brings together academics from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen Mary and curatorial, learning and engagement colleagues at the Museum. Research at CSH (funded by AHRC, ESRC and The Leverhulme Trust) focuses on home in the past, present and future, including projects on home and COVID-19, work, religion, disability, and high-rise living. Alongside creative outputs including exhibitions, films and podcasts, CSH research features in the Home Gallery at the Museum.
Locations
London Boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets
Partners
Museum of the Home
More information about Centre for Studies of Home
Category: Communities, Creative
QMUL Students’ Union Community Foundation
Queen Mary University of London
QMUL Students’ Union Community Foundation is a Sport Leadership & Workforce Development Programme which was founded in 2013 as a legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games, focusing on providing sports to young people in East London and helps to provide a platform for students to make a positive difference in the local community of Tower Hamlets, gain experience and increase employability.
The Foundation has developed over 500 sports leaders, provided almost 10,000 hours of sports outreach, and engaged 50,000 participants. QMUL students can engage in several ways by facilitating physical activity with East London schools and sports clubs, tackling issues through the Social Cohesion Sports Programme and supporting Sports Camps during school holidays. In addition, in 2019 QMUL launched its Young Leaders Academy to develop a workforce of future leaders from local schools and colleges whilst bridging the gap between further and higher and higher education, and all engaged students can benefit through Community Foundation’s Leadership Academy with rewards such as certificates, clothing and funded sport qualifications.
The programme has been recognised with various nominations for regional and national awards, and in March 2023 the Community Foundation won the Enhancing the Workforce Award in association with Chipotle at the London Sport Awards. The initiative is delivered through the Students’ Union, who oversee all the different pathways to sport, physical and well-being activities. QMUL works in partnership with the Students’ Union across a number of values driven and well-being programmes and projects.
Locations
Across Tower Hamlets
Partners
Local schools and housing projects
More information about QMUL Students’ Union Community Foundation
Category: Communities
DFN Project SEARCH
Queen Mary University of London
Project SEARCH aims to enable young adults with learning difficulties and autism to earn valuable work experience. Since the start of Project SEARCH in 2019 at QMUL Students’ Union, 27 interns have been hosted including 7 from this year in the programme. The interns have worked in 25 different departments, including the sports department. The interns have played a crucial part in the sports community foundation sports legacy, by assisting in the running of classes and setting up activities for the community. 80% of the interns are residents of Tower Hamlets Borough. Interns are supported by 2 full-time job coaches and receive 1 year follow on from the employment engagement coordinator.
Project SEARCH aims to empower these young adults with valuable skills and experience, enhancing their future job prospects through a fully immersive workforce placement. By the end of the programme, each intern will have experienced three different roles and developed the required skills to help gain full-time paid employment. The employment success rate is 90% since 2019 and 100% retention.
Locations
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Partners
Phoenix School/College and Kaleidoscope Sabre, DFN Project Search and Tower Hamlets Council
More information about DFN Project SEARCH
Category: Communities, Education
The Student Consultancy Project
Queen Mary University of London
The Student Consultancy Project, delivered from QMUL’s Careers and Enterprise, brings together interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate students who undertake a pro bono consultancy project with an East London business or charity. Businesses are able to tackle a business challenge while students apply their knowledge and skills to a real-life project.
The programme is designed to support Queen Mary students from under-represented backgrounds in higher education; applications from students receiving a financial aid bursary from the university are prioritised. The programme has received national and international best practice awards since launching in 2015. It most recently won the 2022 Global Careers Summit Ernst & Young Award for Best Employability Programme. Participants receive training from Queen Mary staff around commercial awareness, project planning, problem-solving, teamwork and presentation skills. As well as this, all students participate in a reflection session where they learn how to apply this experience to future applications and interviews.
The Student Consultancy Project is part of a QMUL student-led professional services firm called SKETCH (Student Knowledge Exchange Through Community Hubs). SKETCH brings together six student activity strands within Queen Mary: The Legal Advice Centre, qNomics, qLegal, The Student Consultancy Project, qTech and the QM Social Venture Fund. Each activity strand gives students the opportunity to apply their skills to a real-world context under the guidance of professionals or University staff. External clients are able to access these services free of charge, like a professional services firm.
Locations
London Borough of Tower Hamlets
More information about The Student Consultancy Project
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
QMUL Bid Writing Project with local VCS organisations
Queen Mary University of London
In November 2022, a partnership began between QMUL Student’s Union and London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Sponsored by Clarion Housing and with assistance from Tower Hamlets Council for Voluntary Service, the pilot paired postgraduate Queen Mary volunteers with local VCS organisations to help them write and submit bids for new funding – sometimes a challenging process, especially for smaller organisations with limited resources.
In return, Queen Mary student volunteers receive training and experience in bid writing, enhancing their professional writing skills and improving their CVs. Five Tower Hamlets-based VCS organisations took part in the pilot project: Shewise; Jubilee Street Practice; Vineyard Projects; Globe Community Project and Ocean Women’s Association. These organisations improve the lives of those in Tower Hamlets in many ways: through services for mental and physical health; by supporting and empowering minority ethnic women and girls; and by connecting those isolated by illness or financial barriers, to name but a few.
One volunteer said of the project: “[my time with GCP] was very useful in understanding the bid writing process. I was able to appreciate GCP’s noble cause for existence and the challenge they go through in putting together such bids.” Due to the success of the pilot, it’s hoped that this project will continue in future years, further expanding and enriching the ties between Queen Mary’s Student’s Union and the local volunteering and community sector.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
Partners
London Borough of Tower Hamlets; Tower Hamlets Council for Voluntary Service; Clarion Housing
More information about QMUL Bid Writing Project with local VCS organisations
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
NUL Summer School – Coding and Cybersecurity
Northumbria University London
Northumbria London Campus has launched a Summer School outreach programme which includes a series of Coding and Cyber Security Boot Camps for school children from underrepresented backgrounds in London.
NUL is also delivering specific workshops for girls from the BAME community. According to British Computer Society (2022), of the 17% of the tech sector in the UK is made up of women, however less than 1% (0.7) are from Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British backgrounds.
More information about NUL Summer School – Coding and Cybersecurity
Category: Communities, Education
UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic
UCL
The UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic (UCL iLAC) is run by the Centre for Access to Justice (CAJ) at the UCL Faculty of Laws.
Based in central Stratford, UCL iLAC offers members of the local East London community free face to face legal advice on all aspects of social welfare law including specialist advice and casework on welfare benefits, housing, community care and education law.
UCL iLAC is staffed by UCL Laws students working under the supervision of experienced, qualified advisers and solicitors.
Building on the Faculty’s world-leading access to justice research, the UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic also provides the basis for a wide-ranging research agenda seeking answers to fundamental questions about the nature of legal needs and the links between legal and health problems.
Locations
London Borough of Newham
Partners
Students, volunteer lawyers, members of the community, local organisations, social prescribers
More information about UCL Integrated Legal Advice Clinic
Category: Communities, Education
Be Well Hub – mental health spaces
King's College London
Since the South London Listens Assembly in October 2022, King’s Social Mobility & Widening Participation department have been working with Newlands Academy, a school in south London, to set up their Be Well Hub. This is part of a wider King’s partnership with South London Listens (SLL) and Citizens UK to help set up and support Be Well Hubs across local schools in Southwark and Lambeth. The hubs aim to destigmatise mental ill-health by offering support and providing a place where people can speak about their mental health.
