Professional insight from UCL

University College London (UCL) is a global top 10 university, set up 200 years ago to offer education for all, regardless of faith or social status.

A large globe statue in a campus building

A group of colleagues gathered around a desk clapping

Celebrate university staff with peer-to-peer recognition

Staff recognition doesn’t have to stretch your university communications budget. Peer-to-peer recognition can be cost-effective and make staff feel genuinely valued, write Amanroop Rahal and Sofia Henderson

Amanroop Rahal , Sofia Henderson

UCL

Mixed group of medical students around instructor holding 3D model of the heart

Good medicine: tackling global health inequalities with cross-border student research

Collaborations between the Global North and Global South teach the communication and working skills essential for addressing the challenges of a complex world. Here are key principles to help get such projects going

Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez, Peter Snow, Olutayo Ifedayo Ajayi

UCL, University of Global Health Equity

Staff and students strategising with Post-It notes on a transparnt screen

How to prepare, motivate and reward students who engage in EDI work

EDI work can take a psychological toll on students. Thoughtful discussion and engagement strategies are key, as are psychological support and remuneration, say a medical school team

Lois Haruna-Cooper , Emma Kelley , William Shem Braithwaite

UCL

An online learner smiling at classmates on his laptop screen

Five design principles for meaningful online global learning

As digital technologies transform access to both information and education, how can universities offer distinctive educational value for professional learners online? Maria Cross offers advice

Maria Cross

UCL

‘Close your laptop, use your brain’

How thoughtful technology use and analogue activities can engage distracted students and reduce overreliance on AI

Lauren B. Clark

UCL

Teachers and students working on a project together in the library

Co-creation isn’t simply asking for students’ views

How to prepare, support and work with student co-creators so that diverse perspectives can genuinely shape change

Manjula Patrick

UCL

A woman wearing a headscarf in an office

Beyond access: what Muslim women can teach universities about inclusion

Universities have made significant progress with widening participation, but access alone does not create belonging. Here are four ways to build environments that recognise and support Muslim women

Amena Amer

UCL

A hand pulling out a book from a library shelf

Helping students find and learn from high-quality sources

From celebrating your university library to demonstrating your own source selection process, learn strategies to help students confront increasing misinformation and disinformation online

Tom Hayward

UCL

Birds-eye view of a forest with multiple paths leading through it

Scholarship is not a linear journey: how to encourage students to ‘drift’

The structured nature of academic writing obscures the messiness of scholarship. Meandering is an important part of the research process, says Lauren B. Clark

Lauren B. Clark

UCL

Academics sharing ideas in a university library

How to redesign a university curriculum at scale

Industries are being shaped by AI, climate change and demographic and geopolitical shifts. We must redesign curricula to better prepare graduates, says Kathryn Woods

Kathryn Woods

UCL

A hiring manager shaking hands with a candidate

Recruitment isn’t an endurance test – universities should stop treating it like one

If we want the best researchers, educators and professional services colleagues to choose our institutions, we need to scrutinise whether the processes designed to recruit them are helping or hindering us, writes Angela Goff

Angela Goff

UCL

Campus webinar: Lessons in academic profile building from those who know how

Hear four academics from Campus+ partner institutions in the UK, Morocco and Kazakhstan discuss how to build a reputation as an expert in your scholarly field

Thomas Gift, Lakshmi Goel, Colin Harvey, Riccardo Pelizzo

UCL, Al Akhawayn University, Queen’s University Belfast, Nazarbayev University

Secondary school pupils studying science in a classroom

How to embed outreach into final-year research projects

How to take a proactive approach to ethics approval and use existing university mechanisms to transform outreach into assessed, curriculum-aligned work

Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez

UCL

Use short-form videos to build community in large courses

TikTok-style videos can give a face to a department and encourage students to take an active role in academic life. Learn how to work with students to create them

Ramin Nassehi

UCL

Students working on a project together in class

Turning final-year research projects into community collaborations

How to embed collaboration with external partners into core research assessment to ease pressure on labs while building core employability skills

Nephtali Marina-Gonzalez, Molly McCabe

UCL

A group of multicultural students in the classroom

Help students become language mediators to bridge knowledge gaps

How mediation, translanguaging and a class contract can develop understanding, prevent clashes and promote appreciation for diversity in multilingual classrooms

