Student Knowledge Exchange Impact Tool

The Knowledge Exchange Impact Tool will:

a) Evaluate the impact of student knowledge exchange for four stakeholder groups: students, opportunity providers (such as businesses, charities, social enterprises, and not for profit organisations), higher education institutions, and place, economy, and society.

b) Provide evidence of the ways in which KE activities directly involve and benefit students, and demonstrate approaches that optimise student benefit for a given KE activity.

c) Build and enhance effective KE practice that benefits students and to make frameworks and evaluation methods portable and accessible to the higher education sector.

d) Tackle evidenced challenges of equality of opportunity and diversity and inclusion within existing KE activities reducing barriers to student participation and success in KE.

e) Provide evidence of the ways in which KE activities directly involve, benefit and impact businesses

The wider project includes providing Virtual Knowledge Exchange Internships and Enterprise Activities.

Virtual internships widen accessibility for all students to engage with meaningful work experience, especially students from a widening participation background who might otherwise face barriers to engaging with traditional internship models. Virtual internships offer many benefits including reduced costs for students and employers, increased working flexibility to accommodate students with caring responsibilities or disabilities and to connect employers with students who are uniquely well equipped to embrace digital working practices. Through the Knowledge Exchange Internship scheme, our aim is to provide opportunities for a diverse range of under-represented students and graduates to engage in Knowledge Exchange with local and nationally located SMEs, non-profits, charities, start-ups and social enterprises.

Enterprise activities, bootcamps and future of work workshops co-create experiential and multi-disciplinary challenges or workshops that engage students from different backgrounds. These activities not only up-skill our students and also serve as a fertile soft recruitment tool for organisations and can help crowd-source exceptional minds on business challenges.

As two leaders in student-mediated Knowledge Exchange (KE) the University of Birmingham and Keele University are working together to innovate further in this space to remove barriers to engagement and engage communities that before now may not have connected.

Building on both institutions’ strong KE foundations, this project will share, develop and expand successful, complementary approaches to student mediated KE activities. We will prioritise students from a widening participation background, demonstrating what works, focusing on sustainability and delivering external benefits such as enhanced employability and solutions to business challenges and problems.

Whilst benefiting students and the North and West Midlands, we will focus on meeting regional needs, addressing skills gaps and meeting export challenges. This will offer experiential learning business start-up opportunities for students to increase their employability, social capital and shape their future.

Alongside these opportunities for employers and students, the project will develop a tool to evaluate the holistic impact of KE activity on students, businesses and civic groups. With the support of Santander Universities, the tool will be piloted with universities and organisations where significant student KE is being delivered. The findings from the impact tool will be shared across the sector and beyond.

The project welcomes discussion and collaboration with international institutions, in order to share best practice in student knowledge exchange and develop global solutions to student employability challenges. 

Hannes Read, Data and Policy Analyst, City-REDI, University of Birmingham

George Bramley, Senior Analyst, City-REDI, University of Birmingham

Colin Rigby, Senior Lecturer and Director of Enterprise, Keele Business School, Keele University

Terry Dray, Director for Employability & Employer Engagement, Keele University

John Goddard, Professor of Universities and Cities, City-REDI, University of Birmingham

Anne Green, Professor of Regional Economic Development, City-REDI, University of Birmingham

Julia Molyneux, Project Officer, Keele University

Sue Welland, Deputy Director External Engagement, University of Birmingham

Matt Edwards, Employability & Enterprise Learning Development Consultant, University of Birmingham

Student Knowledge Exchange Toolkit Summary Guide

May 2022 - Johannes Read, Colin Rigby, Terry Dray, John Goddard, George Bramley, Anne Green, Sue Welland, Julia Molyneux, Matt Edwards

Embedding Enterprise Education

May 2022 - Helen Hook, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Knowledge Exchange Impact on Place Toolkit

May 2022 - Excel Document, Johannes Read

Student Knowledge Exchange – Optimising Virtual Delivery to Remove Barriers and Engage Communities, City-REDI Blog, Johannes Read

Community Engages Resources, Keele University

Helena Potter Case Study, University of Birmingham

Akash Amudha Rajendran Case Study, University of Birmingham

Anya Logue Case Study, University of Birmingham

Project lead contact details: 

Hannes Read, Data and Policy Analyst, City-REDI, University of Birmingham

Project Support contact details: 

TBC

Sue Welland, Deputy Director External Engagement, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Laura Scott, Knowledge Exchange Employer Engagement Officer, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Jodie Bird, Entrepreneurial Skills Officer, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Katherine Smith, Knowledge Exchange Operations Officer, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Cate Linforth, International Employer Liaison Officer, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Mohammed Ali, Business Start-up and Entrepreneurial Development Manager, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Kerry Brunn, Project and Events Manager, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Nicola Gittins, Deputy Director, Student Entrepreneurship and Enterprise, Careers Network, University of Birmingham

Keele University Team

Student Knowledge Exchange and Community Engaged Learning Symposium, 26^th May 2022, The Exchange, Birmingham