South Bank Students’ Union: Democracy Research.

Brief:

To understand student opinion to:

•  Identify the gaps in the current representation and democracy structure to enable SBSU to create a new best-practice democracy model that would ensure all student groups feel represented.

•  Enable SBSU to make student led recommendations to the Trustee Board that will lead to the formation of new governance structure along with new ways of working for the teams involved, leading to better outcomes for students in terms of knowledge of, and confidence in, the democratic processes and their representation.

•  Ultimately to improve student participation in the democratic processes, ensure all students feel they have a voice and are supported, enhancing their engagement and University experience.

The project included:

Extensive research across the whole student community including:

•  A comprehensive web survey which was completed by 9.3% of all London South Bank University students.

•  Face to face and online focus groups to  ensure full participation from all key student groups including, apprentices, those on work placement, current representatives, all schools and courses in addition to key demographics: international, BAME, home commuters, mature students and all genders.

•  Make recommendations for a new governance model which wholly represented today’s LSBU students’.

Results:

“Working with Nina has been an absolute delight. Nina was able to quickly understand the specific needs of our Union and provided us with her expert knowledge in market research to help us plan our governance review; coordinate and facilitate student surveys and focus groups and then, finally deliver a robust report with a set of extremely helpful recommendations for the Trustee board

Nina was well organised and very responsive throughout. She not only delivered to brief, but she was able to adapt plans and deliver exactly as we needed when changes came up. As a result, we were able to capture an overwhelming amount of student insight which provided a solid evidence base for a new governance structure proposal which is now in the early stages of implementation.

Amy Eden, CEO