Locations
Lambeth, Southwark
Partners
Newlands Academy
More information about Be Well Hub – mental health spaces
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
Circle U. Challenge
King's College London
Students from five teams, comprised of King’s students and students from Aarhus University, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and UCLouvain, pitched their innovative solutions to address the critical issue of mental health for Lambeth residents within the age range of 0-25, for the chance to win a trip to Belgrade to showcase their idea at the Circle U. Challenge National Conference.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
London Borough of Lambeth and South London and Maudsley Hospital (SLaM)
More information about Circle U. Challenge
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Climate Action Plan
King's College London
Lambeth Council’s cabinet approved its Climate Action Plan to enable the borough to become carbon net-zero compatible and climate-resilient by 2030. The plan aims to make Lambeth a cleaner and healthier place to live, work and visit. Collaboration was at the heart of Lambeth’s approach, as the plan was developed in partnership with residents, businesses, community groups, and large organisations – including King’s. King’s was also represented on Lambeth’s Expert Advisory Board. The role of the Board has been to advise on the design of the process for the citizens’ assembly, approve the selection of experts to advise the assembly, and ensure the material presented to the assembly is balanced. Dr Rob Cowley contributed his expertise in how transformative solutions at local levels can support our cities to adapt to climate change.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Council
More information about Climate Action Plan
Category: Sustainability
King’s – The BELONG study
King's College London
To empower hairdressers and beauty salon therapists to promote breast cancer awareness and risks of heart disease among women from minority ethnic backgrounds. The team from King’s includes clinicians, GPs, social scientists, nutritionists, social epidemiologists and statisticians. In the 12-month pilot, hairdressers and beauty salon therapists will chat with their customers and staff about the importance of the checks and signpost the app to remind women who are eligible to book free NHS Health Checks. Salons across London, including Brixton and Streatham, have signed up to take part. They will participate in discussions around the app design and propose tailored content aimed at the community.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Local beauty salons
More information about King’s – The BELONG study
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
King’s – urban science partnership
King's College London
An innovative new partnership between Westminster City Council and King’s Centre for Urban Science and Progress London will see urban science and data insights used to address and help solve some of the myriad challenges facing London. The recommendations developed by King’s students were presented back to Westminster City Council to help inform their future approach and potentially transform the day-to-day services offered to local businesses and residents. The Council is also supporting King’s MSc Urban Informatics students by providing them with dissertation topics that address real-world issues, helping them to develop the skills and networks that will support them in their future careers.
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
Westminster City Council
More information about King’s – urban science partnership
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
King’s and Lambeth Citizens – Building Better Futures
King's College London
King’s College London, in partnership with Lambeth Citizens has launched a new report with key recommendations for Lambeth Council to help support social mobility for young people within the borough.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Citizens
More information about King’s and Lambeth Citizens – Building Better Futures
Category: Communities
King’s and Westminster City Council agreement identifies mutual priorities
King's College London
King’s College London and Westminster City Council have signed a Statement of Intent demonstrating their commitment to working in partnership to serve, support and sustain local communities in ways that contribute to students’ learning and generate research insights of value to London.
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
Westminster City Council
More information about King’s and Westminster City Council agreement identifies mutual priorities
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, NHS / Health, Sustainability
King’s biophysics session for south London brownie unit
King's College London
King’s researchers from the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences visited a Girlguiding Brownie Unit in south London earlier this year to run a session on DNA, based on the work of Rosalind Franklin, a renowned biophysicist and alumna of King’s. Choosing ‘Women in Science’ as the theme for the event, the group explained to the 7-10 year-olds that Rosalind Franklin helped discover the structure of DNA and that this was only made possible by the X-ray diffraction work that she did at King’s – a discovery that went largely uncredited during her lifetime.
Locations
South London
Partners
Girlguiding Brownie Unit
More information about King’s biophysics session for south London brownie unit
Category: Communities, Education
King’s Biotech and medtech incubator partnership
King's College London
In a first-of-its-kind partnership in the UK, King’s has teamed up with Pioneer Group, the specialist life sciences real estate and venture building company, to develop 95,000 square feet of incubator facilities. The state-of-the-art spaces will be split across two sites and will cater for university enterprises and early-stage companies in the fields of biotech and medtech, helping them to produce new products and technologies that will help improve patient treatment and care. The partnership will revitalise two sites on the South Bank of London, which are currently empty, to provide wet and dry laboratories, office and co-working space as well as access to critical equipment. The spaces will be configured to support high tech spin-outs from an early stage.
Locations
Southbank
Partners
Pioneer Group
More information about King’s Biotech and medtech incubator partnership
Category: Business and Industry
King’s College London – statement of intent with Lambeth Council
King's College London
King’s College London and Lambeth Council signed a Statement of Intent outlining an ongoing commitment to working together to support and strengthen local communities. A shared commitment to tackling social mobility is a central focus, with King’s and Lambeth Council promising to work together to promote equality of aspiration and opportunity for all.
Developing and extending collaborations already in place, the document states that King’s and Lambeth Council will work together to:
- Build strong relationships between the King’s community with Lambeth’s Council, communities and businesses.
- Identify mutual priorities and co-create solutions to shared problems and challenges
- Draw upon King’s research in combination with the lived experience and local expertise of communities in Lambeth to contribute to evidence-based local policy making
- Create opportunities for the King’s community to collaborate with communities in Lambeth to learn from each other and to contribute to the co-development of strong neighbourhoods and thriving communities
- Promote equality of aspiration and opportunity for all working together to improve social mobility
- Contribute to the local community and economy by supporting local business and enterprise
- Share data, practice and research arising from closer collaboration with local communities
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Council
More information about King’s College London – statement of intent with Lambeth Council
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
King’s College London – statement of intent with Southwark Council
King's College London
The agreement outlines how King’s and Southwark Council will work together to serve, support and sustain local communities in ways that contribute to students’ learning and generate research insights of value to London. The joint ambitions set out in the Statement of Intent include ensuring King’s research supports evidence-based policy-making in Southwark, and enabling King’s students, staff and alumni to work with local communities and residents to take positive action to tackle racism, injustice and inequality across the borough. It also outlines how King’s and Southwark will work together and with partners across the borough, through Southwark’s Anchor Network, for the benefit of shared communities.
Locations
Southwark
Partners
Southwark Council
More information about King’s College London – statement of intent with Southwark Council
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
King’s College London – Windrush Justice Clinic
King's College London
Students from King’s Legal Clinic are working with Southwark Law Centre to provide support for those claiming under the Windrush Compensation Scheme. The Windrush Compensation Scheme (WCS) was launched in April 2019, following public outcry at the UK Government’s treatment of the Windrush generation. The WCS provides compensation for those who suffered loss because they could not show they had the right to live in the UK. Many potential claimants are believed to be reluctant to apply to the WCS due to fear and distrust in the system more generally. Another feature of the scheme has been that the initial offers of compensation have been low. A right of review is available and the Clinic will support claimants through this process, to ensure adequate compensation is received.
