WE REGULARLY PUBLISH IN-DEPTH REPORTS AND ARTICLES ON TOPICS OF INTEREST TO HIGHER EDUCATION

Tricked again! Another conference, another case study, and another presentation about Activity-Based Working (ABW) in higher education… but “just for professional staff at this stage.” Perhaps one day someone will present a successful ABW project for academics, but we are not there yet.
 

Staff workspace on campus is a unique policy and design challenge, and increasingly so since the pandemic. Individual offices are as empty as their activity-based working fitout counterparts, and estate teams are cautious to take risks that might exacerbate already low occupancy rates. The sector is experiencing an avalanche of internal policy reviews by estate teams as they grapple with how to provide productive and comfortable workspaces without wasting time, carbon and money.
 

The Campus Experience Index has been measuring student experience on campus since just before the pandemic, and what a tumultuous time these years have been for universities! While online learning has matured significantly during this period, pandemic lockdowns and reopenings have provided some peaks and troughs in our data that illuminate the value of the physical campus in the student experience.
 

Wandering across university campuses, it is easy to observe how students behave in different areas at different times. Popular, and typically louder areas will fill with younger undergraduate students while more focused spaces tend to attract postgraduate and mature-age students. As evening falls, the campus becomes quieter and women tend to leave earlier. If they stay they are much more wary of their surroundings.

How long it will be, if ever, until higher education returns to some semblance of normality is unclear. What is important though, is that universities continue to deliver not just education, but the social and bonding experience that comes with higher education. In this report we look at the challenges of creating a sense of belonging pre-Covid, and what factors should be the focus going forward to assist in the recovery effort and build a resilient student experience. 

We are excited to launch this research in partnership with AUDE.

This paper brings to the fore some of the real concerns of Post-Graduate Research Students (PGRs) who are often towards the bottom of a cultural hierarchy within our universities, and who can find themselves overlooked in favour of ‘more valuable staff’ with permanent roles which attract research funding. We’ve interviewed representatives from universities in the UK and Australia to understand the critical space issues facing this cohort; reviewed international literature on the topic; engaged with PGRs through social media and an experience-mapping exercise; and spoken with workplace experts to draw in lessons from other sectors.

The list of challenges for the post-covid university is long, but here’s one flying under the radar: what happened to campus gyms while students and staff were locked down? They closed, of course, like everything else, and some are now struggling to rebound. Like many spaces on campus, gyms and other sport facilities may need a rethink in response to falling campus attendance rates and broader societal behaviour changes.
 

Research based on our global Campus Experience Index indicates that a functional, comfortable and adequately-sized library is central to the student experience. If the library is not in the top five things students love most about their campus (yes, we ask them straight out!) the library is almost certainly underperforming and in need of some attention.