Taking lead in engaging with people

RECENTLY The University of Northampton signed the Manifesto for Public Engagement – ‘The Engaged University’ – in partnership with the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE).

With this agreement, we have publicly stated that we believe universities and research institutes have a major responsibility to contribute to society through public engagement and that we have much to gain in return.

But what does it actually mean – to you, to us, to the wider community?

The University of Northampton is committed to sharing our knowledge, resources and skills with the public and to listening to and learning from the expertise and insight of the different communities with which we engage.

Critics claim universities have been inward facing for too long. In response we want to open up our ‘offer’ to as many people as possible.

We actively encourage life-long learning and in a previous column I’ve mentioned our involvement with two University

Technical Colleges in the county for 14 to 19 year olds and we see no reason why higher education institutions shouldn’t start engaging even earlier with students.

Our aim is to work in collaboration and provide exciting study-related opportunities, cultural events, business advice, research and consultancy which are meaningful and contribute to making

Northamptonshire an even better place to work, socialise and study.

You may have heard about the work we are doing with social enterprise - we’re aiming to be the leading UK university for social enterprise by 2015, but did you know about the benefits of social enterprise to our community and how it will actually affect you?

This work and our vision is at the very heart of public engagement.

In a nutshell, social enterprises are businesses which are set up primarily to benefit the people that work in them and their stakeholders, not shareholder interest.

They often address social concerns and issues, working to improve the wellbeing

and prospects of communities, and are run by a diverse selection of like-minded individuals – young people including our students, community groups, schools and business people. They work ethically and reinvest their profits in ways that help make a difference to their communities.

Social enterprise is certainly something you’ll see the university do more of over the next few years, but we also want to inspire people to set up their own social enterprises.

We’re here to help and advise you. Our recent Spark Your Ideas event saw our investment of £68,000 into 22 social enterprises in Northamptonshire, and we have also received over £1,000,000 in special funding to invest in our social enterprise work.

One of these initiatives, in partnership with Exemplas, is a pilot study running across seven counties called Inspire2Enterprise, a social enterprise support service.

If you have an idea or proposal for such an enterprise, call the team for advice on 0844 9800 760, email at info@inspire2enterprise.org, or visit www.exemplas.com/Inspire 2Enterprise.

This week’s guest columnist is Professor Nick Petford, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Northampton.