Locations
Peckham
Partners
Southwark Law Centre
More information about King’s College London – Windrush Justice Clinic
Category: Communities
King’s Legal Clinic
King's College London
King’s law students provide free legal advice to staff, students and local communities. Access to legal aid has been reduced due to changes in law and funding cuts to legal centres and services. King’s law students are improving access by offering free legal advice to local communities through King’s Legal Clinic. Clients contact King’s Legal Clinic to obtain legal advice on a diverse range of issues, including housing, immigration, family or employment. Under the supervision of qualified lawyers, KCL law students interview clients, analyse and research their legal issues. They then draft an advice letter outlining actions they may take to resolve their problem.
Locations
London-wide; run out of King's Legal Clinic.
More information about King’s Legal Clinic
Category: Communities
King’s Policy Institute cost of living project
King's College London
In October 2022, King’s Policy Institute set out to explore the impact of the cost-of-living crisis through the eyes of a small group of residents living in Lambeth, Southwark and Westminster. These “peer researchers” took an active role in shaping and analysing research, capturing their everyday experiences of coping with sharply rising costs. By working closely with community members, King’s aimed to promote an inclusive approach to policy design by prioritising what matters, and what works best, for those most affected.
Locations
City of Westminster, Lambeth and Southwark Boroughs
Partners
Peer researchers
More information about King’s Policy Institute cost of living project
Category: Communities
King’s Sport Supporting Talented Athletes Across London
King's College London
King’s Sport Supporting Talented Athletes Across London through TASS Potential Project. The Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS) is a Sport England funded partnership between talented athletes, delivery sites and national governing bodies of sport.
Locations
London-wide
Partners
The Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS); four colleges across London: Esher College, CoNEL, Haringey Sixth Form, and Barnet and Southgate College.
More information about King’s Sport Supporting Talented Athletes Across London
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
Lambeth HDRC (Health Determinants Research Collaboration)
King's College London
Funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to the tune of almost £5 million, the Collaboration is to be known as Lambeth HEART. It will involve Lambeth Council working with researchers at the NIHR Policy Research Unit in Health and Social Care Workforce at King’s, local communities, and Black Thrive Global, to further the use of research and evidence to improve the health of local people. Lambeth HEART’s vision is to understand and act on the causes of health inequalities in Lambeth with the aim of developing an open and participative research collaboration which generates new knowledge, and identifies and applies existing research evidence to tackle the causes of inequalities to improve health and wellbeing outcomes.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Council, local communities, Black Thrive Global
More information about Lambeth HDRC (Health Determinants Research Collaboration)
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Pedestrianisation in Strand Aldwych
King's College London
The £22m, three-year redevelopment led by Westminster City Council, has created a green and tranquil space measuring more than 7,000m2 – the size of a football pitch – for King’s students, staff and the community to enjoy. The pedestrianised space unifies the area between Bush House, Somerset House and the Strand Building for the first time, improving safety for students and staff moving between different areas. This completion of the physical redevelopment of Strand Aldwych marks the establishment of a new ‘creative thinking quarter’. The space will benefit from the long-established cultural and learning stature of the area, with collective innovation and experimentation by King’s and other partners leading to a co-created programme of educational and creative commissions on display throughout the year.
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
Westminster City Council
More information about Pedestrianisation in Strand Aldwych
Category: Communities
Perspectives on Religion and Spirituality in coping with Mental health (PRiSM) project
King's College London
This project aims to understand the role of religion and spirituality in handling hardship and their relationship to mental health among members of Black Majority Churches (BMCs) in South-East London. The study involved community members of Black Majority Churches in Southeast London as co-researchers and included interviews with 18 people from two local churches, as well as an analysis of survey data from the South-East London Community Health study (SELCoH).
Locations
South London
Partners
Community members of Black Majority Churches in Southeast London
Category: Communities
Strand-Aldwych data springboard
King's College London
A team of King’s Informatics researchers launched a new project with Westminster City Council, the local government entity responsible for the Strand-Aldwych redevelopment. The team is creating a pilot for the Strand-Aldwych data springboard, an innovative data sharing initiative that will deliver innovative solutions with local data that benefit those who are part of or affected by this data, while also educating all these stakeholders about the benefits of data sharing. The project was conceived through their shared work as part of the Smart Working Group, where we explore opportunities to innovate with data during and beyond the completion of the redevelopment, and its combination with the Informatics researchers expertise in data innovation and AI, through projects such as Data Pitch, Data Stories, MediaFutures, and EUHubs4Data. The team is working with both public and private stakeholders of the redevelopment, as well as the general public, to explore the challenges and opportunities the springboard could address. The team runs a series of workshops to discuss how the different local stakeholders could benefit from data sharing, what challenges we should focus on, how it should approach questions of data ethics, and what legal framework would be most suitable to achieve these goals.
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
Westminster City Council
More information about Strand-Aldwych data springboard
Category: Business and Industry
Student advice to Sutton Council on promoting healthy lifestyles
King's College London
In July, five second-year King’s Global Health & Social Medicine students completed an exclusive one-week summer placement with the Public Health Team of Sutton Council in London. The students conducted an audit and interviews with staff members to assess the current state of diet and physical activity within Sutton Council, and presented their findings on how the Council can promote healthy eating and physical activity in the workplace. The students collected data using ‘Fingertips’, a public health data collation tool used by local authorities. They also participated in informative sessions and networking opportunities organised by the Public Health Team. Impressed by the students’ performance, the Public Health Team is keen to turn the summer placement into an annual opportunity.
Locations
Sutton
Partners
Sutton Council
More information about Student advice to Sutton Council on promoting healthy lifestyles
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Student evaluation of health programmes for Lambeth Council
King's College London
King’s students work with London council to evaluate health programmes. Undergraduate students in the Department of Global Health & Social Medicine worked with Lambeth Council in South London to evaluate their flagship programmes aimed at providing neighbourhood-level health services to local communities. The students worked with the council’s Public Health Team to develop evaluation plans to assess how well the initiatives had performed against their objectives and how the programmes could be improved going forward.
Locations
Lambeth
Partners
Lambeth Council
More information about Student evaluation of health programmes for Lambeth Council
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
Understanding the needs of young people in Westminster
King's College London
Students from the MSc Public Policy & Management programme at King’s Business School have partnered again with Young Westminster Foundation to co-design a project to assess the needs of young people aged 13 to 25 in King’s local communities. Young Westminster Foundation is a cross sector partnership connecting youth charities, young people, businesses, Westminster City Council, and other partners, including universities like King’s. YWF first became involved with King’s through our commitment to working with organisations in our home boroughs of Southwark, Lambeth and Westminster to create opportunities for collaboration and mutual benefit.
Locations
Westminster
Partners
Young Westminster Foundation
More information about Understanding the needs of young people in Westminster
Category: Communities
Work/Place: London returning project
King's College London
The Work/Place: London returning project, led jointly by the Policy Institute at King’s and the King’s Business School, brings together London-based employers and policy stakeholders to understand how Covid has altered the way Londoners now work and what the future of employment in the city will look like.
Through a co-productive approach using quantitative and qualitative research methods, the project will identify lessons not just for London, but for other international cities and the rest of the UK too.
