All-staff talk: Community engagement
24 March 2022
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International Paul Inman introduced our all-staff talk on the University’s engagement with the local community. Being an engaged university is one of our four pillars of the University’s strategy, and Paul said that it was vital not to see global and local engagement in competition with one another.
Paul leads on community engagement on the University Executive Board, and in a recent audit showed a wide range of local engagement activity going on across the University. Paul then invited four colleagues to speak about their work with the local community:
Sally Lloyd-Evans is an Associate Professor and Public Engagement Community Research Fellow. Sally spoke about our Community Engagement Fund which was launched last year in collaboration with the John Sykes Foundation. This has provided £50k in funding to 12 projects University colleagues have developed in collaboration with local community groups and charities. These include a project to bring stories to life from Reading Old Cemetery as well as funding for Berkshire’s only refugee football team. The scheme will open for a new round of funding at the beginning of the summer term.
Alice Mpofu-Coles is a PhD candidate and has been working with Student Community Champions, since May 2021 they have partnered with 45 grassroots groups across Berkshire. This year there has been a particular emphasis on working with groups which reflect the diversity of Reading and ensure that all communities are able to have their voices heard. Notable achievements have been getting community groups to attend Fresher’s Fayre and getting local residents to speak at University events for Black History Month.
Professor Lorraine Farrelly is the Head of the School of Architecture and spoke about the University’s ‘urban room’ running throughout March at Reading’s Broad Street Mall. Focusing on the future of Reading town centre, the room acts a space to give communities a voice in the planning process, having been developed in consultation with 82 local groups. It is part of the wider Community Consultation for Quality of Life project to develop map-based model of community consultation across the UK.
Molli Cleaver is a Junior Project Manager in the Knowledge Transfer Centre and covered the University’s ongoing work with Citizens UK to establish an alliance of member organisations in Reading. Citizens UK works to create diverse alliances of local organisations to empower communities and ensure more voices are heard. The University committed in October 2021 to being a founder institution for the Reading alliance and is now working on a membership plan.
You can also access the recording on Microsoft Stream.
Previous talks
- International Women's Day - #BreakTheBias (Wednesday 9 March)
- Engaging the media (Thursday 24 February)
- Disability and Neurodiversity Review (Wednesday 9 February)
- University's role in plans for development of Shinfield (Wednesday 2 February)
- Portfolio Review Pathway update (Thursday 13 January)