Community and public engagement

Connecting University and community

The community and public engagement team are your first point of contact with the University. We are here to provide you with access to research and teaching initiatives that can benefit your community. Our community partners help us to create meaningful engagement with the public to jointly find solutions to social issues.

Finding community solutions together

Access our projects below for details of how you can get involved as a department, individual or community organisation.

We are proud to have engaged and supported more than 22,000 members of the public on over 200 activities. Through the community and public engagement team, you can access members of staff and students from across the University and our external partners.

Our aim

Our vision is of a different type of university: a university as a driver for social, economic and cultural change that is firmly anchored in communities and serving the common good. We create evidence-based conditions for meaningful and sustainable engagement for the Common Good.

We aim to achieve our vision through five impact goals:

Community and public engagement is valued, supported and embedded in University strategies, staff group and activity in line with our mission as University for the Common Good.

Increasing opportunities to bring community and public engagement into our University curriculum. Enhance learning and teaching and volunteering as an Ashoka U Changemaker institution.

Supporting co-created and meaningful public engagement with research throughout the University, which contributes to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Developing sustainable, reciprocal and equitable partnerships with community organisations, in line with our Civic University Agreement.

Making connections and communicating community and public engagement activity through internal and external channels, social media and our engagement map.

Our commitment to community engagement

GCU has a long and rich heritage of working in partnership with our communities. We formalised this commitment in 2012 with the development of the community and public engagement team and by signing the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement’s 'Engaged University' manifesto.

Community Engagment

Get in touch

We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch via email or follow us on Twitter or YouTube.

Engagement map

Explore community and public engagement by location, organisation and topic with the help of the engagement map.

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Wicketz workshops

Engage with young people from the Wicketz Hubs to build skills and raise awareness of course and career options, while developing your own public engagement skills

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Three Minute Thesis

GCU research graduates present their thesis in just three minutes!

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Case studies

Explore previous community engagement projects across impact goals including SDGs.

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