OUR IMPACT

OUR RESEARCH

As a graduate you will have experienced how our research delivers outstanding student experience, bringing the work of our most innovative academics into the classroom, lab and lecture theatre.

Research inspires and drives our academic community and plays an influential supporting role in developing economies and societies regionally, nationally and globally.

As detailed in the University’s Research and Innovation Strategy, our research institutes are closely aligned to our academic departments. These institutes lead faculty research, ensuring it is relevant and informs our curriculum. Each Institute brings together a number of research themes, encouraging multidisciplinary collaborations as well as innovation around the boundaries of specific subjects.

We have a strong focus on applied research that impacts on and responds to the needs of real-life issues in the economy, in culture and society. Our research stands out because it is relevant and responsive, as well as inclusive and collaborative.

HOW THE UNIVERSITY OF SUNDERLAND HAS RESPONDED TO THE PANDEMIC

A crisis can bring out the best in people and that is certainly what we have witnessed here in the UK and across the University of Sunderland community.

We are particularly proud of our own graduate nurses who went straight to work in regional hospitals. There is pride too in the paramedics and pharmacists who studied at the University of Sunderland, caring for patients on the front line. Nor do we forget our graduate teachers, engineers, software developers, illustrators and psychologists – to name but a few – who have all continued to offer their own expertise and support during the pandemic.

Some of our current student nurses are now volunteering in hospitals. Our engineers at AMAP developed a visor to keep NHS staff safe while treating patients and designed a simple but effective door opening device. They went on to produce their device in large quantities, so people working in all kinds of care settings and key businesses could reduce their potential contact with the virus.

Our student support and wellbeing teams have been offering advice and giving guidance and support to students with all kinds of queries, as well as listening and being a friend to students who needed someone to talk to.

And, our academic staff swiftly developed modules and materials for online teaching and assessment. Their efforts have ensured students could continue in their studies, without detriment and that our graduates could complete their studies confident in the knowledge that they had been assessed with the same level of rigour as they would have expected in normal circumstances.