Working in Partnership for Place: Universities for Nottingham initiative delivering on its aims

The Universities for Nottingham partnership, a pioneering collaboration that sees the city’s two world-class universities work together with local partners, has seen strong levels of success since its launch, a new report shows. 

The partnership set out to improve levels of economic prosperity, educational opportunity, sustainability and the health and wellbeing of residents and the communities of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire. Good progress has been made towards achieving these ambitious targets.

The refreshed Civic Agreement, signed by both universities and eight local partners in March 2022, has resulted in several key achievements for Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, highlighted in this new report.

These include:

• Securing the £5.1 million Co(l)laboratory project, which will train 50 PhD students and provide 25 paid ‘Citizen Scientist’ research placements over the next eight years. These roles will aim to work on finding solutions to local challenges, with the first ten PhD projects already underway.
• The development and publication of the Student Living Strategy. The University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University worked in partnership with Nottingham City Council to support the integration of students into their local communities.  The strategy sets out three priorities: Providing diverse and appropriate student accommodation; working together to tackle any waste and noise issues; promoting the benefits that the student population brings to Nottingham.
• Incentivising over half a million individuals to make positive sustainable choices, tracked using the Green Rewards App., This has helped avoid the emission of over one million tonnes of CO2 from the universities and local councils.

In a statement from Professor Edward Peck, Vice-Chancellor of Nottingham Trent University, and Professor Shearer West, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham, they said: “We are very much at the beginning of what we hope will be a constantly evolving partnership journey, but we are immensely proud of the way the partnership has begun to take shape. We are motivated by the challenges ahead and heartened by the clear evidence that working together can have real, lasting benefits.”

Lilian Greenwood, MP for Nottingham South, said: “Nottingham was the first city in which both universities came together to develop a Civic Agreement in this way. This pioneering partnership, which brings together key anchor institutions from across the area, has gone from strength to strength. It is great to see the real progress being delivered against key challenges for our region.”