The principal aim of this network is to co-create spaces for leaders of college-based tertiary or higher education across the UK to come together and share practices, devise solutions to meet their challenges and opportunities and build stronger links with the Advance HE community.
From the outset, there were recurring themes being explored by network members, which included:
- Developing HE ethos (culturally and physically), and creating an HE community within FE contexts.
- Collaboration opportunities for CPD, research and scholarly activity, and sharing best practice.
- Marketing of the CBHE distinctiveness, graduate attributes, and currency of skills.
- Collective campaigns.
- Regulatory bodies and changes, and learning from other national bodies.
CBHE Scholarly Activity & Research Toolkit
This toolkit has been devised through collaboration among the Advance HE College-based HE (CBHE) Network Group. It is a positioning resource to help providers and practitioners understand what they already have in place regarding their research culture, with advice and guidance to take the next steps. The toolkit provides guidance and links to helpful resources to support CBHE providers in developing scholarly activity and research within their institutions and as part of an HE culture. Practitioners will be able to dip in and out of the toolkit as they need without a need to start at the beginning of the toolkit. Read the news story.
Festival of Scholarly Activity and Research 2023
The CBHE Network curated an event centered around College-Based Higher Education (CBHE) with themes including widening participation, teaching and learning methods, mental health, research engagement, artificial intelligence (AI), precarious employment, and HEI-SME alliances.
The event commenced with a welcome keynote by Dr. Nena Skrbic, followed by presentations from various experts. Topics covered encompassed the role of higher education in widening participation, staff experiences in teaching methods, the impact of mental health on teaching and learning, research engagement, the effects of remote teaching on student skills, and the potential of AI in research support.
"It's a great opportunity to meet colleagues and knowing their work. Hoping to collaborate with colleagues to carryout some interesting research." - Mahruf Shohel, The Bedford College Group, Research and Development Manager
Attendees had the opportunity to select from breakout sessions on confidence building, writing practices, addressing precarious employment, and utilising AI in college contexts. Networking and discussions on HEI-SME alliances, modernising education, and understanding group diversity were also part of the program.
The event culminated with presentations on enhancing student persistence, research and scholarship journeys, raising student achievement, and a talk on Fellowship and the Professional Standards Framework by Raj Dhimar, Senior Advisor from Advance HE.
This event took place on Monday 10th July 2023 at Sheffield College and the theme was: “Celebrating College-based Higher Education”.
Members can use the link below to access the resources from the event.
Network Outputs
Besides the creation of the network itself, other key deliverables of this network include:
Insights report
This report on the CBHE network for Advance HE college-based members across the UK summarises the current network and provides recommendations for future outputs.
Online Discussion Space
A curated online space on Advance HE Connect for discussion to continue outside of allotted meetings and sharing of key resources.
Meet the team
