• Project Reports and Publications
• Background to the project
• Impact or Engagement?

The project obtained an overview of community, outreach and public engagement activities from a sample of HEIs in London and commissioned market research for quantitative and qualitative data on use and perceptions of social engagement by London HEIs.

Reports on the different research phases can be downloaded here:

Social Engagement by London's HEIs
Summary of research findings and recommendations

Case studies on social and public engagement by London's HEIs
Examples of wellbeing, social inclusion and research

Mapping HE-community interactions
Sample of HE social engagement activities in London

YouGov plc quantitative online survey
Results of online opinion polls conducted in October 2008

Ipsos MORI qualitative discussion groups
Conclusions from focus groups held in March 2009

Project Panel Discussion Notes
Agenda and notes from the six Advisory Panel meetings

For more information on work of this project please contact Paresh Shah. 

London Higher received a grant from the HEFCE allocation to Higher Education Regional Authorities (HERAs) for a two year project to examine how London's HEIs interact with local communities. 

The initial aims of the project were to cover social engagement and outreach by HEIs with a focus on children and young people, employment skills and engagement with older people.

The 18 month project started in December 2007 and had three phases of research:

1)  Semi-structured interviews were conducted with HEI contacts between February and June 2008 to"map" social engagement activities.

2) An online opinion poll survey of Londoners was commissioned in October 2008 from YouGov plc.

3) Perceptions of HEI social engagement were obtained through focus groups organised by Ipsos MORI during February 2009.

The project was originally titled "Social Impact by London's HEIs" (SILH) and the term "social impact" was used to loosely cover community outreach activities by HEIs but the project did not attempt to measure changes in behaviour or non-economic/social returns from HEI engagement.

We eventually decided to change social impact to social engagement in the project title, as this seemed more appropriate than other terms such as social contribution or social agenda.

For further information on the project please contact paresh.shah@londonhigher.ac.uk.