Summer 2014 • northumbria.ac.uk •
21st in the UK for outstanding student experience
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NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY NEWS Issue 3
Summer 2014 • northumbria.ac.uk
Transforming the way that universities and businesses work together
NORTHUMBRIA PARTNERSHIPS
Open for business
Northumbria University has worked hard over the last five years to prioritise its work with businesses and secure its reputation as a business focussed professional university with a global reputation for academic quality.
Improving experiences
This special supplement of Northumbria University News provides an insight into some of Northumbria’s partnerships with public, private and cultural sector organisations in the North East of England and beyond.
In building strong networks and partnerships with regional, national and international employers, Northumbria University is setting the bar at a new high. Partnerships developed by Northumbria University are supporting investment in skills, innovation, enterprise, entrepreneurship and economic growth, as well as improving the employment opportunities available to its graduates. With more than 560 employers and 60 professional bodies sponsoring and accrediting Northumbria’s programmes, many students graduate with chartered or professional accreditation. It is one of the key reasons why the University sits comfortably within the top 10 in the UK for the number of graduates entering professional employment. Last year, the University was ranked the fourth best in the UK for supporting its students and graduates to start-up businesses. Since 2008 more than 100 businesses have been established by Northumbria graduates. Mainly based in the North East, they trade nationally and internationally and
OPEN FOR BUSINESS Working with Northumbria University
Northumbria leading the engagement Professor Roy Sandbach is a globallyrecognised expert on innovation who leads Innovation Strategy for the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). He tells Northumbria University News that universities can, and must, engage with businesses to unlock the door to greater innovation and economic growth. To prosper in today’s fiercely competitive markets, businesses must continually solve problems and innovate. Universities can support this through collaboration – as long as they make the engagement process as easy and as accessible as possible. Professor Sandbach believes Northumbria University, through its Research and Business Services department and each of its four faculties, understands this better than most. When collaboration works well the result is a win-win scenario. A win for businesses through innovation and growth, and a win for universities who can offer their academics impact-driven research opportunities on genuine business projects using real-time data. Crucially, it is also a win for students who experience practice-based learning to develop skills and enhance their career prospects. “There is nothing more exciting for a student,” says Professor Sandbach, “than to see the discipline they are studying put into action, and for their engagement with businesses to have real impact – it’s the whole package. “The best business-engaged universities have practice-based learning at the core of their teaching – and Northumbria has this in its DNA. “You only have to look at what Newcastle Business School is doing through its Entrepreneurial Business Management programme, where students learn by actually running their own businesses, to see this.”
Continued overleaf
To understand the role of “innovation”
Professor Roy Sandbach
in this it is perhaps helpful to have a clear definition. According to Professor Sandbach, innovation is matching what is needed with what is possible, for economic value or social good, or for both. Implicit in this of course is that it is nothing without delivery. There is also an increasing understanding by universities – particularly so by Northumbria – of the need for a positive community impact. “In this regard Northumbria has a clear sense of place and of regional engagement,” explains Professor Sandbach. The education drivers behind engagement must therefore focus on delivering success, not just developing pockets of knowledge. Universities have research expertise and capabilities, and outstanding academic knowledge holders. They are strong on what is possible, with a knowledge bank or reservoir of solutions – something Professor Sandbach describes as “creative spaghetti”. He illustrates this through a funnel model, with the creative spaghetti reservoir at the top, and from which business partners can chose which elements to tap into. With an understanding of what is desired or needed in their markets, they can then collaborate with the university on research projects or through student placements, and manage the work through the funnel and into the commercial environment where it will have both value and customers. Professor Sandbach is at pains to point out the importance of each
partner understanding the scope of their role fully in any engagement under this model. “Universities occupy a key part of the innovation space, but certainly not all of it,” he says. “They will not typically be able to understand the markets, needs and commercial opportunities in the same way that their business partners will. This is why it is up to businesses to tap into the knowledge base and for universities to make this easy to do.” Universities can also use the existing relationships they have with other academic institutions, as well as with government, business and voluntary sectors, to bring relevant groups together to build strong strategic partnerships. They can make the engagement process between all relevant groups far more cohesive. . Universities as facilitators are also useful to Professor Sandbach in his role leading Innovation Strategy development for the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP). He highlights that one of the LEP’s aims is for the North East to become an exemplar for smart specialisation and open innovation in the automotive industry, subsea technology and engineering, life sciences and the digital sector – areas of key strength where the region already distinguishes itself with leading edge credentials. Northumbria, says Professor Sandbach, is firmly plugged into this drive and is engaging in creating a skilled community for some of the most critical and exciting sectors of activity in the world.
