I’m particularly pleased we have kickstarted the new term with not one, but two major publications, which include our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) showcase and a joint report with Yorkshire Universities highlighting the positive impact that our members are making within our regions. I’m also delighted we have visited our first member institution of the year with a trip to The London Contemporary Dance School at The Place earlier this week.
 
Excitingly, we start the year with two new members. We are pleased to welcome Guildhall School of Music and Drama to our growing community of world-leading specialist creative institutions. We also welcome Teesside University London to our dedicated network of London ‘Centres’.
 
In terms of policy priorities, international students remain high on our agenda following the launch of our International Education Strategy for London last year. I’m honoured to have been named as a Commissioner on the new International Higher Education Commission, where I shall be joining our very own Professor Nic Beech (Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex University London) and James Purnell (Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Arts London) to help define London’s role in any future UK-wide international education strategy.
 
Skills are another hot topic for the year and I’m pleased to have attended my first meeting of the London Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) advisory group, led by BusinessLDN in partnership with the FSB London, the London Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the CBI, to ensure the voice of higher education in London is represented in future skills planning for the region. I look forward to involving members in the exciting process of mapping London’s skills needs and opportunities as we move forwards.
 
Finally, I would like to take the opportunity to welcome Mark Corbett to the London Higher team, who has joined us as our new Head of Policy and Networks. Mark takes over the baton from Dr Sally Burtonshaw who sadly leaves us at the end of this month for a new role at Public First. Naturally, we wish her well in her next adventure and thank her for her work reinvigorating our networks over her time at London Higher.
 
We start the year in a strong position to serve our members, and we look forward to being your ‘go to’ HE community in 2023!

Here at London Higher we’ve had an exciting start to 2023 with the launch of our new EDI Showcase.  The Equality, diversity and inclusion showcase looks both to celebrate and share the existing, imminent, and ongoing work that London HEIs are undertaking in this space, but also to mark where the sector stands in its journey towards more equal, diverse, and inclusive practices. The showcase includes examples of activity from across the membership, demonstrating the commitment of providers of all shapes and sizes to improving practice and reflecting the hugely diverse community that is our capital city. You can hear Anna Guntone, the showcase’s author discuss if further here.  

Moreover the showcase aims to recognise where particular strengths lie across different elements of  EDI work. There are many excellent from the showcase but below are just three that I found particularly useful and impactful: 

• London Met’s Race Equity Strategic Plan, which takes a full institutional approach to race equality in the institution and sets quantifiable impact targets. This transparency allows for increased accountability to staff and students regarding the work undertaken. The plan underpins a wide range of wider work, including an Education for Social Justice Framework, racial justice programmes and work to decolonise academic practices.  

• Middlesex University’s Reverse Mentoring Network provides the opportunity for colleagues to mentor more senior colleagues to share differing life experiences and perspectives with those who have greater institutional power or privilege, applying traditional mentoring principles in a different way.  

• Brunel University London’s sensory room supports neurodiverse students with the aim of boosting wellbeing and capacity to learn. The room was designed in conjunction with a final year student Emma Peacock and reflects best practice from other areas of the education such as primary and secondary schools. 

Whilst the showcase demonstrates the excellent practices and activity undertaken across London HE, we also reflect on the journey providers are on and the distance still to go in ensuring London HE is open and accessible to all students. The report concludes with a series of recommendations: 

1. EDI interventions need to be proactive and sustainable to meaningfully address the challenges within any given institution. 

2. Qualitative and quantitative data should be used to understand the success of EDI activity. 

3. Institutions need to collaborative to address common problems, focus resources, and share best practice.  

4. Increased transparency will help drive faster change. 

5. Every institution can commit to EDI work. 

We look forward to working with providers across the membership to support their EDI work, including through our EDI Network, which brings together practitioners and leaders across London HE to address these ongoing challenges.  