Mazal Oaknín

UCL

Two primary school students doing a science experiment

How to get primary school pupils interested in STEM

Academics often lack the skills to engage with very young audiences, which can make STEM feel abstract. Charlotte Maughan Jones shares tips on using the right language and understanding what’s important to schools

Charlotte Maughan Jones

UCL

Three school children in class with VR headsets on

Make university study tangible with VR

Virtual reality can help bring complex disciplines to life, widen access and build stronger partnerships with schools. Learn how

Stephen Hilton, Blanka Hilton

UCL, University of Kent

Secondary students solving a maths problem on a whiteboard

Widen access to higher education by improving school attainment

With school attainment a key driver of progression to university, outreach must go beyond traditional interventions to widen access. Matthew Lucas offers five evidence-led ways to design educationally robust programmes

Matthew Lucas

UCL

A close-up of a lab worker looking through a microscope

Turning research sustainability from a tick-box exercise into ‘the way we work’

Sustainability can feel like yet another task for busy researchers. Here are ways to make greener research practices easier – and more memorable

Andrea Hodgetts, Caitlin Broadbent, Hong Zhang

UCL

From polarisation to connection: counterspaces and reverse mentoring in higher education

It takes an intersectional approach, empathy and willingness to listen to cultivate affirming environments for marginalised groups, says Mazal Oaknín

Mazal Oaknín

UCL

How we cut daily lab deliveries by 94 per cent

By cutting down deliveries, you can lower your lab’s carbon footprint, reduce clutter and admin and free up researchers to focus on discovering new cures and treatments. Learn how

Kully Sunner, Stephen Shine , Kelly Newman

UCL

Make laboratory teaching greener with VR

Virtual reality should not replace hands-on laboratory teaching. Used well, it can make practical science more sustainable by reducing avoidable waste and helping staff use real laboratory time more effectively

Stephen Hilton, Blanka Hilton

UCL, University of Kent

A student looks up from a book to check his smartphone

Equip students to champion human creativity over machine outputs

Publishing educators are ideally placed to encourage students to see through the GenAI hype and recognise the value of human creativity. Explore and reflect on the tools with these tips

Simon Rowberry

UCL

Students and a professor in class discussing AI

Why AI literacy must be discipline specific

A one-size-fits-all approach to AI training risks leaving students unprepared for the discipline-specific demands of their future careers. Rose Luckin explores what field-specific AI literacy looks like in practice

Rose Luckin

UCL

Developing more nuanced research on and for LGBTQ+ staff

Strengthening data collection on LGBTQ+ staff supports fairer, more responsive equality policies. Emma Jones and Simon Lock outline strategies

Emma Jones, Simon Lock

UCL

A team of professionals brainstorming in an office

Making a university people strategy real

A university-wide plan to improve working culture works best when team leaders take ownership of it. Donna Dalrymple offers guidance on translating strategy into meaningful change

Donna Dalrymple

UCL

From library to dance floor: how I created an academic Eurotrance album

Academics can use AI-enabled music platforms to transform complex research into their own singles or albums reaching thousands of listeners. Andrew Hudson-Smith explains how

Andrew Hudson-Smith

UCL

A guide to help journal editorial boards introduce ECRs to academic publishing

Academic publishing can be a harsh landscape. Here, a partnership model offers language and strategies to support new authors as they navigate early submissions and review

Jesper Hansen, Kristy Campbell

UCL, King’s College London

Four hands each with a puzzle piece that together makes up an image of the planet

Empower students as co-creators in sustainability education

Co-creation in education for sustainable development empowers students to shape meaningful projects, build practical skills and drive institutional change, as demonstrated by a collaborative initiative between two London-based institutions

Multiple authors

UCL, Queen Mary University of London

A group of educators designing a curriculum

Institutions must work together to build innovative curricula

Collaboration across institutions can drive real curriculum innovation. This guide shares lessons from two east London-based institutions on building partnerships for sustainability and community-based learning

Stephanie Fuller, Rehan Shah, Anne Preston

UCL, Queen Mary University of London

Strategic silencing: how censorship is reshaping scholarly discourse

Restrictions to US databases and scholarly work mean that researchers need new approaches to navigate research absences and silences rather than the more typical information overload, writes Alison Hicks

Alison Hicks

UCL

‘Departmental orthodoxies silence dissent and chill scholarly enquiry’

Universities have not handled ongoing challenges around free speech, protest, academic freedom and safety well, writes John Hyman. Here he offers short- and long-term actions to promote secure, pluralistic campuses

