North East England

Best Practice

Northumbria University

BEST PRACTICE CASE STUDY Northumbria’s role in the North East of England

The North East is known for its quality of life and unique mix of city, countryside and coastline and Northumbria University plays a key role in championing the region and access to higher education for people from all backgrounds. In 2020, the University signed up to the Social Mobility Pledge and has also reaffirmed its commitment to levelling up through a new strategic objective to strengthen its role as an anchor institution. The University is working closely with other stakeholders in the city of Newcastle to deliver civic, societal, health, economic and cultural improvements through the work of the innovative Collaborative Newcastle partnership. As part of this work, it has developed a civic university agreement with Newcastle University which will focus on post-pandemic renewal across three themes of prosperity, people and planet.

The North East of England faces a number of socio-economic problems. It is the lowest ranked region nationally in terms of adults with Level 4 qualifications and it underperforms generally in terms of educational and attainment metrics. This has a knock-on effect on graduates and the opportunities that they are presented with when they graduate, with other regions often having a wider range of jobs available. The North East is also one of the worst performing for health inequalities with healthy life expectancy in adults changing by as much as eight years in just five miles. This highlights the unequal nature of the region with pockets of wealth and success fairly close to areas of real deprivation. Northumbria University is attempting to address some of these inequalities. It is proud of the quality, breadth and depth of the education and research it delivers which has a positive bearing on the local economy. The impact of research and innovation, business growth support and skills, employability and entrepreneurship reaches across the region and beyond, creating and applying knowledge and opportunities. Northumbria University puts more people into graduate jobs in the North East of England than any other university. In the latest Graduate Outcomes survey for 2018/19 leavers, 25% of all the graduates employed in the North East of England in highly skilled jobs from that cohort were graduates of Northumbria University.

Northumbria attracts students nationally and internationally as well as from the North East and it is keen to enable students to stay and contribute to the local economy after graduation. Part of its work with local stakeholders, such as the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (NELEP), is to ensure graduate retention and attract those from other regions to move here. The ERDF Northumbria Enterprise and Business Support Projects have so far supported 148 small businesses in the region to employ a graduate and 58 students and graduates to start up their own companies since 2015.

The University’s research is critical to the economic growth of the region and addressing the levelling up agenda. The University has identified multi-disciplinary research themes (MDRTs) which align with industrial strategy and regional priorities, including climate change, integrated health and social care, energy futures - including the RENU renewable energy doctoral training centre, life sciences, international development and digital interaction. Alongside Newcastle University, Northumbria is involved in the world’s first

Best Practice

biotech and sustainable building through the Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment, researching the future of the built environment and how we can make our homes healthier places to live. The University has also completed world-leading research around children’s hunger and food coping strategies during the pandemic and is a partner in the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration North East and North Cumbria.

Northumbria has close ties to the region’s business community. It runs a business clinic and offers students the chance to work alongside SMEs and charities. The University is a participant in the Northern Accelerator commercialisation programme and runs the Small Business Leadership Programme working with businesses that have been impacted by Covid-19 using research expertise to support their development. BEST PRACTICE CASE STUDY NU Entry

Northumbria is committed to raising educational aspirations and recruiting high quality students regardless of background. Northumbria University runs a supported entry scheme, NU Entry, to ensure a fair and transparent admissions process. NU Entry was launched to local schools in 2013 after feedback from teachers who wanted further support for certain students to help them progress. In 2020-21 the programme, which is now nationwide, engaged 905 students and since its inception over 1,000 of those taking part in the scheme have gone on to study at Northumbria.

NU Entry is a structured scheme for students in their first year of sixth form or college who meet specific criteria. Eligibility criteria includes the following: a care leaver, those with care responsibilities, estranged students, those entitled to free school meals or from an area with a low progression rate to university, as well as other specific detailed criteria. Students take part in a range of activities, from subject specific workshops to campus visits and e-mentoring.

Students participating in the NU Entry scheme get the chance to earn 16 NU entry points, which are the equivalent to UCAS points when applying to Northumbria University. These programmes ensure that the University is reaching those from under-represented communities and giving them an equal opportunity to access higher education. In 2021-22 Northumbria is expanding its supported entry scheme to include Access NU, which will support adult learners to progress to Northumbria.