About our project
The NCCPE vinspired students programme was set up to provide compelling evidence of the impact of volunteering on students, communities and institutions. The project is demonstrating the unique contribution that universities can make through the strategic management of volunteering. Find out more about our project aims.
Resources
We have produced a series of resources based on the work of our project. These include reports from our research, case studies of our pilot projects and other work, and guides to help people develop their student volunteering provision.
The vinspired students Pledge
We are inviting HEIs that sign up to our Manifesto for Public Engagement to work with their students to develop a student volunteering pledge, which will describe their commitment to and support for student volunteering.
The pledge will be specific to your own institution. You can use the resources developed by the vinspired students project to assess how student volunteering can add value to the key purposes of your institution, including: teaching and learning; research; the student experience; public engagement; and recruitment and retention. Our Planning for Change tool will help universities to recognise the value of student volunteering as part of their core strategy.
Research and evidence gathering
We have commissioned two major pieces of research to support our work on student volunteering.
Student Volunteering - background, policy and context provides a benchmark of current activity, a description of different approaches that have evolved, and the tools, resources and methodologies that underpin them. Bursting the Bubble was an in depth case study of six universities, carried out by the Institute for Volunteering Research (IVR) to explore further the motivations for, routes into, experience and perceived impacts of volunteering among students.
More information about our research.
Pilot Projects
We funded ten pilot projects at different universities around the country. Each project aimed to test new ideas and advance our learning about student volunteering around the themes of enhancing good practice, tackling gaps and barriers, and promoting innovation and growth. A showcase of the projects took place during our conference in June 2010, and we have published case studies.
More information about the Pilot Projects.
National Campaigns
We are running three national campaigns, to explore the potential, benefits and challenges of universities working with external partners to deliver volunteering activities on a large scale. We are working with the National Trust, National BioBlitz, and Children's University to develop effective models for a variety of engagement activities.
More information about National Campaigns.
Involving Students in Festivals
We commissioned a study into the involvement of university students in festivals. We produced two publications arising from this work: a report of the results of our research, and a collection of top tips and case studies which showcase different approaches to involving students in festivals.
Student involvement and leadership - Student Advisory Board
Our Student Advisory Board is helping us to develop our strategy and shape and deliver the project. The Board consists of 13 student volunteers from a range of universities around the country, who are becoming powerful national champions for volunteering.
Events
We organised a Launch Event in September 2009, and a National vinspired students conference in June 2010.
Find our what happened at our events.
For more information about any of this work, please contact nccpe.studentvol@uwe.ac.uk
