In my first newsletter of this year: looking after the London Games social legacy; outcomes from the Staff Experience Survey; our inaugural Futures Festival; advisory roles on HE bodies; and the WE Innovate project launches.

Loughborough becomes Spirit of 2012 custodian

After the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the National Lottery Community Fund established the Spirit of 2012 to fund projects and research centred on the lasting legacy from local and national events. Since its inception, the Spirit of 2012 has amassed a huge collection of materials and I am delighted that we have been asked to be the custodian of this archive, ensuring that the Spirit of 2012’s learning, research and impact will remain accessible and free to policymakers, researchers, funders and anyone dedicated to delivering social impact through events. 

Over the last 12 years Loughborough researchers have contributed to the delivery and evaluation of Spirit of 2012 programmes including a feasibility study for a proposed UK Capital of Sport. In 2023 we were appointed as one of the Spirit’s three Legacy Learning Partners to translate the organisation’s knowledge into digital learning resources; one of our projects, In The Spirit Wood, used evidence from the Spirit of 2012 knowledge bank to create a digital storytelling resource to foster positive perceptions of disability and impairment from an early age. 

Future plans for the collection include the development of an oral history archive to enhance Loughborough’s social impact partnership with UK Sport.  The Spirit of 2012 collection complements our world-leading expertise in sport, and continues the commitment made by our Chancellor, Lord Coe, when he was Chair of the London 2012 Organising Committee that the London Games would have a lasting and far-reaching legacy. They were widely regarded as one of the best Games for legacy and the archive we now host will be the foundation for the planning of events such as these into the future.

Headline results of the 2025 Staff Experience Survey

We now have the headline results of the 2025 Staff Experience Survey, with Loughborough retaining its position as a sector-leading university. Once again, we sit above, or in one case equal to, the sector average for all nine themes within the survey.   

More than 2,200 of you had your say on what it’s like to work at the University. Your feedback is crucial in helping us to understand what we’re doing well as a University and where we can change things to truly turn the dial on our staff experience. In the last twelve months alone, we’ve made some major changes because of your feedback. Working together, we’ve strengthened academic line management structures and brought to life the philosophy of GLOW to support better conversations about growth, learning, opportunities and wellbeing. These are all important things you highlighted in previous surveys.   

Of the nine themes measured in the survey, we have increased our score in six compared to 2024. We were especially pleased to see the progress we are making with work on our values – this was the theme that increased most significantly compared to last year. We were also pleased to hear the things you like about working at Loughborough University, receiving lots of comments particularly about the sense of community we have here.   

Given the challenges facing the sector it is encouraging to see such results. However, we cannot stand still; there is more we plan to do as part of our People and Culture Strategy, and your feedback will help us to focus this further. For instance, we’ll be continuing the work to support wellbeing across our community. We’ll be looking at ways to help all colleagues feel recognised – ‘reward and recognition’ continues to be a theme that colleagues feel strongly about and we recognise that this is an ongoing challenge within higher education. And we’ll be further developing organisation-wide skills around feedback and embedding GLOW as the foundation of our colleague experience.   

Your Dean or Director will be communicating your local results over the coming weeks and we will share further details about our University results during February. We will also keep you informed throughout the year about our progress as a result of your feedback.   Thank you for engaging with the survey and for sharing your views. Your feedback really does make a difference. 

New Futures Festival launched

Our first-ever Futures Festival is now in full swing, offering events such as workshops, hands-on challenges and hackathons to help our students explore different career paths, enhance their employability skills and network with employers. The week-long event aims to support them at every stage of their journey, whether they have a clear idea of the path they want to take or are still exploring all their options. 

One of the speakers at this year’s event is Zak Marks (Industrial Design and Technology, 2020). During his final year Zak came up with a concept that could store, monitor and provide training for emergency anaphylaxis medication in public places. With a grant from Loughborough University’s Start-up Fund, Zak and his business partner launched Kitt Medical in 2023 and secured investment from two of the Dragons’ Den entrepreneurs in 2025. To date 1,500 of the kits have been installed in more than 1,000 UK schools and businesses and have also been trialled on our own campus. I was delighted to present Zak with a Vice-Chancellor’s Gold Pin today in honour of his achievements. I’m sure his story will inspire many more of our student to follow their entrepreneurial dream. 