Locations
London-wide
Partners
London-based employers and policy stakeholders
More information about Work/Place: London returning project
Category: Business and Industry
Brazilian Film History and Intermediality: Inspiring Audiences, Artists and Cultural Institutions to reconnect the arts, media and film – REF2021
University of Reading
In the early 1990s, the Brazilian film production industry had effectively shut down. Just a few years later it had recovered to become the burgeoning industry it is today. Lucia Nagib’s Intermedial History of Brazilian Cinema (Intermldia Project) rediscovers and retells the story of the many political struggles and artistic conquests of this national industry. Using a pioneering, inclusive and democratic ‘intermedial’ approach – the combination of multiple arts and media with film – Nagib’s project has influenced the programming of international cultural institutions and individual creative practices. Rediscovering the past and present of Brazilian cinema has prompted leading practitioners to engage with intermediality as a window to a country’s social reality, inspiring new understanding of how cinema relates to other art forms and helping bridge the divide between the film industry and academia.
Locations
Tate Modern
Partners
Federal University of São Carlos (Universidade Federal de São Carlos)
Category: Creative
Combined Motor and Language Therapy (MaLT) system for stroke and brain injury rehabilitation – REF2021
University of Reading
A combined Motor and Language Therapy (MaLT) system is providing opportunities for stroke and brain injury patients to self-manage and augment their rehabilitation through game play. The novel platform was developed through a partnership between biomedical engineers and clinical language scientists at the University of Reading, in collaboration with NHS physiotherapists, speech and language therapists (SLTs) and patients. In 2016, the research team started a collaboration with medical device manufacturer Evolv to incorporate MaLT into the company’s CEmarked commercial rehabilitation product, Evolvrehab, which has been used in over 300 hospitals, clinics and care homes in 20 countries around the world. The research team have co-developed two dual-therapy games (each with three therapy modes) with the company to date, building on Evolvrehab’s existing suite of physical therapy modules. In December 2020, the company formally incorporated software for the new games into the Evolvrehab platform and these have been made available, via early release, to patients and therapists at St George’s Hospital London and through Hobbs, which provides rehabilitation to clients across the South East of England.
Locations
St George's Hospital
Partners
Royal Berkshire Hospital, Headway (brain injury association), Evolv (spin off from Virtualware)
Category: Business and Industry, Creative, NHS / Health
Excavating Youth Culture in Norwich: co-creating a history of Punk from within – REF2021
University of Reading
The 40th anniversary of the birth of punk in the UK was celebrated in 2016 with a year-long series of events in London which many in the punk community felt did not represent their past in a culturally appropriate way. The representation of subcultures has long been problematic, as by their very nature they tend to avoid engaging with the establishment (academia) or commerce. Worley’s grassroots approach to research offered an alternative narrative in the build-up to the 40th anniversary by overcoming the barrier between the punk subculture and the establishment. Worley’s research has helped people to reimagine and thus have a richer understanding of British punk-related cultures and British youth culture more generally. His participatory approach to social history has had a profound effect on this traditionally hard to reach community. He has influenced participants’ behaviour and that of stakeholders in the cultural, archival and commercial sectors; contributed to entrepreneurial activity; and stimulated local tourism by generating events and exhibitions. Most importantly, he has helped to preserve, conserve and present a cultural legacy that has generated new forms of historical practice and creative expression.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Subcultures Network, Norwich Museum
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Ground-breaking, demonstrable system for fast, frictionless and secure traveller identification at borders – REF2021
University of Reading
Border security is a most complex combination of security, political, economical, and technical problems, and when resolved, can reduce the barriers to faster and safer travel. Research at Reading has directly responded to the technical challenge of harmonized, secure and rapid crossing of borders by travellers through the development, deployment and evaluation of ground-breaking processes and technologies for traveller identification and monitoring in two EU-funded projects: FastPass, and its follow-on, PROTECT. The resulting transformative traveller identification system is secure, fast, efficient, user-centric and deployable at all border crossings. A combination of proof of concept research and engagement with the whole industry and related policy sphere has shifted positions on border security. The Reading system has contributed to the implementation of the 2025 UK Border Strategy. Research at Reading has also been positively validated by border authorities in four EU Member States: Austria, Greece, Poland and Romania. The University of Reading’s main industry partner has benefitted through creation of a new business unit, new products and competitively won follow-on research. Reading’s work has directly informed policy makers and legislators; and new international standards have subsequently been developed in biometrics and next-generation digital travel credentials.
Locations
London St. Pancras International - Eurostar
Partners
UK Home Office: Border Force
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Improving access to evidence-based treatments for children with anxiety disorders – REF2021
University of Reading
Guided parent-led cognitive behaviour therapy (GPD-CBT) is an evidenced-based, brief (<5.5
hours) treatment for childhood anxiety disorders which was developed by Professor Cathy
Creswell and colleagues at the University of Reading. Additional studies by the team have
demonstrated that non-specialist therapists can effectively deliver GPD-CBT. As a result, the
national curricula have adopted the intervention, underpinning the NHS-funded training of
thousands of mental health therapists working in schools and clinics across England. The
therapy has improved access to psychological treatment: more children with anxiety disorders
can be treated, and they can be treated faster, with evidence indicating that the majority (74%)
recover following therapy, based on clinical cut-off scores.
Locations
Tower Hamlets NHS Trust
Partners
NHS England (including 5 NHS Trusts who have applied this approach), NHS Education Scotland, Anxiety UK; NHS colleagues/co-author.
Category: Education, NHS / Health
Improving Board Outcomes by Enhancing the Strategic Capability of the Company Secretary – REF2021
University of Reading
Very often, businesses fail when a known problem is not recognised and properly addressed by the Board. Meanwhile, board judgements in unclear/unknown situations are dependent on the quality and rigour of more intense board interactions. In this regard, the role of the Company Secretary is important. It carries with it an element of strategic stewardship, enabling the post-holder to shape board outcomes positively, and therefore enhance organisational performance. Recognising the importance of the Company Secretary to organisational survival, research at the University of Reading (Henley Business School) has underpinned the new core competency framework and training programme adopted by the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA). It has done this by analysing the role and skillsets for effective company secretaries. The competency framework was implemented by ICSA in 2018 across its global network of 36,000 members, who represent a range of sectors, from major multinationals to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The framework has enabled company secretaries to fulfil their role as governance professionals with the capacity to underpin more resilient and sustained achievement of board outcomes.
Locations
The Chartered Governance Institute (formerly the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators)
Partners
Chartered Governance Institute, Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators (ICSA)
Category: Business and Industry
Improving Community Benefit by Driving Policy and Practice in the Financial Viability Assessment of Property Developments – REF2021
University of Reading
Developer contributions within housing planning consents have fallen consistently during the REF period. Such contributions are intended to benefit the local community, and include affordable housing. In contrast, housebuilder profits have increased significantly within a system that allows for economic viability testing of developments. Research at the University of Reading has identified deep flaws in development appraisal methodology in general and its application to viability assessments within the English planning system in particular. It has also identified flaws in Central Government guidance, primarily the Viability Planning Practice Guidance (PPG) of 2014. The research identified the mechanisms through which developers gamed the system. These findings have been instrumental in major changes to national and local government housing and planning policy and guidance. The research has also underpinned the development of enhanced global and UK practitioner practice through major industry Guidance Notes. These changes are designed to safeguard community benefit through developer contributions and improve applications of development appraisal technique globally.
