Community of Practice for Outreach and WP Practitioners > Project Report

Project Report

This project has created an online and face-to-face community for STEM Outreach and WP practitioners to share best practice and to constructively evaluate each other’s activities. It facilitated: cross-institutional coordination of events - Inspirational Outreach and Outreach & WP in Practice; discussions to share and sustain current practices and constructive peer reviews by visiting each other’s events. A website to support an Online Community of Practice was created and peer reviews have been facilitated.

By the close of the project, three successful events had been run to aid sharing of ideas and to promote the online community. Through the National HE STEM Programme’s Practice Transfer Adopters scheme, three other universities (Bradford, Hertfordshire and Loughborough) had adopted good practice from the project to enhance and extend their links with local community organisations in the field of STEM outreach.

Finally, the project inspired a £150k national project, coordinated by AccessHE, that built five regional and one national communities of practice in the field of collaborative STEM outreach with third sector organisations.

The final report for the entire project can be downloaded below, followed by a report from the Practice Transfer Adopters' process:

COP - Final Report

Practice Transfer Adopter Report

Project Highlights

1. Facilitated peer review and shadowing between outreach and widening participation practitioners in the South West.

2. Hosted three regional events with representation from SW HEIs, professional bodies and third sector organisations.

3. Successfully transferred practice in the South West to three HEIs around the country who have set up local Communities of Practice by engaging in peer reviews and shadowing.

4. The Community of Practice model has been adopted nationally, with five regional CoPs established alongside a national community of practice for HEI-Third Sector collaborations in STEM outreach, co-led by AccessHE and the University of Bath.