John Hyman

UCL

Principles and practicalities of partnership working with students

For effective co-creation with students, university leaders need to move beyond surveys and get them involved in decision-making. The Russell Group institutions together set out best practice steps for doing this

Deborah Gill, Simon To

University of Southampton, UCL

Tackling declining attendance with the ‘show up’ mindset

A model that instils in students a commitment to ‘showing up’ from day one includes practical strategies for improving attendance and fostering long-term engagement

Maya Cara, Nina Seppala

UCL

Campus Talks: A brighter future for academic publishing

Hear from two academics who are developing publishing solutions that encourage and underpin quality research practices and improve access to scholarly work

Paul Ayris, Philipp Koellinger

UCL, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Welcome to your virtual reality-based classroom

VR innovation can make education truly inclusive and sustainable. Here’s how academics at UCL and Marmara University developed a virtual reality-based building

Stephen Hilton, Blanka Hilton

UCL, University of Kent

An illustration of tiny figures in white coats examining a cartoon brain

Three tips when creating a one-of-a-kind undergraduate degree

Building an integrated undergraduate degree in clinical neurology offered Tim Young a blank slate to work with. Here is how he made it unique

Tim Young

UCL

Female lab technicians carrying out experiments

Developing interdisciplinary courses for tomorrow’s scholars

Many universities are developing new interdisciplinary degree programmes to prepare students for working across sectors on complex issues. But how can we engage faculty in this whole-institution approach?

Anne Preston, Katherine Fletcher

UCL

Pledges and charters in medical schools: catalysts for change or performative promises?

Pledges demonstrating support in addressing issues such as racism and misogyny will often garner interest and may even attract pockets of funding. But they also risk oversimplifying complex problems, writes Lois Haruna-Cooper

Lois Haruna-Cooper

UCL

Female accountange speaking to a colleague in an office

How can accounting educators cultivate highly sought-after graduates?

Accounting education must prepare graduates with the skills to thrive in a profession that is experiencing radical changes

Susan Smith , Richard Murphy

UCL, University of Sheffield

How to harness community knowledge to tackle complex policy challenges

Working with local communities can help uncover new insights to tackle complex social policy challenges. Saffron Woodcraft and Joseph Cook explain how to set up high-impact citizen social science research

Saffron Woodcraft, Joseph Cook

UCL

Universities on Fire climate change podcast

Campus Talks: Unlocking people power through citizen science

Find out how engaging non-academics in research can uncover and disperse new knowledge and ways of thinking that help shape solutions to seemingly intractable problems

Henrietta L. Moore , Joel Bitok, Alan Irwin

UCL, Copenhagen Business School

Unlock knowledge within local communities through citizen social science

With regional prosperity now central to the UK government’s thinking, universities need to transform the way they conduct research to respond to emerging needs and provide solutions to today’s social, economic and environmental issues

Henrietta L. Moore

UCL

I’d tell my younger self that my chequered past would be my strength

With the benefit of hindsight, Anson Mackay re-examines their career path to see lessons in self-compassion and being their authentic self in collaboration and the classroom

Anson W. Mackay

UCL

Young researchers work together on a green city project

Building blocks of university-industry partnerships for positive change

How universities can develop strategic cross-sector partnerships and trans-disciplinary research in order to boost progress towards the SDGs

Tim Bodley-Scott, Ersel Oymak

UCL

Image showing someone forging their own path, off the main road

On students’ terms: offering options in assessment to empower learning

By giving students some control over how they are assessed, educators are likely to see a marked increase in engagement and motivation, writes Paul McFarlane

Paul McFarlane

UCL

Does the UK need an observatory for university engagement with policymakers?

Any such project would need to guard against numerous pitfalls, but the benefits in terms of bringing together various initiatives and engendering new skills could be great

Jonathan Breckon , Sarah Chaytor , Kayleigh Renberg-Fawcett

Capabilities in Academic Policy Engagement (CAPE), Universities Policy Engagement Network (UPEN), UCL

Enable learners to become confident digital explorers

Universities must help students develop digital skills and competencies that will set them up for successful lives after they graduate

Mike Cooray, Rikke Duus

Hult International Business School (Ashridge), UCL

Playful learning: how to get started

Incorporating play into your teaching promotes student engagement and participation, explains Giskin Day and offers tips on how to get started

Giskin Day, Marcus Pedersen

Imperial College London, UCL

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