Locations
Parkhurst Road
Partners
ESRC, Investment Property Forum, Islington Council, 13 London boroughs, RICS Research Trust
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Novel model improves Met Office urban weather forecasting and informs strategic planning for urban heatwaves and climate projections – REF2021
University of Reading
Forecasting temperatures in urban areas is extremely challenging owing to the complexity of urban surfaces, and yet it benefits a range of users, including the road, rail and aviation sectors. In collaboration with the UK Met Office (MO), researchers at Reading produced a model of how buildings exchange heat with the atmosphere in a representative “street canyon,” validated using a novel wind tunnel technique. Further development and testing against unique unit field data produced the MO-Reading Urban Surface Exchange Scheme or MORUSES. MORUSES was implemented in the UK operational forecast model (UKV) in 2016 which led directly to improved temperature forecasts, critical for public health through early warning forecasts of heatwaves in urban areas. Its inclusion in the world-leading UKCP18 Local (2.2 km) climate projections is improving the capability of city authorities such as Bristol and London to plan for future climate adaptation. One of the MO’s strategic goals is to provide urban forecasts approaching 100 m resolution by 2030: MORUSES is at the heart of its aim to provide high quality predictions of urban weather and climate.
Locations
Greater London Authority (GLA)
Partners
Met Office, Heathrow Airport
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
Promoting child cognitive and socio-emotional development in conditions of adversity – REF2021
University of Reading
Research conducted by University of Reading academics has provided some of the first evidence from a low- and middle-income country (LMIC) setting of the considerable benefit that simple, early interventions such as supporting mothers postpartum or dialogic book sharing (DBS) can have on parenting and child development. Randomised controlled trials conducted by Professors Peter Cooper and Lynne Murray with deprived communities in South Africa are cited in key policy documents by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as evidence that improved caregiver-child interactions strongly benefit early childhood development (ECD) and can have long-lasting effects. Two age-specific interventions developed by Cooper and Murray have been adopted by the WHO into their Parenting for Lifelong Health initiative. Furthermore, the Mikhulu Trust (a UK charity Cooper and Murray established in 2014) and an affiliated organisation in South Africa have together provided training in parent-directed DBS to more than 30 organisations globally that support families in poor communities. They have also supported 11 international academic groups to trial or adapt their DBS programmes for specific local or developmental contexts.
Locations
Local community groups in Camberwell
Partners
WHO; Mikhulu Trust UK; Mikhulu Trust SA; Lyn Gilbert, South African childrens book illustrator; Western Cape Department of Health; Unnamed community groups in Camberwell, Tyneside and Leeds
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
purpleSTARS: Changing the lives of adults with learning disabilities using sensory art and technology in museums and at heritage sites – REF2021
University of Reading
Museums and heritage sites can be inaccessible for adults with learning difficulties and/or disabilities (LDD) with the main focus being directed at engaging children with LDD. Kate Allen’s research and her work with the purpleSTARS team has brought fresh insights which challenge the sector’s approach to inclusivity for adults by taking engagement beyond passive consumption. It uses participatory and creative ways to engage adults with LDD, museum staff and contractors. By reviewing collections and curatorial approaches the approach provides adults with LDD the opportunity to act as co-researchers and co-designers. This empowers adults with LLD and enables museums and heritage sites to re-think how they approach their collections.
Locations
Camden; Tower Hamlets; Southwark (WC1B 3DG; EC2Y 5HN; E3 4RR; SE1 9TG)
Partners
TOHU Canada, the British Museum, the Museum of London (MoL), the Ragged School Museum (London), Glenside Hospital Museum (Bristol), Tate Gallery (London), and the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL)
Category: Education
Raising the presence, profile and voice of women in Parliament and politics with the Nancy Astor centenary events – Astor 100 – REF2021
University of Reading
Turner’s research has challenged the male-dominated space of Parliament, fuelling a public debate around women in politics. Using the centenary of Nancy Astor taking her parliamentary seat for activism rather than commemoration, Turner engaged with sitting and former MPs to install an Astor plaque in the House of Commons and, controversially, a statue in Plymouth. Collaboration with the National Trust and the Astor family facilitated a cultural shift. Turner helped the family revisit their archive and transform Cliveden House’s representation of women in domesticity to one of women in power. The project has been recognised as a yardstick to measure women’s parliamentary history.
Locations
Westminster
Partners
Parliamentary Archives, Palace of Westminster, Cliveden House (National Trust)
Category: Communities
Reading International: Using art projects to inspire local communities to engage with contemporary art – REF2021
University of Reading
Reading’s location as a commuter town (30 minutes away from London by train), means that it frequently loses new artistic talent to the capital where studio space is more widely available and where there is a strong, funded, professional infrastructure for the arts with international connections. While there is pride for local activities in Reading, there is only a small-scale ‘art scene’ or art industry for its workers to benefit from; Reading’s local arts economy struggles as a result of lack of funding and infrastructure and it is reliant on volunteers who run local art groups. A barrier faced by local artists in Reading has been the almost complete lack of studio and exhibition space, which denied artists the opportunity to work in professional circumstances and to develop more extensive professional networks. This means that there is limited scope for professionalisation or career progression in the fine arts in Reading. Susanne Clausen’s practice-based research has changed this by developing a network of local and national collaborations. This approach has successfully changed people’s perceptions about “how” and “where” to exhibit contemporary art. In addition, by working in partnership with ArtLab – an art and technology outreach facility at the University of Reading – Clausen has brought a large number of children and young people from diverse socio-economic backgrounds into contact with cutting-edge artwork.
Locations
Tate Modern
Partners
Reading Library, Reading Museum, Broad Street Mall, Greenham Common Tower, South Street, the Rising Sun Arts Centre, Jelly, Oracle Shopping Centre, Thames Tower, Munchees Café and Reading Abbey
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
RREF Access Internship Scheme
University of Reading
Aimed at underrepresented groups within the real estate industry, the Reading Real Estate Foundation (RREF) Access Internship Scheme strives to expand access to the profession for students from non-traditional backgrounds by securing internships and helping them to overcome barriers that might otherwise hinder their pursuit of career-enriching work experience.
Locations
W1, SW1, SW3 & KT16
Partners
Apache Capital, Cadogan, CAPCO, Carter Jonas, Cluttons, Crest Nicholson Plc, Federated Hermes, MEPC, GCW, Gerald Eve, Grosvenor Property UK, John Lewis Partnership, Lambert Smith Hampton and The Crown Estate, Tritax, Vail Williams, WP Carey.
More information about RREF Access Internship Scheme
Category: Business and Industry
University of Reading – Corporate Patrons
University of Reading
Reading Real Estate Foundation (RREF) Corporate Patrons are organisations that support the charity’s core initiatives and programmes with an annual sponsorship, allowing RREF to continue existing and provide new bursaries, research funding, and more.
Locations
W1 & EC1
Partners
Savills, Gerald Eve, Cushman & Wakefield, SEGRO, Eastdil Secured, Industrials REIT, Avison Young, BNP Paribas Real Estate, Strutt & Parker
More information about University of Reading – Corporate Patrons
Category: Business and Industry
University of Reading – Real Estate work experience
University of Reading
During October half-term, University of Reading secures one-week work experience placements with top Real Estate companies for students from under-represented backgrounds who have come through their Pathways to Property programme.
Locations
W1, SW1,EC1, EC3
Partners
Roebuck Asset Management, Eastdil Secured, WP Carey, British Land, Addleshaw Goddard, Grosvenor, Hollis Global, Montagu-Evans, Muse, SEGRO, The Crown Estate, Allsop
More information about University of Reading – Real Estate work experience
Category: Business and Industry
University of Reading – Real Estate work experience with Frogmore
University of Reading
During October half term, UK real estate fund manager, Frogmore, hosted a one day work experience placement at Stratford Shopping Centre, for students on the Pathways to Property programme. Building on previous summer school and mentoring activity, the work experience day gave students an insight into what it is like to work in the real estate industry.
