A summary of our discussion will be shared with NCCPE who will bring this information together with all the other conversations across the UK to inform the next phase of the Engaged Futures process. To stay involved sign up to be an Engaged Futures Catalyst or join the conversation at the Engage Summit 2026.
This presentation discusses a qualitative research project exploring community engagement with grassroots organisations in built environment curricula, adopting a critical and decolonial lens. The case study focuses on the Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment at UCL. Central to the presentation are pedagogical framings related to community engagement in built environment education, curriculum design principles and examples of modules with Community Engaged Learning (CEL) elements, and the impact of university–community partnerships in teaching on grassroots organisations.
T2: Exploring Loneliness through Service Learning, Patricia Zunszain, Kings College London
This presentation will discuss our practical experiences running our Service-learning module at King’s College London. Recognizing that loneliness is a pressing public health issue in older adults and university students, we deigned and have been delivering this module to postgraduate students enrolled in the MSc Mental Health Studies at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience since 2021. Named ‘Self-Identity, Intergenerational and Intercultural Learning’ (SIIL), the module provides students with theoretical material covering Positive Psychology, Intercultural Studies, Language & Intercultural Awareness, Qualitative Research Methodologies and Ageism, along with engagement with a local community of older adults within a Pensioner Centre in a working-class area of London. The assessment involves a reflective report and a digital project that students can choose, allowing for high creativity.
We have adapted the module over the years, starting during the pandemic and going through a year with a significant increase in the number of students enrolled, when the module was sitting within a compulsory pathway, which brought its own advantages and challenges. Reciprocity and understanding of the realities of the Pensioner Centre we collaborated with for five years has been key. Through discussions that take place during class time, through personal reflections and through contact with the older adults in the community, students learn how they can be active citizens and producers of knowledge where their voice and their subjectivity are acknowledged and matter. Students’ evaluation of the module and their assessment outcomes validate the social impact of Service-learning within and outside academia.
T3: Undergraduate consulting to local creative industries - lessons in community impact for mutual benefit. Dr Hugh Brown and Dr Alex Timewell, University of Leeds
This session reports on the design and outcomes of a module in which undergraduate students respond to a consultancy request from local creative industries organisations. These external partners then guide the students through their learning and receive benefits from the students’ solution to the problem they set, while the students learn from and network with the external partner. Outcomes indicate a high level of mutual benefit, even when the student's ultimate submission is not feasible for the external partner to adopt. It considers themes of evidencing community impact and developing external partnerships to provide formative assessment.
This presentation will share how recently developed and revised strategies at the University of Plymouth are helping to support academics in developing educational initiatives that civically engage their students where the learning spaces of 'town and gown' are held in synergy.
This presentation will share an engaged learning framework that has been developed in support of a number of educational innovations, sharing case studies from Net Zero internship programme and undergraduate service learning module where students tackle sustainable development challenges. The presentation will share some key learning points around the challenge of staff successfully curating and facilitating this service learning opportunity in order to support students developing as compassionate critical creatives.
In this workshop participants will have the opportunity to consider how Service Learning (SL) inspires authentic connections between students and partners. Through group discussion we will consider a model of engagement for SL, and analyse the dynamics of partnership. Insights will be drawn from activity within the Faculty of Science & Engineering at the University of Manchester when scoping the adoption of Service Learning at scale.
Mutual benefit is seen as a core part of Community Engaged Learning, but how do we evidence this? How do we know it is working as we anticipate, especially as we scale up delivery across disciplines? In this workshop we will share thinking from three research projects exploring these questions from different perspectives. Participants will reflect on what questions we should be asking and to whom to help us design and evidence CEL effectively.
For 17 years, across two institutions, Ben has run real campaigns with student groups ranging in size from 15 to 330 as part of assessed modules. These campaigns can be student-led, in partnership with local organisations or large international NGOs (like Greenpeace and Oxfam). This workshop will introduce participants to the core principles of using live campaigns as a pedagogic tool: the ethos, practice and examples of different module structures. It will then offer an experiential insight into what a social action classroom is like in the planning stages of a campaign through small group work centred on actual case studies.
This session will look at the successes and challenges of community engaged learning over time through the lens of the University of Leeds Students into Schools (SiS) programme. We will reflect on the advantages and disadvantages of CEL existing within the curriculum or as an extracurricular activity; how COVID-19 affected SiS and how the programme has responded since; and how the programme has managed as resourcing has fluctuated. The presentation will also reflect on the current position of CEL at the University of Leeds, how SiS fits within this and what future directions it could take.
This session introduces the new pilot module: Making a Difference: From Campus to Community, launching in 2026. Initially developed for a small group of Business Management students, the module addresses two key challenges: the increasing pressure on voluntary sector organisations like LOROS, and low levels of student engagement in extracurricular activities since the pandemic. The approach aims to remove barriers to participation, ensuring all students, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds or with other commitments, can engage. The session will share early insights from the pilot's development, highlighting the collaborative approach and discussing how this model can be adapted across other programmes and faculties to embed community engagement within the curriculum.
In 2023, following a series of positive engagements with staff, students, and community partners, King’s Volunteering, in collaboration with the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), launched the Service & Research Projects Hub - an initiative designed to connect Master’s students and academics with community-led research. Thispresentationwill share the approach to building the case for the Service & Research Projects Hub, including how they have demonstrated impact, aligned with institutional priorities, and invested in scoping demand. We will reflect on the lessons learned so far, their approach to collecting evidence with minimal resource and how these can inform the development of sustainable, embedded service-learning models within the curriculum.
In this session we will give you an overview of how we have moved forward our CEL programme from a professional services point of view. You will hear what changes we have made for this year, how we have engaged community partners and what our next steps are going to be. 'Paving the way as we are walking it' is our approach and we will be showing the ups and downs!
Service / Community Engaged Learning projects can bring such great enthusiasm to deliver on the win:win for everyone. What do you think about potential unintended consequences? What has worked? What hasn't? What would you love to do if you could? What resources do you use?
In the workshop we started this Padlet, which we are going to think about how we can build upon it to create a shared resource in the Autumn. Please share your thoughts, challenges and ideas and continue this conversation.
Recent developments of service-learning across the sociology offer at NTU embeds this within a circular ‘gift’ economy, a means of connecting students, researcher/research centres, modules across curriculums and departments, community partners and school committees. This workshop will start with a presentation of how the Sociology team at NTU have embedded Service-Learning into a gift economy adhering to the ethos of mutual benefit and addressing social challenges connecting with subject discipline and promoting social justice. The workshop will then invite participants to consider how such a model may benefit them and also how they can contribute to enhancing such a model.
This workshop will give participants the opportunity to discuss how we can begin to turn CEL projects into drivers for social change to ensure impact and legacy of projects. After hearing an example of a CEL project from the School of Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the University of Bristol, the workshop will discuss how we collaborate with our communities for projects before moving onto how we can empower CEL participants to create and demand change. How do we encourage and drive action? How can we do this within our communities, our student body, our universities and our network? How can we collaborate and connect with communities instead of creating projects for the community?