Our work as an Impact Team involves engaging with themes and ideas coming from Policy. An important theme to have emerged over the last few years has been Place. Place has been prominent in the Government’s Plan for Growth and was discussed numerous times in the Levelling Up White Paper. One of the reasons why it has so much resonance at Wolverhampton is that Place is also central to the University’s Strategic Plan and the identity of the University is bound up with its Place geographically, something given additional weight and presence in the Black Country.

Enabling Universities to Engage Better in their Place: An Outline Toolkit

The Team has developed a Best Practice Toolkit and blog, which is being released through the Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN). The Toolkit is the result of a survey of HEIs, which has provided best practice on how to engage with Place, and which has been condensed in the Toolkit.  A link to the blog on the UPEN Website will appear here once it are finalised. For more information in the meantime, please contact the Impact Team directly.

Seminar Series on Place

The second main development from the Team was hosted by the Association of Research Managers and Administrators (ARMA) and consisted of three seminars, each dealing with a separate Place-related theme. These were: Place and Partnership; Place and Impact; and Place and Funding. A link to the Seminar Series is below:

https://arma.ac.uk/product/place-matters-an-arma-seminar-series/

The resulting Best Practice from the Seminar Series has been distilled into a Checklist, which is also on the ARMA Website, along with a blog. 

You can read more about how the University of Wolverhampton is engaging with the changing character of Place here.

Equality and Diversity

The University of Wolverhampton is committed to issues of Equality and Diversity, and to enabling all staff and students to succeed.  Our policy statements on Equality and Diversity can be found here.  The University holds both the Athena Swan Bronze award in recognition of its work in developing a gender equality plan, and the Race Equality Charter Bronze Award.  The impact of our research in this area has national and international reach - for instance our work on board processes and behaviours have brought new feminist perspectives on corporate governance impacting practices across the sectors.

Useful Links

• About research at the University of Wolverhampton
• Centre for International Development and Training (CIDT)
• Innovation & Opportunity: Our Impact (brochure, PDF)
• Research Policy Unit (RPU)
• Strategic Plan

Policy Engagement and Impact

The University of Wolverhampton is partnered with the following networks, highlighting how our research can impact on policy:

• The Universities Policy Engagement Network, UPEN, is a community of UK universities committed to increasing the impact of research on policy. 
• The UK Universities Climate Network (UUCN) is a community of institutions aligned to their commitment to sustainability and the climate change agenda.
• The Midlands Engine pan-regional partnership, working to accelerate growth and prosperity for every part of the Midlands.
• The West Midlands Regional Economic Development Institute (WMREDI), whose collaborative partnerships with regional stakeholders involved in planning and delivering growth policies for the region.
• The Midlands Impact Group, comprising impact teams from regional Universities