The nine young people, all in Year 13, spent the day talking to people in different roles, undertaking a tour of the site and completing a short project.
The Pathways to Property Programme works to widen access to the real estate industry for young people from unerrepresented backgrounds, such as being in receipt of free school meals, or living in low-participation neighbourhoods. Hosted by Reading Real Estate Foundation at the Henley Business School, University of Reading, other activities include a residential summer school, Insight Days, online sessions, school talks and events, and e-mentoring, all delivered alongside industry partners.
Locations
Stratford
Partners
Frogmore
More information about University of Reading – Real Estate work experience with Frogmore
Category: Business and Industry
‘Clamorous Objects: Unmuting the Archive’– changing the way collections are interpreted and presented to engage new and larger audiences – REF2021
University of Reading
Local museums and archives house collections which are often under-utilised or presented in a ‘two-dimensional’ way that audiences struggle to engage and connect with. Murjas’s research has changed how several local museums and archives perceive and use their objects, enabling them to reinterpret their collections using multi-media installations and theatrical performance techniques. The Clamorous Objects projects have elicited emotional responses to objects and collections from migrants, curators, interpreters, medical professionals, creative practitioners and audience members, and helped individuals explore and come to terms with past experiences. Murjas’s approach to curating ‘histories from below’ has influenced how practitioners from a range of sectors conceptualise and share archives and is now being used as a benchmark by sector leaders such as Research Libraries UK (RLUK).
Locations
The National Archives, Kew Gardens
Partners
Museum of Rural English Life (MERL), Reading Museum, poet Jack Thacker
Category: Creative
80 South London Businesses Offered World Class Recovery Support from LSBU
London South Bank University
LSBU invited South London businesses to take part in a new support programme: ‘BIG (Business, Innovation and Growth) South London’. The scheme was designed to enable businesses in Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames and Sutton to recover from the huge pressures they faced from the pandemic. In partnership with Kingston University and St Mary’s University, 80 businesses have been offered one-to-one mentoring and workshops including:
- Innovation Health Checks: one-to-one sessions with innovation mentors to develop tailored support plans and point businesses toward the right workshops to make the most of the programme.
- Innovation and Growth Workshops: targeted at businesses at all stages of innovation and growth, allowing businesses to start implementing strategies from the Innovation Health Checks.
- Knowledge Base Engagement: intensive support packages to give businesses access to world class facilities, student and academic experts.
Locations
Croydon, Kingston Upon Thames, Merton, Richmond Upon Thames, Sutton
Partners
Kingston University, St Mary’s University, Croydon Council, Kingston Upon Thames Council, Merton Council, Richmond Upon Thames Council, Sutton Council
More information about 80 South London Businesses Offered World Class Recovery Support from LSBU
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Hundreds of businesses supported to increase their earnings by LSBU
London South Bank University
LSBU has supported 270 SMEs through the Help to Grow: Management programme since it was launched in October 2021. The government-funded business support initiative enables industry experts from LSBU’s Business School to run 12-week intensive support programmes. It is designed to help SMEs face economic challenges such as soaring energy prices and rising interest rates through:
- Financial Management, Leadership and Digital skills training.
- Personalised support to develop tailored growth plans to enable them to increase their earnings, revenue and profits.
Businesses which have received support from LSBU’s Help to Grow programme include:
- Jim & Tonic, a distillery bar in Stratford which produces bespoke, sustainable & branded gins which received training through the LSBU Help to Grow programme in November 2022.
- Studio Manifest, an architecture business based in Borough whose founder joined the LSBU Help to Grow programme in 2022 and then led the company to more than double its revenue.
- Thomas Sinden, an award-winning construction services provider based in Harold Wood, which received training through the LSBU Help to Grow programme in 2022.
Locations
Multiple businesses across London
Partners
Department for Business and Trade, Small Business Charter
More information about Hundreds of businesses supported to increase their earnings by LSBU
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
Liaison and Diversion for Neurodevelopmental Conditions
London South Bank University
London South Bank University and South London and Maudsley NHS Trust have undertaken a two-year pilot at Camberwell Green Magistrates Youth Court in order to identify and support people with learning disabilities (LD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from across Lambeth and Southwark who may require health and social services care and support rather than a prison sentence.
Locations
Lambeth and Southwark
Partners
South London and Maudlsey NHS Trust; Together
More information about Liaison and Diversion for Neurodevelopmental Conditions
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
LSBU Chiropractic Clinic
London South Bank University
LSBU’s Chiropractic Clinic, based at its Croydon campus treats over 300 patients a year offering affordable complete Chiropractic care to treat a variety of musculoskeletal conditions including back and neck pain, as well as offering rehabilitation treatments. LSBU is the only London university to offer Chiropractic courses and the clinic supports teaching on the Integrated Masters in Chiropractic (MChiro) by enabling students to study with the latest therapeutic equipment such as shockwave therapy.
Locations
LSBU Croydon
More information about LSBU Chiropractic Clinic
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
LSBU Croydon Solutionise Clinic
London South Bank University
LSBU’s Croydon campus is home to its Solutionise Clinic. Based on LSBU’s award-winning Legal Advice Centre and Business Solutions Centre, students act as front-line advisers offering business, IT and legal information and guidance. Their roles are underpinned by hands-on support from graduate students and academic staff.
Unlike LSBU’s Legal Advice Centre, Business Solutions Centre and Energy Advice Centre, the Solutionise Clinic was the first student-led advice and information service to be the product of a collaboration between LSBU Schools.
22 student advisers took part in 16 clinics between January and June 2023, assisting 25 clients, all of whom were based in Croydon and received support in face-to-face sessions.
The Clinic has served as a valuable service for the local community.
Locations
LSBU Croydon
More information about LSBU Croydon Solutionise Clinic
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
LSBU Energy Advice Centre
London South Bank University
During the cost-of-living crisis and with energy prices soaring, LSBU launched a free Energy Advice Centre for local businesses and residents. The student-led advice and information service helps households save money on their energy bills, reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency.
The Centre utilises the extensive expertise at LSBU on cutting energy costs to support people to secure help with heating bills, shares guidance on grants for home energy improvements and reducing energy costs and also offers advice about energy decisions around the home.
The Energy Advice Centre is based on LSBU’s award-winning Legal Advice Centre where students act as front-line advisers with support from graduate students and academic staff, including LSBU PhD students who constructed the infrastructure to run the LSBU Energy Advice Centre by creating an energy question and answer database for advisors, producing support information, and developing a website to help people cut their energy costs.
More information about LSBU Energy Advice Centre
Category: Business and Industry, Communities
LSBU Green Skills Hub
London South Bank University
LSBU runs a new Green Skills Hub to increase opportunities for Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark residents to gain new skills for working in London’s growing green sector. The hub is part of the Mayor’s £44 million Academies Programme. Each hub brings together employers, education and training providers and sector bodies to support Londoners into good work in the green economy, creative industries, digital, health and hospitality sectors, through a coordinated offer of training, work experience and advice and guidance. By April 2024 the LSBU Green Skills Hub aims to:
- Create 382 jobs and apprenticeships and 119 work placements in the green sector. •
- Provide 1,230 qualifications to residents from Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark. •
- Organise Apprenticeship events, Jobs Fairs and Employer Workshops for Lewisham Lambeth and Southwark residents.
