Comment | 'Celebrating local pride both home and abroad'

By Professor Kevin Shakesheff, Vice-Chancellor of Keele University. This article first appeared as a Personally Speaking column in the Stoke Sentinel in October 2025.

When I first arrived at Keele University as the new Vice-Chancellor in September, like anyone starting a new job, I was looking forward to all of the new experiences awaiting me; not just the new people I was getting ready to meet, but crucially getting to know Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire, and learning more about our university’s place in the region.

Now, two months into my role, I'm delighted to say that the move has been everything I’d hoped for and more. Even in that short time there has already been so much to celebrate, and I am filled with optimism by everything I've seen and the people I’ve met, and determination to build on the great work already being done by our university and partners across the area.

I've joined Keele at a crucial time for the higher education sector. Students have more choice than ever before, and with the rise in tuition fees which was announced by the Government last week, universities including ours have to work even harder to showcase the benefits not only for students who choose to go to university, but also the public good that universities do in their local areas and beyond.

In my previous roles before coming to North Staffordshire, improving and celebrating the links between universities and businesses is something I've worked on very closely, and this is also something I want to explore here at Keele, particularly as we seek to develop our new strategy in partnership with Keele colleagues and our wider community. The region has such a rich heritage in industry, manufacturing, and innovation, and luckily there is already a solid foundation to build on at Keele in our contributions to the local economy.

In fact, only last month, we were recognised as one of the strongest performing universities in England for our regional impact by a UK Government research body, with our contribution to the growth and regeneration of the local area ranked in the top 20% across the country.

This is something we take pride in at Keele, and between our work with local businesses helping them to innovate, and the direct impact of our activities on the local economy, I'm proud of the contribution that our university makes to the local area, and keen to expand on this more with more partnerships, new activities, and an even bigger focus on helping our local businesses to stay competitive.

I've also been delighted to meet with our local representatives in my first few weeks. It’s been great to meet with MPs, councillors, and other leaders from across the political spectrum to learn more about their priorities, their ambitions for the local area, and how we at Keele can support these goals.

It's in all of our interests to make Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire an attractive place to work, live, and study, and whether it's more investment in the county, a thriving student population, or more tourists visiting our great region, we can all reap the rewards of that collaboration.

Among those partners who I’ve been privileged to meet in these first few weeks are our local healthcare trusts at Royal Stoke and Midlands Partnership University Foundation Trusts, to name just two of them. Our work with local healthcare providers is something we're really proud of; not only through training the next generation of nurses, doctors, midwives, paramedics and pharmacists, but also the academics who balance their teaching roles with clinical work in our local hospitals, and of course the world-class research that we’re known for which is helping people live longer, healthier lives.

Going forward in my new role I'm keen that this is something we continue to shout about, and that we can build on these existing partnerships to serve the people of North Staffordshire and beyond with quality, research-informed healthcare that changes lives, and helps people.

This pride in our local area is something I also want to celebrate both at home and abroad. I'm very lucky to be able to travel internationally in my role, with our recent launch of Keele University Greece being just one example. One thing I hope to be able to do as Vice-Chancellor is to take all those connections between Keele and businesses in North Staffordshire into the wider world for events such as this, giving businesses at home an international landing pad for expansion, which will benefit the whole area. Collaboration is key and ensures that when one of us wins, we all win.