The Futures Festival was one of the outcomes of the academic calendar year project, which was a priority initiative in our Education and Student Experience core plan. By making some changes to our academic year, we have been able to dedicate the week between Semesters one and two to professional and personal skills development activities for our students.   Events such as the Futures Festival are a crucial part of the student experience, which is assessed through the National Student Survey (NSS). The NSS enables us to gain real insight into what our students think we’re doing well and where we could improve. Professor Sam Grogan, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education and Student Experience), emailed you all earlier this week to explain why the NSS, which launches next week, matters. I would encourage you all to consider how you can encourage our students to take part.

Helping to shape UK higher education

I have recently been privileged to accept appointments to two of the country’s leading higher education organisations: to become a board member of Universities UK (UUK) and to join the new Office for Students (OfS) Provider Panel. 

UUK is the voice for 142 of the country’s higher education institutions. It works to bring universities together to take collective action, engage with government to influence policy and provide insight into the role that universities play and the benefits they bring to so many aspects of society. The Board, which is part of the organisation’s governance structure, is UUK’s main decision-making body. 

The OfS is the regulatory body for higher education in England. It ensures that universities are well-run and enable students to have a high-quality academic experience and achieve positive outcomes, and that students from all backgrounds are enabled to access, succeed in and progress from university. The OfS’s Provider Panel will help the organisation to understand the views of the diverse institutions it regulates and alert the OfS to any risks that universities are facing.  Appointments such as these enable Loughborough to play a key role in influencing decisions and policies that are crucial to higher education and other sectors, both now and in the future. I know colleagues across the University are regularly invited to take up advisory roles on national and international bodies or to contribute their expertise to formative projects. I would encourage you to engage with opportunities open to you and ensure you are sharing your knowledge and expertise with influential organisations around the globe.

University becomes a partner in ‘WE Innovate’

This month we launched our first programme as part of the WE Innovate national programme, which is led by Imperial College London to support women-led startups across the UK. Loughborough was announced as a partner in the scheme last year and is the only Midlands university involved in the prestigious network that is committed to breaking barriers for women in entrepreneurship. 

WE Innovate is a six-month pre-accelerator programme running from January to June. Participants benefit from expert-led masterclasses, personalised coaching, and monthly mentoring sessions, all designed to help transform early-stage ideas into viable, investor-ready ventures. 

Each year five standout teams are chosen to pitch their ventures in a high-profile competition held in May, where they compete for a share of a £30,000 prize fund as well as legal support and leadership coaching. The programme is open to current students, alumni within two years of graduating, and PhD researchers who are looking to spin out ventures. Since its launch ten years ago, the WE Innovate programme has supported more than 500 women entrepreneurs, helping them to raise over £88million in funding and lead high-growth ventures in sectors such as health, sustainability and deep tech.  

In our first call for participation, we received 38 expressions of interest, with 20 female founders selected to join the six month programme at Loughborough, which is supported by staff from the Loughborough Enterprise Network and the Research and Innovation Office. I am incredibly proud of the entrepreneurial culture we have here at Loughborough and am delighted that our partnership in this programme will enable us to expand the support and opportunities available to our women-led start-ups. I look forward to seeing how the first cohort of funders progress. 

LinkedIn newsletter launched 

The Loughborough Research Edit will be released monthly and include stories on research projects, features on staff awards and honours, and thought leadership pieces. It’s a great way to share with your networks how our research, people and discoveries are making a real difference.

Partnership for a Net Zero future 

The Manufacturing Technology Centre, a research and technology organisation at the forefront of manufacturing innovation, has partnered with Loughborough University to fasttrack the development of hydrogencompatible systems for aerospace, automotive and power generation.