- Ensure that 50% of residents who take part in the hub’s activities are from under-represented groups including: women, BAME, unemployed and deaf and disabled people.
The Hub will bring together a partnership of twenty organisations including:
- Five education providers: LSBU, South Bank Colleges, Lewisham College, the Skills Centre and The Engineering & Design Institute London (TEDI-London).
- Twelve London-based businesses: Clarion, Artel, Astudio, Hill Group, 21 Construction, Equans/Engie, Keltbray, Ardmore, Waterman, Lendlease, British Land and Morgan Sindall
- Three South London councils: Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark.
Partners
Mayor of London, Greater London Authority, Lambeth Council, Lewisham Council, Southwark Council, Clarion, Artel, Astudio, Hill Group, 21 Construction, Equans/Engie, Keltbray, Ardmore, Waterman, Lendlease, British Land and Morgan Sindall.
More information about LSBU Green Skills Hub
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, Sustainability
LSBU Provides New Funding for Croydon BME Forum
London South Bank University
Following a new donation from LSBU to expand its work, Croydon BME Forum announced in that the University had become a silver sponsor of the community organisation. This builds on a number of important life-changing projects for Croydon residents which the two organisations are already collaborating on together, including:
- Taking healthcare into the community by training barbershops in Croydon to test their customer’s blood pressure in a UK-first project.
- LSBU healthcare students working with the team at Croydon BME Forum’s new Health and Wellbeing Space. Croydon BME Forum is an organisation for Croydon’s Black and Minority Ethnic voluntary and community sector and works with thousands of people to increase the engagement of BME communities in all aspects of living and working in Croydon.
More information about LSBU Provides New Funding for Croydon BME Forum
Category: Business and Industry, Communities, NHS / Health
LSBU Research on Waste Heat from London Underground secures International Energy Awards
London South Bank University
LSBU research evaluating the benefits of Bunhill 2, a first-of its kind system that can provide low-carbon heat to buildings while also being able to cool the London Underground, won multiple international awards. Conducted by LSBU Research Fellow Dr Henrique Lagoeiro and partially funded by Transport for London (TfL), this project explored a method for harnessing waste heat which simultaneously encourages more sustainable transport methods. The research was described by the Institute of Refrigeration’s Ted Perry Award for Student Research panel as “original with high potential impact”, and something that could be “rolled out worldwide and adapted to different applications from data centre cooling to district heating”.
Partners
Institute of Refrigeration, Transport for London
Category: Business and Industry, Sustainability
LSBU’s Living with Gas project explores how to achieve Net Zero
London South Bank University
LSBU’s Department of Social Science has undertaken a collaborative project exploring cultural and social factors in energy adaption and retrofit for Net Zero.
The study explored the case of transitioning domestic energy use from a cultural perspective, highlighting the important role of social sciences and humanities in developing solutions to real-world problems. Focusing on the cultural attitudes in shaping the energy transition, the project discovered:
- Why householders may be reluctant to change how they heat their homes, and how we should present new technologies to reassure them and build trust for future de-carbonisation efforts.
- How we should prioritise communications that prove how de-carbonising the home can provide a transformed domestic environment; one where people are protected from cold and damp and can trust their domestic environment to provide them with security and comfort.
Through two workshops, a newsletter and report, these findings were shared with the Greater London Authority, several London borough housing teams, a Manchester-based carbon co-operative and the public (including through the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers scheme).
Locations
pan-London
Partners
Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, Space Doctors, British Academy, Greater London Authority
More information about LSBU’s Living with Gas project explores how to achieve Net Zero
Category: Sustainability
Net Zero Short Courses launched by LSBU
London South Bank University
LSBU launched four new Net Zero courses to train students in the latest green skills and help the UK building industry make significant carbon reductions at the start of the 2022/23 academic year. The courses ran in close partnership with leading organisations in the housing and green sectors including: London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI), Ashden, Clarion Housing Group, The Climate Framework, Building Services Research and Information Association, Lambeth Council and Southwark Council. The four new courses were:
- Designing Net Zero Buildings
- Operating Effective Net Zero Buildings
- Procurement for the Net Zero Built Environment
- Net Zero Leadership and Management The modules were funded by a £150,000 grant from the Office for Students (OfS) for testing delivery of the new ‘Lifelong Learning Entitlement’ student loans system. Once it is fully launched in 2025, the LLE will enable students to learn at a flexible pace by providing funding for individual modules of study.
Partners
London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI), Ashden, Clarion Housing Group, The Climate Framework, Building Services Research and Information Association, Lambeth Council, Southwark Council, Office for Students
More information about Net Zero Short Courses launched by LSBU
Category: Business and Industry, Education, Sustainability
New AI tool launched by South Bank Innovation
London South Bank University
South Bank Innovation, the enterprise hub of LSBU, and cloud-based communication platform provider QuickBlox developed an Artificial Intelligence-enabling tool called Quick-Bot, which enables developers to add conversational AI into real-time messaging and video chat apps.
The Quick-Bot platform offers something fundamentally different to other chatbot building programmes by providing tools to integrate AI with real-time communication. Regular chatbot building platforms allow users to develop chatbots to communicate with humans, but the new Quick-Bot platform enables AI-mediated communication between humans.
For example, using Quick-Bot in a healthcare app, a patient could speak with an AI-powered chatbot which vets their questions and provides attuned personalised responses but is able to detect when to make way for the patient to speak directly with a doctor. And with Quick-Bot, a doctor would be able to simultaneously rely on AI to craft their responses while communicating with a patient, provide additional expert knowledge, transcribe an audio conversation in real-time, or summarise the consultation.
Recent advances in conversational AI have pushed businesses to look for ways to add AI enhanced chatbots to their communication channels. However, many organisations want chatbots with expertise in areas related to their business needs and to be able to own, control, train, and develop their chatbot’s knowledge base. The new Quick-Bot platform makes this possible.
Partners
QuickBlox
More information about New AI tool launched by South Bank Innovation
Category: Business and Industry, Creative, NHS / Health
Revolutionising the Detection of Kidney Disease through Smartphone Urine Testing
London South Bank University
LSBU research found that over a third (37%) of people with diabetes who completed a home urine test to detect kidney damage were found to have abnormal protein levels. The project explored the feasibility of sending out home urine testing kits (which detect abnormal protein levels in the urine) and a smartphone app to people with diabetes in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The borough has a high number of residents of South Asian heritage who are more at risk of both diabetes and kidney disease. Over 60% of the 2,370 people with diabetes who were invited returned the test, with almost 37% (465) of them found to have abnormal protein levels in the urine, a sign of kidney disease. Most importantly, around 33% of those with abnormal results were new cases which had not been recognised before. This means that GPs will be able to identify and manage those at risk of kidney damage earlier than before. Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) affects one in ten adults in the UK, with an estimated annual cost to the NHS of £1.45 billion, equivalent to 1.3% of total NHS expenditure.
