Partnership fund

The Partnership Fund consists of two main elements, designed to provide opportunity for all students to benefit in some way from the fund:

1) A fund to which students can apply for student experience-enhancing activities. This comprises two parts:

• £2,500 to the KeeleSU AcED bursary scheme, which provides an opportunity for any student to apply for some enhancement of their studies;
• £50,000 to support student-led projects; this will be managed through the Keele Key Fund, and act as a ring-fenced extension of the funding already provided for student projects, which is usually extremely over-subscribed. Projects are typically funded at the level of £200-£2,500 and applications are often from Student Societies and Clubs. We have already had one round of applications and will be offering a second round early in Semester 2 in 2018/19;

2) The substantial remainder of the strike fund will be spent on five priority projects, which were chosen to balance support across different student groups and, in particular, vulnerable groups.

• Enhanced out-of-hours student support pilot: funding two staff for 12 months in Student Services, with an estimated cost of approximately £62,000. This project will enhance our current mental health support, with additional, proactive support offered by the team out of hours. While primarily supporting on-campus students, we hope to offer additional support to off-campus students via telephone calls and referrals to external services.
• Off-campus coordinator: funding of a 12-month post (total £28,400) to support a dedicated off-campus coordinator in the Students’ Union. This increases support for off-campus students, including CEC students, and aims to improve the sense of community amongst our increasing off-campus student body, undergraduate and postgraduate. The role will be events and activities-focussed but will also link to pastoral care and is seen as being complementary to the on-campus work outlined in (1).
• Campaigns co-ordination: liberation group support: funding totalling £50,000 to cover two 12-month posts in the Students’ Union, to follow on from the excellent work done by the #NeverOK campaign. The project will support under-represented students and should contribute to improved well-being, engagement and attainment.
• Student well-being officer: funding (£30,000) for a 12-month post in Student Services will support the well-being of students by implementing a whole university approach to promote and deliver positive change across the institution. This is a high priority area, with the scope to benefit all student groups.
• Research into Student Voice from Alterline: (£4,000): work by the Students’ Union with this research company will look into understanding how you want your voice to be heard and how you wish to engage with your students’ unions.

In addition, also as promised in May, we provided a small enhancement for all graduands in July 2018, with a £10 gift card (and we plan a similar enhancement for January 2019 Graduation), and we have contributed an additional £20,000 to the Hardship Fund for 2018/19.