University of Geneva

Focus: Student Campus Experience
Survey Participants: 602
Comments: 4288
Campuses: Geneva

What we did
The University of Geneva is a large urban estate, with the buildings spread throughout the city. The online Campus Experience Index was distributed throughout to establish trends in student experience. A a small group of 29 students kept a photo diary over a two-week period to help us understand the campus experience from the student perspective. Campus Intuition focussed on teaching spaces, library and study spaces, safety, wayfinding and maintenance, community and social space, accommodation and teaching preference generating a CEI score and comparing it against the score of similar urban universities. 

What we found
European universities are publicly funded institutions and have very different operating models compared to other countries. Interestingly, we found similar issues from students in regard to what makes their environment more or less comfortable. Some of these issues were elevated for UNIGE, and they are limited due to heritage requirements on buildings. Students gave fantastic ideas for small-scale changes, particularly around creating better social and informal study spaces that will help them hang around on campus for longer. 

What next
Findings were shared in a workshop with the leadership team and a group of invited students. This has helped Geneva take an advanced role in building the student voice in business planning. They identified several small-scale projects that could immediately improve day-to-day experience for students.