Research
Quality and Enhancement Manual
Currently, Bloomsbury Institute is not providing or teaching Research Degrees. It follows that the QAA Quality Code’s Advice and Guidance for Research Degrees is not relevant to us at this time and we therefore have not made reference to QAA Quality Code Expectations or Core/Common Practices as we have done in other operational areas within Part Two.
Notwithstanding the above, Bloomsbury Institute nevertheless is very research active as well as being involved in enterprise initiatives.
This section demonstrates our own commitment to Research and Enterprise.
Research
Our passion is to involve everyone in our community, both staff and students, in research, scholarship and enterprise.
Research activities
Our research activities cover the working paper series, research seminar series, widening participation forum, external conference presentations and publications in journals (including peer-reviewed).
Our Research Strategy 2021-24 sets out our three Research Goals and Objectives:
- Develop, support and empower all our staff to achieve excellence in research that has considerable internal and/or external impact, reflected through direct relevance to the needs of commerce, industry, culture, and society; to the public and voluntary sectors; and also to ourselves.
- Design and deliver courses that are informed by research, and through which we will develop and empower students to engage in their own research.
- Monitor and enhance the quality of our research outputs, the internal and/or external impact of such outputs, and the vitality and sustainability of our research environment, and to consider a submission in at least one Unit of Assessment for the post-21 Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Our Research Strategy places the development and empowerment of our staff and students at its core in supporting their efforts to engage in research. This helps us to ensure that we retain and continue to recruit highly qualified, experienced and motivated members of staff who recognise and embrace the importance of research-informed teaching to enhance the student experience.
Whilst we recognise that most of the research activity will be undertaken by our academic staff, our Research Strategy creates an environment that encourages and supports all staff members to engage in research that has internal and/or external impact.
We recognise that being research active is something that takes time to achieve and staff need to be provided with opportunities to start their research journey. As such, our Research Strategy outlines the support we give to new researchers as well as that provided to those with more experience.
The quality of our design and delivery of courses, particularly at Level 6 and beyond, will be enhanced by ensuring that our teaching is informed by research. Our Research Strategy strengthens our commitment to establishing and widening the participation of all staff members (academic and professional services) in research.
Through the implementation of our Research Strategy, we will consider a submission for the post-2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF).
Through our research outputs and the impact of such outputs, we will raise our regional, national and international profile. This profile may be further enhanced through submission to the post-2021 REF.
Enterprise
Our Centre for Community Engagement and Learning opened in August 2021, providing significant opportunity and support to staff engaging in enterprise.
The three over-arching strategic goals for the Centre are:
- To develop an understanding among students, staff and external bodies of Bloomsbury Institute as a civic-minded place of learning with a strong commitment to building community with others.
- To position Bloomsbury Institute as a helpful friend and neighbour in the social, cultural and economic life of London and beyond.
- To develop and maintain good relations with stakeholders, alumni and the wider public.