Culture change for civic – what have we learned about effecting change?
For the opening plenary at CiviCon 2024, the NCCPE Co-director, Sophie Duncan chaired a panel discussion involving leaders in the sector, reflecting on the critical dimensions of embedding civic work.
CiviCon – a conference held by the Civic University Network and the National Civic Impact Accelerator (NCIA) was hosted by Sheffield Hallam University in June 2024.
The event, designed for leaders, professionals and academics navigating the civic landscape within higher education, as well as senior leaders who are driving change within their institutions, aimed to highlight exemplary civic initiatives and provide institutions with practical tools to develop and expand their civic involvement.
In the opening plenary, Sophie reflected that in order to realise the potential of civic work, universities need to change how they work. Drawing on the NCCPE's EDGE tool - a self assessment framework created with the sector outlining key areas to focus effort on to effect change: how to involve staff, partners, and publics; developing clarity of purpose; and building effective processes, our expert panel were invited to reflect on culture change from their own experiences.
Jo Heaton-Marriot, Executive Director of Communications and Developent, Teeside University
What have you learned about embedding engagement in your purpose. What has been most challenging?
When it comes to our engagement practice, we often refer to the authenticity of our approach. This might include listening and being willing to hear what is shared, accepting that despite being knowledge-based institutions, we don't always know everything, or understanding that we are sometimes not the right partner to engage with. I have found that returning to our core purpose, and sense-checking our engagement against our reason to exist, tests out whether we're being truly authentic and helps in taking these judgement calls.
Focusing on 'purpose' also helps to navigate the barriers many engagement practitioners come up against. Why should we engage? How do we define engagement? Where does this activity sit? If we can look at engagement through the lens of purpose, these questions are simply answered. We engage because we were founded to (in the case of Teesside University), transform lives and economies. We define engagement as activity that is delivered in partnership with the communities we serve. We can deliver engagement within every aspect of our business- not simply within education.
By returning to purpose, it is possible to have conversations with colleagues that resonate with them. I am not bringing forward a new concept and asking for their buy-in, time or resource. I am interested in what they are already doing to deliver our purpose and where elements of that may offer opportunities for engagement. Or even better, simply be reclassified as 'engagement'.
At Teesside, we have brought our engagement practice under the umbrella of social responsibility- the foundation stone of our purpose. This has allowed us to explore where engagement can be part of areas including procurement, campus development, course delivery and research partnerships. By taking this approach we have been able to build an engagement culture by connecting the dots between already established and thriving areas of activity.
Which isn't to say that this is not challenging. Logically, if we are taking the approach of embedding engagement within purpose, then surely this is an infinite task, as everything we do should be purposeful. It can feel daunting and a task that can never be completed. When I first arrived at Teesside, I made the mistake of starting this without any sort of framework, and genuinely underestimating how much worthwhile activity I would find. Over time, we have agreed focused areas of activity, informed by our communities, and this has helped to rationalise our approach.
How do you address a disconnect or misalignment between the University’s purpose/strategy and how we act/behave.
A strategy, purpose or mission should act as a golden thread to which university leaders constantly return. It should inform corporate decision making, university structure, priorities and projects and underpin both internal culture and external perceptions.
If a disconnect between the two develops, then university leaders need to take this seriously. It might show up in reputational issues, student dissatisfaction, staff disengagement or in underperformance against strategic KPIs. Or in leadership failing to support engagement perhaps?
If you are experiencing this, then I guarantee you that others at your institution are too. You need to find those who are similarly struggling to deliver in their portfolio, and work together to bring this to leadership's attention, in a way that speaks to the priorities of the university. This might be through focusing on the impact to income, reputation or student satisfaction, depending on which lever will resonate most. However, this won't be a quick fix as realignment will require a cultural shift, and that may only come with a shift in leadership.
Nicola Gratton, Associate Professor and Lead for Civic Engagement, University of Staffordshire
Our approach to engagement at Staffordshire University has evolved over many years but it has always had people at its heart. Our approach has been built on a firm foundation of asset-based community development (ABCD) and participatory action research (PAR). It has been these principles that have developed the culture for collaborative working that involves communities as equal partners and bring mutual benefits to our place. We have introduced Staffs CAN, Staffordshire University’s Community Advisory Network, placing community members and voluntary sector partners at the heart of our Connected Communities Strategy. As we reflect on these ABCD and PAR principles and how these translate to practice to ensure our engagement remains ethical, collaborative and continues to meet the needs of those we involve, it encourages to focus on:
What is strong, not what is wrong. Communities can easily be reduced to a sum of their deficits, and academic research or universities and their civic missions, can emphasise this if they focus on solving problems of the place, regardless of any good intentions driving the work. Starting from the strengths in communities, its people, the relationships between them, knowledge, skills, organisations, buildings, heritage and connections can help to shift the subtle power inequalities that arise from being labelled as in deficit and build our engagement on the strengths people bring to it, not what is missing. The skills and knowledges often already exist in communities. Sometimes, we need get out of the way to enable these to flourish, providing the support people want, not what we think they need.
