Repository: United Kingdom
74 results found
Maximising student community engagement to enhance local places: evidence informed advice for universities
Published: 2025
This report builds on NCIA research to offer evidence-informed recommendations for universities on student-community engagement in their region.
Reimagining university-led climate education: evidence- informed recommendations for policymakers
Published: 2025
This paper draws on research into civic climate higher education, undertaken by the Institute for Community Studies at The Young Foundation, alongside analysis of current English climate education policy. It aims to outline new opportunities for evidence-informed civic approaches to climate education, building in the flexibility to enable each …
Harnessing university-owned green spaces for wellbeing: evidence-informed recommendations for policymakers
Published: 2025
This paper connects key findings and recommendations emerging from the Institute for Community Studies’ research on university green spaces with current and potential policy opportunities. It outlines how policymakers and partners could work with universities and other key stakeholders, particularly estates teams, to drive access to and uses of…
Purpose through data
Published: 2025
From 2022 to 2025, the Institute for Community Studies at The Young Foundation carried out primary and secondary research in support of the National Civic Impact Accelerator (NCIA) programme. This included exploring, with a range of academic and NCIA partners, how to create practical resources and guidance to help universities use data to under…
Meaningful engagement between students and local communities
Published: 2025
This research explores the question of what sites and practices of meaningful student community engagement look like, particularly from much-needed student and community perspectives. The report presents five case studies which showcase varied examples of student community engagement practices across England, and explores factors that make enga…
Civic universities and green spaces: mapping report
Published: 2025
This research begins the work of mapping university green space in relation to underlying mental health and wellbeing data, and showcasing some of the good work already taking place in universities across the country. It also explores the potential to scale the methodological approach taken to other universities and places across the UK in futu…
Finding and using data to understand university impact
Published: 2025
This synthesis of articles shares our user-centred approach to co-designing dashboards with universities to support their civic activities.
Understanding Communities: Final insight report
Published: 2025
The Understanding Communities research programme was a collaboration between the British Academy and the Nuffield Foundation, exploring how local communities function and can improve people’s lives.
Universities and ‘economic placemaking’
Published: 2024
This review highlights universities as drivers of local employment and spending, assessing the importance of supporting social mobility, graduate retention, and innovation.
Community Ownership: A Way Forward for Wales
Published: 2024
This report evidences community needs and evaluates existing policies and legislation in Scotland and England, identifying strengths and weaknesses to provide lessons for future “community rights” in Wales. This research was commissioned and funded by Building Communities Trust (BCT) and undertaken by Plunkett Foundation.
Our journey to net zero: Understanding household and community participation in the UK’s transition to a greener future
Published: 2024
Our new report warns the government’s existing net zero transition policies are likely to make the poor poorer, and push struggling communities further into deprivation and exclusion.
This research – which was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and developed with the University of Leeds, University of York and Trinity College Dublin – f…
Community ownership: A better form of business 2024
Published: 2024
‘A Better Form of Business’ is a series of research reports on community-owned businesses that have been completed annually by the Plunkett Foundation since 2011. The reports offer evidence on the needs and health of the community business sector, trends in growth and services, and the important social, economic and environmental impact tha…