If you would like any further information on the EDI Network or to discuss London Higher’s EDI work further please contact Dr. Sally Burtonshaw, Head of Policy on sally.burtonshaw@londonhigher.ac.uk or Anna Gunstone, Policy and Projects Officer on anna.gunstone@londonhigher.ac.uk 

The Christmas period is a quieter time for the London Higher networks before they recommence in earnest in the coming weeks, with busy agendas full of the latest challenges in the sector, sharing best practice and considering how we can create pan-London solutions.  

The Sustainability Network has kicked off our January meetings with a workshop from Shift Insight. discuss issues and challenges relating to sustainability, including behaviour change in HE and the role of research in providing insight. The meeting also included a discussion on the 2023 sector priorities and challenges, as well as the implementation of the London Higher Sustainability Pledge.  

We are hugely excited to welcome Professor Dibyesh Anand, Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster as the new chair of London Higher’s EDI Network. Dibyesh brings a wealth of experience from his work at Westminster. He is an elected staff governor and a co-chair of the EDI Committee and of the Black and Minority Ethnic Staff Network at the university as well as the Chair Elect for the International Studies Association's LHBTQA Caucus. Dibyesh is passionate about challenging the divide between academia and activism and believes in embedding equality, diversity and inclusion in every aspect of life.  

Finally, the end of January brings with it the end of my time at London Higher. I wanted to say a huge thanks to everyone across the networks for contributing to the fascinating and dynamic community that is London HE. It has been a pleasure to work with you all over the past year and a half, to establish many of our networks and undertake projects, convene events and speak to so many of you about ‘what was on your worry list’. My successor Mark Corbett (mark.corbett@londonhigher.ac.uk) has already joined London Higher and we’ll be undertaking a seamless handover over the coming week! 

Good luck to all of you and I’ll continue to follow all your work – I'm staying within the sector so please do stay in touch (@SallyBurtonshaw). 

As always, you can contact Darren and Anna with any questions or queries regarding the networks: 

Darren at darren.desouza@londonhigher.ac.uk or find him on twitter @darren_desouza; 

Anna at anna.gunstone@londonhigher.ac.uk or find her on twitter @AnnaGunstone. 

AccessHE is getting ready for its Action Forums to restart meeting in 2023. We’re excited to be joined by a wide range of speakers, including UCAS, the Barking & Dagenham Schools Improvement Partnership and virtual school, the line manager of the University of Hertfordshire BAME Advocates programme, the architects of the disability adjustment passport scheme, and evaluation specialists from London universities inside and outside our membership to speak about their new strategies. We are excited for the upcoming round of meetings and all the work that will come out of them.  

The Foundation Years Working Group (co-run by AccessHE and London Higher colleagues) had its first meeting in January, bringing together staff from across the London Higher and AccessHE membership to discuss the current situation and possible futures of foundation years funding and practice in London.  

Uni Connect has started work developing collaborative approaches to raise attainment for pupils in year 7 to year 11 (to be delivered in 2023-24). At the end of 2022, we started this work by meeting with 11 AccessHE member institutions, providing them with a brief overview of our approach in developing this strand and hearing about members’ plans for attainment raising activities and possible opportunities for collaboration. To develop these approaches successfully it is vital that we learn from schools about their attainment needs, school priorities, and their views around potential avenues where higher education providers can collaborate to support attainment raising.  Therefore, we are reaching out to schools across all AHE boroughs in January and February to continue the conversations further.  If you would like to hear more or get involved in AccessHE’s work around attainment raising in secondary schools, please email Alex.Muhumuza@londonhigher.ac.uk. 

The London Healthcare Education Group (LHEG) met in January and discussed a variety of issues including the challenges being faced by the sector in relation to Cost of Living issues.  The group explored support and initiatives in different institutions.  There was an update from the two projects which have been funded by the LHEG Project Fund.  The first project is around facilitating implementation of Early Career Academics within Healthcare Higher Education.  The second relates to simulated learning sessions and a filmed resource, focusing on the needs of learning disability service users, for healthcare students and clinicians.  Both projects will provide final reports in the summer.  The group also focused on strategic issues, recognising there are some longer-term challenges facing the sector. 

On Tuesday 24 January we will be launching the 2023 Global Majority Mentoring Programme with an event taking place in London. 

