Sustainability is at the heart of Yorkshire universities, new report reveals
A new report reveals that sustainability is at the heart of higher education institutions across Yorkshire – including the University of Huddersfield.
The Yorkshire Universities (YU) guide highlights how the commitment across the region’s Higher Education sector to collaborate with external partners and embrace so-called Service Learning enables students to obtain “real world opportunities” to use their skills and help address sustainability needs in their communities.
The positive findings are revealed in the Yorkshire Universities’ Good Practice Guide for Engaging Students with Sustainability through Service Learning, published on 24 June 2024.
Service Learning refers to educational experience based upon a collaborative partnership between a university and the community.
The guide is designed as a blueprint that can be used by other institutions wishing to drive student engagement with sustainability. It is the culmination of a 15-month £20,000 pilot project funded by the UPP Foundation which included an audit of the extent to which the 12 YU institutions embedded sustainability in their curricula.
Examples cited include the University of Huddersfield’s Enterprise Team supporting students in developing business ideas as diverse as ‘seaweed leather’ as part of their Enterprise Placement Year through to a business – Reclaim Tentwear - which takes discarded festival tents and turns them into outdoor, upcycled apparel.
(Image: Adobe Stock)In addition, the work at Huddersfield to address sustainability as part of the undergraduate and postgraduate subject curriculum, is highlighted. This includes how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a highly visible component of the University’s unique co-curricular Global Professional Award (GPA), which engages thousands of individuals each year through timetabled sessions in the first and second year of students’ degree study.
Through the GPA, which won the Educate North Awards 2024 Diversity, Equality and Inclusion prize in April, students work in groups to identify SDGs which speak to their concerns and research locally available opportunities for them to get involved.
The new guide states the YU audit “found evidence of significant dedication to sustainability across all twelve member institutions”. Whether it is through student-led conferences, carbon literacy training or working together on community-focused projects, the universities acknowledge the “pivotal role” sustainability plays in their curricula.
The guide demonstrates that Service Learning has been embraced in a raft of ways and that students across the region gained invaluable experience in helping to solve real-life sustainability-related challenges in their communities.
The GPA team winning the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion prize at the Educate North Awards 2024As part of the pilot, all twelve YU member institutions were given £1,000 to use towards boosting Sustainability Service Learning activity and providing experiential learning opportunities.
At Huddersfield two student Green Champions were employed to produce social media content and undertake direct face to face marketing to promote the Green Volunteering Programme to International Students and the wider student population.
The project resulted in the creation of student-friendly marketing and helped increase engagement in a flagship ‘Big Clean Green Canal Week’ which was undertaken in partnership with the Canal and River Trust and supported by the Students Union.
Encouragingly, institutions reported that even a small amount of seed funding made a considerable positive difference, illustrating that small investments can yield significant outcomes.
Monika Antal, Assistant Director at Yorkshire Universities said: “YU is proud to have led this pilot and we hope today’s guide will inspire other institutions to learn from what works in our experiences across the region.
“The project demonstrated there is significant value for universities working in partnership to address sustainability challenges through Service Learning which benefits communities as well as offering students valuable real-world opportunities and experiential learning.
“We also discovered that community partners benefit from a diverse range of student perspectives and small amounts of funding can help to engage a wider range of students who would otherwise not have got involved in sustainability activities.”
Yorkshire Universities is a partnership of 12 higher education institutions in Yorkshire and the Humber, including the University of Huddersfield.