Partners
Healthy.io, Tower Hamlets’ Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG)
Category: Creative, NHS / Health
Brunei Gallery
SOAS, University of London
The Brunei Gallery is an exciting venue in central London that hosts a programme of changing contemporary and historical exhibitions from Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The Gallery’s aim is to present and promote cultures from these regions and to be a student resource and public facility. It has put in plans to establish as a ‘go to’ venue in London’s cultural scene, innovating new approaches to bridging research, teaching, public engagement and knowledge exchange; acting as a catalyst for strategic partnerships; and enhancing SOAS’s public reputation, student and staff experience, and student recruitment.
Locations
Camden
More information about Brunei Gallery
Category: Creative
CAMHRA
SOAS, University of London
Working with partners across academia, statutory healthcare, civil society and policy, and alongside services users and people with lived experience, CAMHRA’s research aims to understand the varied experiences of mental distress, and therapeutic practice. Through ethnographic research, education and public engagement, CAMHRA aims to contribute distinctly anthropological perspectives to a growing global understanding of how societies can understand and respond to mental distress and build effective systems of care.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Thrive LDN
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
Chouette Films
SOAS, University of London
SOAS values mutually beneficial relationships with local enterprises, including Chouette Films. Chouette Films is a green film production company on a mission to produce films for social change with the smallest possible environmental footprint. Based at SOAS, University of London, Chouette Films fuses the worlds of academia and creativity. By harnessing the powerful and expressive language of film, Chouette Films draws stories from the world of academia and extends the reach of their impact to wider audiences. The vision of the enterprise is to amplify the voices of research projects and social ventures, so that their unique and important stories are heard rather than being lost to gather dust on library shelves. Chouette Films is recognised for their contribution to social change and prowess in using film to advance research, commended by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Best Film by Research award 2015), BAFTSS, the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival, the IBC Social Impact Award for Ethical Leadership in Filmmaking amongst many others.
Locations
Camden
More information about Chouette Films
Category: Creative
Connecting During Covid
SOAS, University of London
Focusing in particular on the Brazilian, Indian and Somali communities, the project examines people’s experiences of life in the UK, as well as remittance and care activities that link people with their family, friends and communities; and the extent to which these may have changed during the pandemic. This 18-month project is funded by a grant from the UK Research and Innovation’s ESRC Covid-19 research scheme.
Locations
Tower Hamlets
Partners
QMUL, UCL, UK Research and Innovation, Economic and Social Research Council
More information about Connecting During Covid
Category: Communities, NHS / Health
GOSH: Caring for Patients from the Arabian Gulf
SOAS, University of London
Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) welcomes many families from the Arabian Gulf every year. They always provide our families and patients with the best possible care, including making sure that they are providing culturally appropriate support. They recently partnered with SOAS University of London again, to provide new staff with a workshop about the Arabian Gulf. The workshop was run by Jonathon Fryer and Dr Alanoud Al Sharekh. Staff gained valuable insights into Arabic culture, history, religion and social aspects and etiquette. At the workshop staff learnt about understanding and working with families from the Arabian Gulf, to make their time at GOSH more comfortable.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Great Ormond Street Hospital
More information about GOSH: Caring for Patients from the Arabian Gulf
Category: Communities, Education, NHS / Health
Influencing Corridors of Power (ICOP) initiative
SOAS, University of London
ICOP aims to promote the impact of ongoing university-based research. By bringing researchers and Westminster closer together, ICOP addresses the democratic deficit that they believe results from encroaching government control on freedom of speech and assembly on SOAS and other campuses. The project is born out of the five-year AHRC/ESRC-funded project, “Representing Islam on Campus”, and the follow-up project, “Voices of Dissent”.
Partners
Aziz Foundation
More information about Influencing Corridors of Power (ICOP) initiative
Category: Communities
London Political Economy Network
City, University of London, Goldsmiths, University of London, King's College London, Kingston University London, SOAS, University of London, UCL, University of Greenwich
The London Political Economy Network (LPEN) aims to foster cross-university exchange and networking between London-based political economy research centres. It provides a forum where researchers present ongoing research, discuss, build collaborations, and identify areas for future research. The network jointly organises annual meetings at the participating institutions on a rotating basis. Participating members can showcase their research and benefit from the feedback of an expert audience. Thereby, it aims to strengthen London’s political economy research community and foster scholarly collaboration.
Locations
City of Westminster
Partners
City University Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), Goldsmiths Political Economy Research Centre (PERC), Greenwich Political Economy Research Centre (GPERC), Hertfordshire Business School, UCL (Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)), King’s College London (Department of European and International Studies), Kingston University London Political Economy Research Group (PERG), Open University Political Economy Group (OPEG)
More information about London Political Economy Network
Category: Business and Industry, Education
Multilingual Locals and Significant Geographies (MULOSIGE)
SOAS, University of London
With its National Research Library status, SOAS’ extensive Library and Special Collections facility is at the forefront of digitising and translating unique material, as part of its overall strategy to provide high quality, highly discoverable information resources and services. SOAS have gained significant investment to this end, including to digitise the works of a Yiddish poet, Abraham Nahum Stencl, working with East London archives.
SOAS support the enrichment of local libraries; MULOSIGE, a project exploring multilingualism, works with N4 library in Islington to expand their book collection in languages chosen by the community, such as Arabic.
Locations
Islington
More information about Multilingual Locals and Significant Geographies (MULOSIGE)
Category: Education
Our Sophisticated Weapon: Posters of the Mozambican Revolution
SOAS, University of London
In 2022 SOAS and The Africa Centre presented, for the first time outside Mozambique, an exhibition of 25 political posters produced during the early years of Mozambique’s independence in the 1970s and 1980s.
Locations
Southwark
Partners
The Africa Centre
More information about Our Sophisticated Weapon: Posters of the Mozambican Revolution
Category: Creative
SOAS International Human Rights Clinic
SOAS, University of London
The International Human Rights Clinic at SOAS was launched in 2007 as both a postgraduate module and a legal resource with the aim of encouraging an engaged critical consciousness that reflects on and works within the trans-national intersection of law, rights and social justice on briefs submitted by partners in the UK and internationally. For SOAS students, the Clinic aims to provide a dynamic and critical environment in which to engage with advocacy strategies and the tensions of the theory and practice of human rights, and simultaneously to provide the opportunity to contribute to the work of the international human rights movement through practical work with cases, policy analysis, and research briefs.
Locations
Camden
Partners
Terre de Hommes Foundation, REDRESS, Chile Soldiers International, Lawyers for Justice in Libya, Institute for Human Rights and Business, Legal Action Worldwide, Just Fair
More information about SOAS International Human Rights Clinic
Category: Communities, Education
Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical Plaques: 50 Plaques and Places
SOAS, University of London
50 PLAQUES & PLACES is curated by Gloria Daniel and supported by SOAS School of Law, Gender and Media. The exhibition places a spotlight on 50 sites incontrovertibly tied to the transatlantic slave economy. The exhibition was held at the Tabernacle, W11 2AY in October 2023, and plaques are now being placed at individual sites in London and elsewhere.
Locations
RB Kensington and Chelsea
Partners
TTEACH Plaques; The Tabernacle
Category: Communities, Creative, Education
Please note some pointers may overlap as certain case studies share the same principal location, therefore all projects may not be viewable at a 5km scale. Please zoom into the map at a 100m scale – this will allow all case studies to be shown individually.
The creation and updating of this map has been undertaken by Darren de Souza. If you would like to contribute to the map, please contact darren.desouza@londonhigher.ac.uk
