University of Wolverhampton recognised for its work on local growth and regeneration
A city university has achieved national recognition for its work engaging with the public and community.
Wolverhampton University is one of the top institutions nationally for local growth and regeneration, working with the public and third sector, and engaging with the public and community, according to new data by Research England.
The group’s Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) looks at the diverse contributions of universities to help level up their local areas.
The KEF allows universities to better understand and improve their own performance in knowledge exchange and provides businesses and other users with more information to help them access world-class knowledge and expertise within universities across the UK.
The KEF groups institutions into ‘clusters', which are institutions with similar characteristics such as size, specialisation, how much research they do and in what subject areas.
Wolverhampton is in Cluster E, which is described as “large universities with a broad discipline of teaching across STEM and non-STEM generating excellent research across all disciplines.”
The data showed that the university had scored highly for local growth and regeneration, public and community engagement, and working with the public sector and third sector, placing it at the forefront of the sector and outperforming others in the cluster.
Wolverhampton also increased its scores to ‘medium’ in research partnerships and CPD and grad start-ups, meaning all scores are ‘medium’ and above for all perspectives, improving its performance since KEF2.
Professor Prashant Pillai, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange, said: “We are delighted to have received recognition for our role as an anchor institution in our region.
"Our priorities are dictated by our place and communities and delivered through purposeful collaborative engagement.
“We work in partnership at all levels; a collaborative ethos and approach that enables us to make the most meaningful and significant contribution in supporting our students and communities.
“Creating and delivering life transforming opportunities in partnership with, and for, our students and our communities remains our core mission and institutional priority."
The University’s KEF submission included examples of key regeneration projects such as the new state of the art Screen School, which opened in March 2022 and the Marches Centre for Excellence for Health and Social Care, which opened in May 2021.
Other notable projects highlighted in the submission include the establishment of a National Brownfield Institute (NBI) in September 2022 at the Springfield campus and the creation of a Cyber Quarter including the opening of the Midlands Centre for Cyber Security (MCSS) at Hereford in December 2021.