An example is the Think Physics project being led by Northumbria’s Engineering and Environment programmes to inspire young people, especially women, into the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Working with various partners including the Institute of Physics, Centre for Life, North Tyneside Learning Trust and Kielder Observatory, this collaboration puts into focus the positive impacts of physics and helps to raise the region’s capabilities in critically important STEM-based innovation sectors. Professor Sandbach believes this kind of collaborative skill development is vital in helping to create what he describes as an “inward innovation investment culture” – capable of attracting innovation-centric corporates to the region by creating an offer through the work of our universities to meet their innovation needs. Having spent almost 30 years with Procter and Gamble he is well qualified to understand why the world’s largest consumer products company has invested heavily in the region over the years and works closely with its universities.
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Professor Sandbach is passionate about creating an “innovation society” to ensure economic prosperity. We are already breaking new ground in this region, he says, but our universities and businesses must continue to work together to drive the region’s competitive innovation position. The rest of the world won’t stand still.
Spotlight on partnerships
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Take a look inside our eight page supplement to discover how we are forging global partnerships
The ratings build on a number of other recent successes, outlined in this newspaper, which indicate Northumbria’s growing national and international reputation.
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Double success for Northumbria in national league tables
Northumbria University’s reputation for academic excellence and providing an outstanding experience has been further endorsed after being named the most improved university in the North East and receiving its highest ever ranking in a national survey of the student experience at more than 100 universities.
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orthumbria climbed six places in the Complete University Guide 2015 with three subjects ranked in the UK’s top five, a further three appearing in the top 10 and more in the top 20. It was also rated the UK’s 21st best university for providing an outstanding student experience in the Times Higher Education’s annual Student Experience Survey. The ratings build on a number of other recent successes, outlined in this newspaper, which indicate Northumbria’s growing national and international reputation. In the Complete University Guide,
EE IDD S N IIN
Northumbria’s Physiotherapy programme is rated as the third best in the UK, with Librarianship and Information Management ranked fourth and Land and Property Management ranked fifth. Building programmes, Architecture and Food Science are all in the top 10, with Nursing, Town and Country Planning, American Studies, Linguistics and Art and Design programmes all featuring in the top 20. Northumbria was also the only UK university to be ranked in the top 10 for all Building, Architecture and Property Management subjects. The Times Higher Education’s
Student Experience Survey saw more than 14,000 students from 111 UK universities rate how their universities performed in 21 different areas. These included the quality of the lecturers and facilities, library provision and accommodation, as well as the on-campus environment, community atmosphere and the welfare support made available to students. Northumbria’s Library facilities were ranked joint third best in the country, alongside Cambridge, and its sports facilities were rated joint fifth. The outstanding performance of Team Northumbria in this year’s
British Universities & Colleges Sport National League Table led to the University finishing eighth in the league – the first time it has ever reached the BUCS top ten. Other areas which scored highly include the quality of staff and lecturers, the provision of wellstructured courses with a fair workload, centralised and convenient facilities, and good support for personal welfare and security. The University has continuously improved its position in the Student Experience Survey over the last four years, climbing from 45th place in 2010 to 21st place in 2014.
21 reasons
Standing out from the crowd
Students tell us what they love about NU
How our graduates are prepared for employment
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Professor Andrew Wathey, ViceChancellor and Chief Executive of Northumbria University, commented: “Northumbria’s rating reflects the improving experience of its students and the practical result of our work to put students at the heart of the University, as well as the academic and other investments the university has made. “The successes achieved in these national league tables are further recognition that the University is achieving its ambition to be a research-rich, business-focussed, professional university with a global reputation for academic excellence.”