Engage for Change trained and supported university students to research, ideate and implement sustainable changes at their institution.
What is Engage for Change?
Students learn about climate change and sustainable initiatives, connect with others across the university and do work implementing projects to make long-term, sustainable change. Ultimately students develop key skills for life and gain professional experience whilst making a difference.
The student participants receive training in a wide range of topics from research skills to environmental expertise, and receive regular support from staff. Over the course of the 6-8 week programme they are empowered to come up with solutions to challenges they have seen on campus, and work with others across the institution to make change.
We have seen a wide range of projects over the years including introducing a bring your own tupperware scheme to reduce reliance on single use plastic, bringing carbon literacy training to all student societies and ultimately reduce food waste, and facilitating upcycling and sewing workshops on campus.
What’s the impact?
Engage for change supports sustained environmental change at our partner universities, as well as student skill development. This may support universities to:
- Enable wider strategic goals
- Generate added value to student engagement
- Deliver upon civic and social responsibility
In 2022-23
87%
students agreed they better understand how to use their skills to support local organisations
86%
students agreed they developed professional skills from the programme
71%
students agreed the work they completed will positively impact the university
The project motivated me to tackle other issues that upset me by trying to speak up and initiate change instead of just feeling scared.
Lena Dogra, Cambridge Hub student participant
why should we deliver engage for change with your university?
What our university partners value about Engage for Change includes:
- Supporting your strategic priorities. Our programme has dual impact: along with enabling students to be an active part of your sustainability strategy, our student outcomes can form part of your institution’s approach to educational gains as part of the TEF, and support students’ wellbeing, belonging, and employability skills.
- Building students’ confidence, skills and work-readiness. Engage for Change is about creating changemakers, and enabling students to have first-hand experience of designing and delivering projects, making sustainable impact, and advocating for changing or improving practices in their university faculty, department or halls of residence. As ESG becomes more important to companies, programmes like Engage for Change equip students with the confidence, skills and environmental knowledge to be impactful changemakers in their graduate careers.
- Building internal staff capacity and expertise. Engage for Change is a volunteering programme that reaches 40-60 students a year at our Hubs. For many Sustainability or Careers and Employability teams, delivering a volunteering programme at this scale with internal staffing is challenging. Partnership with us enables your institution to kickstart this delivery, build local connections, and use our tried and tested formula. Our external strategy means if you want to internalise the work, we can help – ask us about handover and quality assurance support.
You might also be interested in the Social Innovation Programme and Climate Action.
Engage for Change is part of our ‘Build’ and ‘Embed’ framework.