The beneficiaries of the engagement. Meaningful collaboration with communities must be mutually beneficial. We can sometimes assume we know what communities will want out of the relationship with us, but we really don’t know until we ask. This honest conversation can open new doors we didn't even know were there.
Building and sustaining relationship We have always prioritised longer term, deep relationships over engaging large numbers of people in extractive relationships between academics and communities. In a world of short-term funding cycles, this is not easy. Universities must be willing to commit some level of core funding to, at its most basic level, sustain civic relationships to cover the staff time needed to get to know our partners, understand their interests, listen and be responsive to what they say. Universities that can go beyond this, paying communities for their time or at least providing a lunch and refreshments demonstrate the value we place on the communities supporting our work.
The skills we need to do this well. Our engagement often brings people together, working with them in groups and forming a community of focus. Facilitating this is a skilled profession and requires, not only the ability to sustain a relationship with individuals, but also those to manage groups, dealing with issues of power and conflict effectively and sensitively. Becoming astute at understanding power dynamics, including our own position within that, is at the heart of inclusive and ethical engagement.
As resources in Higher Education become increasingly stretched, investing in relationship building can have huge impacts on the ability of universities to fulfil their roles as anchor institutions in ways that put the communities they are part of, and their people, first. Building genuinely equitable collaborations will not only build capacity for smaller organisations in an area but also use all the partners strengths to create places where communities, university staff and students can thrive.
Gemma Adams, Project Manager for the NCIA, NCCPE
Despite having clarity of purpose, and involvement of great people – it is the processes that let us down. What have you learnt about creating processes that are fit for purpose. Where is revolutionary change needed?
Drawing on the Action Learning Process there are many examples of how individuals and organisations are building cultures for engagement to embed civic activities within their work.
Using the three categories of 'Process' from the NCCPE's EDGE tool, I have outlined some discussion points from participants in the action learning where they have undertaken actions that begin to embed civic within institutional strategies or where they believe changes are needed to enable better support for civic engagement within institutions and organisations that work for the benefit of their place.
Support
The co-creation of networks with partners, universities, local authorities and other organisations is driving civic work forward. 'Civic mobilising' and 'civic action' groups are establishing shared language and goals, investing in community listening and setting up structured rules of engagement and guidelines for staff across organisations so they are clear on university priorities. We are starting to see the development of civic agreements which have de-centred the university, focusing instead on all anchor organisations in an area and how they will work together on key priorities and challenges.
The development of processes for gathering and sharing civic activities across a university, ensuring buy-in and the ability to monitor the scale and variety of work being undertaken is a clear need that has emerged from many of the university-led partnerships in the learning process. There are lots of great pockets of work being undertaken but often it can be difficult for an organisation to have an overview of what is being delivered. The mapping and gathering of data requires resources - either staff time or tools to support the work - but as a process could greatly benefit many of the partnerships working within the action learning and the sector as a whole.
Learning
Many partnerships are looking at ways to incorporate social impact and place-based projects into teaching and curriculum to better involve students in the civic agenda and connect across different areas of student involvement across an institution and in the community. Finding ways to articulate the value of involving students in community and to civic partners as well as the wider benefits to students has been given such importance in the action learning that it is one of the largest action learning groups we have.
The NCIA Action Learning Process has has provided space for colleagues to think about their civic working, make connections with each other as peer supporters and critical friends, and push the work forward through the sharing of best practices and resources. How can this space be privileged to allow engagement colleagues to reflect, act and adapt on their work?
And lastly;
Recognition
The inclusion of reward and recognition within HR progression structures can foster a culture of civic responsibility and social impact by celebrating and raising the profile of the work. By leveraging HR structures and promoting staff volunteering and participation, organisations can position staff and student volunteers to use their unique skills sets; for example; charity trustee positions and school governance and build this into reward and recognition structures.
