In my first newsletter of 2025: a first look at the Staff Experience Survey results, two DigiLab hubs open, new Access and Participation Plan agreed, our response to the growing threat of flooding, and further funding for the Centre for Research in Social Policy.

Results of the Staff Engagement Survey

We now have the initial results of the Staff Experience Survey that we undertook last November to find out how you feel about working at the University. More than 2,300 of you – around 61% of our staff community – took part.

The feedback you give us through the survey is really important, as it helps us to understand what we’re doing well and where we could improve. For instance, as a result of your feedback in previous surveys, we have increased the annual leave entitlement for staff on Grades 1 to 5 and embedded academic line management arrangements within Schools.

The survey questions were grouped under nine themes: purpose, our values, autonomy, enablement, leadership, reward and recognition, wellbeing, EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) and engagement. Overall scores for all the themes maintained their position or improved on the 2023 survey, with ‘wellbeing’ and ‘reward and recognition’ showing the largest increases in favourable responses. The ‘purpose’ theme had the highest overall score, with 82% of respondents responding favourably.

The survey also enables us to benchmark our performance against that of 67 other UK universities. Loughborough exceeds the higher education benchmark in eight out of nine themes. ‘Autonomy’, ‘enablement’ and ‘leadership’ were the highest rated areas above the UK universities benchmark.

Given the continuing challenges in the higher education sector, the results and feedback we received through the survey were very encouraging. There is still scope for us to do more, however. For example, while positive feedback about wellbeing increased, the percentage who agree that their health and wellbeing at work is supported is lower than we’d ideally like.

Initiatives such as the one-to-one health MOTs that we’re trialling, and plan to roll out more broadly, are helping us to address this.  Further details of the results, including a breakdown of the response rates across the Schools and Professional Services, will be made available online in February. Schools and Professional Services will be working locally with colleagues to develop actions to enable us to make further progress together over the next 12 months.

Two DigiLabs launched

In the two years since the University was awarded £5.8m from a new funding pot from the Office for Students, staff across the University have been working hard to develop our DigiLabs project – state of the art technology and facilities focused on four areas: Extended Reality Learning; 3D Data Capture and Visualisation; Robotics; and Simulation, Modelling and Artificial Intelligence.

DigiLabs will enable our students to develop the skills and knowledge to become future fit for a world of work where digital skills, data analytics, virtual and augmented reality play a key part – which aligns with our strategic aim to strengthen our sector-leading student experience through the use of the latest digital technologies.

The first two hubs, DigiLab East and DigiLab West, have now been launched and are in use. The third hub, in the Central Park area of campus, is due to be ready later this year. 

DigiLab East, located in the Leonard Dixon Studio, brings virtual reality to the classroom, allowing students to experience vivid and lifelike sights and sounds in a digital world. It also offers marker-less motion capture, using artificial intelligence (AI) to capture high-quality motion data from video.

DigiLab West, in West Park Teaching Hub, has a 3D immersive wall, robots such as QTrobot, a humanoid designed as a tool for therapists and educators, and GPU workstations, which can process many pieces of data simultaneously, aiding machine learning and 3D visualisation.

Thank you to all those who are working hard to drive the delivery of this pioneering new development. We are keen to ensure that the technology available through DigiLabs is widely used in our teaching. If you would like to explore how you could use it, please do let the project team know.

New Access and Participation Plan published

Universities in England that want to charge above the basic tuition fee cap are required to develop an Access and Participation Plan, which sets out what we’re going to do to ensure that students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups are able to access, succeed in and progress from higher education. This is a priority within both our Education and Student Experience and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion strategic core plans.

Loughborough’s new Access and Participation Plan, which covers the period from 2025/26 to 2028/29, has now been approved by the Office for Students and published on our website. Its four priority areas are:

• Attracting students from less advantaged backgrounds to come to Loughborough 
• Ensuring our systems and practices enable mature students and those with a mental health condition to continue with and complete their degree programmes 
• Driving institutional change by addressing systemic barriers and enhancing opportunities for students from Black and Asian heritage backgrounds and less advantaged backgrounds to achieve good degree outcomes 
• Improving progression for students from less advantaged backgrounds and increasing placement uptake among students from Black and Asian heritage backgrounds. 

We are committed to rigorous evaluation of our access and participation work and alongside our plan we have published an impact report for 2023/24. Among the highlights from last year: we engaged with almost 32,500 young people through recruitment or outreach activity; we invested more than £3.3 million in access and participation financial support for scholarships and bursaries, such as the care leaver bursaries, and more than 2,900 current students took part in Student Success Academy activities.

Our strategic aim is to provide an experience that ensures all students, from all backgrounds and at all levels, feel that they belong at Loughborough and that they are supported to thrive both during their time at the University and beyond. Our Access and Participation Plan helps to focus our efforts in areas where we should and must make a change if we’re to become a more equitable, diverse and inclusive university.

Our response to growing threat of flooding

Flooding is one the most destructive natural hazards that humanity faces with nearly two billion people exposed to its risk. Sadly, we don’t have to look far to find examples of its devastating impact. Towards the end of 2024, for example, areas of Spain endured their deadliest floods in three decades, and not so long ago Pakistan experienced its worst floods in living memory, with more than 33 million people impacted. 

Early in January, heavy rain and freezing temperatures meant areas of the UK were left dealing with widespread flooding, with major incidents declared in several parts of the country, including here in Leicestershire. Around 800 properties in the county were affected and, for the first time, a government agency text alert was used for a severe, risk-to-life warning in nearby Barrow-upon-Soar. Parts of Loughborough were also impacted, with areas of campus submerged under water. Thank you to all those at the University who worked so hard to minimise the impact on our buildings, facilities and roads to ensure that we could resume normal operations as quickly as possible.

Research into flooding – how we examine and address both the causes and the impact – is a significant part of the work under our Climate Change and Net Zero strategic theme. For example, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation Professor Dan Parsons is co-lead of the EvoFlood project to develop a computer model that can simulate the probability of flooding across the world.

Researchers from Geography and Environment and Architecture, Civil and Building Engineering are part of the Centre for Doctoral Training for Resilient Flood Futures (FLOOD-CDT) – a scientific consortium that is training the next generation of environmental experts to best understand how to tackle the growing global challenge from flooding. And Loughborough spin out company Previsico has developed pioneering flood forecasting technology, now used around the world, that enables people and organisations to act quickly to reduce the impact of flooding on their homes and businesses.

The climate emergency is one of the most pressing issues facing us today, threatening food sources, livelihoods, economies and people’s lives worldwide. The Sustainability Strategy we are developing for the University will guide the delivery of all our activity under the Climate Change and Net Zero theme – our research and innovation, teaching and student experience, our partnerships and international engagement, as well as our everyday working practices and the way we develop and manage our facilities and estates. Everything we do plays a part, and we all need to act now.

CRSP partnership with Joseph Rowntree Foundation extended

The work of Loughborough’s Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) around the development of a Minimum Income Standard (MIS), which uses public perspectives to define a socially acceptable standard of living, is one of our most impactful research projects. It is widely used in UK policy and practice; it informs the Real Living Wage, for instance, which is currently paid by more than 15,000 employers, including Loughborough University. It has also been adopted by countries in other parts of Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.

I was delighted therefore to hear that CRSP has secured a further four-year partnership with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), with whom it has worked on the project for nearly 20 years. The expansion of the partnership underlines the Centre’s position at the forefront of cutting-edge social policy research that directly shapes lives. CRSP’s work on the Minimum Income Standard is a great exemplar of social impact and aligns perfectly with the University’s strategic theme to advance Vibrant and Inclusive Communities.