The programme is run as a partnership between London Higher and London Metropolitan University, and sponsored by Minerva, with 2023's programme having 54 mentors and 65 mentees.

Want to find out more? Have a read on our website.

Wellbeing Connect 

The free Wellbeing Connect tool, developed by London Higher, is aimed at students in London wanting to access information on mental health services in the capital. The tool allows students to search for support in a broad range of areas, by topic and by geographic location.  

We know that not all students live in the London borough where they study, and therefore this tool can be an easy way of locating the support that is available both in their home location and their study location.  

By choosing the area in which the student is seeking support (e.g. anxiety and depression) and inputting the postcode where they want to look for support, they will be shown a range of NHS provided services in that area. 

Please do share this information with your students where possible. We are also keen to discuss hosting this on your university website. You can access the tool at: https://wellbeingconnect.londonhigher.ac.uk/ and please get in touch with Anna Zvagule, Senior Communications and Content Officer at London Higher, to discuss further promotion that your university can do on anna.zvagule@londonhigher.ac.uk.  

The BRIT challenge 

The British Inspiration Trust (BRIT) exists to support young adult, student and staff mental health, fitness and wellbeing throughout the UK by delivering their annual BRIT Challenge.   

The next BRIT Challenge will take place between the 23rd January 2023 and 23rd March 2023.   

Universities, Colleges and Students’ Unions can register now, for free, on the website, and have the flexibility to take on the BRIT Challenge in many different ways; setting a timescale that suits the institution (23 days and/or around significant dates in the calendar for example; University Mental Health Day or LGBT+ History Month in February), setting a distance target (23,000 miles, 2,023 miles or a distance target for each campus or department). 

The BRIT Challenge is an inclusive event and students and staff are encouraged to take part in a variety of ways. Some ways students and staff are taking on the BRIT Challenge include; 

• Every student and staff member completing a mile for mental health and wellbeing on University Mental Health Day. 

• 23 minutes of physical and/or wellbeing activity (including meditation, dance, movement, drawing and knitting) for 23 days. 

• Staff being encouraged to take time out to join their students or taking 23 minutes a day out of the office to take part in an activity (many Vice-Chancellors and SU Presidents are taking part on their BRIT Challenge launch days). 

• 23 acts of kindness in the community over 23 days (to promote volunteering and extra-curricular activity, and the opportunity of involving local colleges, schools and the community). 

• Internal Leader Boards to challenge each college, faculty, department or campus to see who can involve the most student and staff (an inclusive engagement challenge). 

• Art Students being challenged to complete a work or art in 23 hours with a theme of mind, movement and destigmatising mental health (then auctioning the works of art). 

Phil Packer, the Founder and Non-Paid CEO of BRIT, is more than happy to visit HEIs in person to brief students and staff should they find this helpful or join on Teams.   

This is a great opportunity to embrace a UK-wide HE & FE Feelgood Challenge that can complement existing mental health and wellbeing plans, helps to destigmatize mental health and provides an opportunity to raise funds for local, regional and national charities, alongside BRIT. 

You can find more info on how to participate on the website: https://www.thebritchallenge.org.uk/ and if you want to get Phil’s details please get in touch with our Senior Communications and Content Officer, Anna Zvagule, on anna.zvagule@londonhigher.ac.uk

National Student Pride 2023

National Student Pride 2023, taking place on Friday 10^th – Sunday 12^th February is the largest LGBTQ+ student event in the UK and for only £10 students can enjoy an incredible weekend in the heart of London. 

It’s an affordable, fun and inclusive weekend including:

• National Student Pride Awards 
• The largest LGBT+ careers fair in the UK, with over 80 exhibitors   
• Panel discussions on Asylum and Migration with Rainbow Migration, Addiction and Sobriety with Attitude Magazine    
• Lipsync competition with UK Drag Race S4 finalist Danny Beard
• Club night takeovers at G-A-Y Heaven with free entry, queue jump and drink deals
• Plus drink deals at other LGBTQIA+ clubs in Soho
• Burlesque brunch
• All kinds of opportunities to meet other LGBT+ students from universities across the UK