DMU's new civic and community stakeholder engagement model unveiled

DMU’s Civic and Community Engagement Model

Created: April 2024

Review date: April 2026

Introduction

This document outlines a refreshed approach to civic and community engagement at DMU. With a smaller core team, we’ve taken the opportunity to review what’s working, where the pressure points are, and how we can continue to deliver meaningful engagement with partners, staff and students in a more focused, impactful way.

The new model moves away from a larger number of smaller meetings to a more streamlined set of key events and activities across the year, aimed at encouraging collaboration, reducing duplication, and giving space for celebration and reflection.

This paper highlights how the updated Civic and Community Engagement Model supports KEF priorities, particularly in areas such as public and community engagement and local growth. The next iteration of this proposal will also outline how the model aligns with REF objectives, especially around impact and engagement, to strengthen its strategic relevance across both frameworks.

Previous Structure

We’ve been running:

• Three Civic Advisory Groups (CAGs) – an advisory group open to academic staff and community partners.
• Three Community Partner Networks (CPNs) – informal, collaborative networks open to a wide community partner audience and academic staff.

CAG – Purpose and Role

CAG aimed to provide independent advice and meaningful consultation to the Engagement Directorate, supporting DMU’s civic and community engagement across Leicester and Leicestershire. It offered oversight, constructive challenge, and expert insight to help shape and evaluate the engagement delivery plan, ensuring alignment with local priorities and national policy.

CAG pledged to promote inclusive dialogue, sustainable activity, and community-led responses to regional civic challenges.

The new structure will continue to uphold and support these aims, ensuring strong community engagement and alignment with regional and civic priorities

While there’s been real value in these spaces, we’ve faced a few challenges:

• Overlap in audiences – many people attending multiple groups
• Resource pressures – six separate groups has stretched the team’s capacity
• Lack of coordination – ideas often stayed within individual groups, limiting wider impact

New Proposal – Annual Engagement Model

To streamline efforts and enhance impact, we propose a new structure centred on five key events each year. This model includes one of each of the following event types per annual cycle:

1. Annual Planning and Reflection Meeting

This event aims to bring together key university and community stakeholders to establish shared priorities and identify opportunities for collaboration. The group will define the overarching themes, key drivers, intended outcomes, and stakeholders for the annual event cycle.

This event provides a forum for advice and meaningful consultation to the Engagement Team, offering expert insight to help shape the engagement delivery plan and ensure inclusive dialogue, sustainable activity, and community-led responses to regional civic challenges.

Involvement from varying stakeholder groups to encourage collaboration and challenging discussions.

2. Faculty-Focused Meetings

This event will examine how engagement efforts can support faculty priorities across teaching, research, and local impact. It will bring together key university and community stakeholders to engage in open and constructive dialogue.

The session will spotlight faculty activities, which may include:

• Presenting current research
• Promoting upcoming public engagement opportunities
• Highlighting ongoing initiatives
• Discussing challenges
• Requesting support

3. Theme-Focused Events

Partner-led sessions focused on key topics such as health, education, poverty, climate, or the arts.

This event aim to convene stakeholders from across sectors to take action on shared priorities. Led by theme or sector experts, each session will facilitate meaningful dialogue and aim to influence practice, policy, or collaboration within the relevant area.

We will also consider how to more actively engage civic leaders and formal civic structures through this stream, including councillors, the Mayor, High Sheriffs, and local authority leads. This could be particularly relevant to policy-focused themes or discussions aligned to city and regional priorities.

4. Community Workshops

Practical, partner-led sessions designed to share knowledge, build skills, and promote best practices.

Workshops may cover topics such as:

• Social media training
• Bid writing
• Networking

These sessions focus on skill-sharing and are particularly aimed at supporting smaller organisations to strengthen their impact, especially when working with limited resources.

5. End-of-Year Celebration

An opportunity to reflect on progress, thank partners and showcase success. This will include elements such as:

• Volunteer of the Year Award
• Showcasing Community Challenge Fund projects
• A social opportunity to connect and celebrate

Ongoing Communications

Alongside the events, we’ll keep in touch with partners through:

• Monthly newsletters – updates, funding opportunities, spotlights.
• Social media – sharing stories, opportunities and event coverage.
• Targeted comms – advertising funding (e.g., The Community Challenge Fund), calls for volunteers or collaborative projects.
• We’ll also explore a shared digital space (e.g., MS Teams or SharePoint) to store resources, key dates and materials from events.

Why the change?

This new model offers a number of benefits:

• Simpler and more manageable – five key events instead of six separate engagements with overlap.
• Wider reach, with fewer silos and more cross-sector collaboration.
• Stronger alignment – faculty and theme links make it easier to see the connection between engagement and DMU’s priorities.
• Better use of partner expertise – community-led workshops and events allow us to share the stage.
• Celebration and reflection – making space to recognise what’s working and build relationships

Applications for improving DMU’s KEF metrics and performance

This refreshed model offers an opportunity to improve DMU’s performance in the KEF, in particular in two of the seven perspectives:

1. Public and Community Engagement

KEF requires evidence that DMU has an embedded, strategic approach to public engagement, that we work closely with partners to answer local need and that systems are in place for continuous improvement. It is scored through a self-assessment model, supported by a narrative.

DMU’s current score of 2 (out of a possible 5) is lower than average for Cluster E and reflects a move away from mass volunteering and change of direction for public engagement, which in turn meant it recorded as “developing” rather than “embedded”.

How we can improve:

• Ensure that public engagement is embedded within the updated Empowering University strategy as that is refreshed – align to the messaging set out by Research England
• Use the annual planning and reflection meetings to set engagement goals that chime with civic need and institutional strategy (and that we can demonstrate that in our narrative)
• Build in evidence collection throughout the year and create a bank of case studies, testimonials, quotes, photos
• Use the end of year celebrations to showcase outcomes and demonstrate support of the institutional commitment to KE Research England is looking for
  
  

2. Working with the Public and Third Sector

This is an income-based metric, which we report in the annual HEBCI return that measures how much money we receive from public and third sector organisations.

The new model provides regular, structured touchpoints with these audiences.

How we can improve:

• Use the Faculty-Focused and Theme-Focused events to track when engagement leads to income, so this can be consultancy, joint funding bids, hiring facilities
• Ensure that staff leading on these projects log the activity and liaise with RBI to record it properly for HEBCI and HEIF.