Welcome to the October, November and December Hot Topic: Student Partnership Agreement 2024. The Student Partnership Agreement is an engaging and enriching experience for students and staff to come together to work in partnership to enhance the student experience. The Agreement itself is an official document outlining the explicit commitment between Edinburgh University Students Association and The University of Edinburgh to work in partnership with students. One way in which the University supports putting the tenets of this Agreement into practice is through Student Partnership Agreement Funding.  Proposed projects are funded for up to £1000, and must involve both students and staff as named collaborators on the application AND in the work of the project.  The Student Partnership Agreement is reviewed annually, and sets out a number of  priority areas, which serve as the focus for the proposed projects. These priorities are agreed in consultation with students and staff. Once the project is completed, the project holders are invited to write a Teaching Matters blog post to disseminate and reflect on their project. This Hot Topic will celebrate the 19 projects that were funded in the 23/24 bidding round, and addressed the following priority areas:

• Community, wellbeing, and supporting transitions
• Transforming curriculum and engagement with learning and teaching
• Equality, diversity and inclusion

Contributions will include reflections on the following projects:

• Supporting PGT Students through the Dissertation Buddies Programme – a cross-school collaboration (between School of Economics and Moray House School of Education and Sport), by Lianya Qiu, Aubrey, Rie Shigemori, Julie Smith, and Emily Birtles.
• A Celebration of Culture at R(D)SVS, by Thalia Blacking, Ned Binns, Nandini Paalavadyala Sharma, Anna Rickard, Alexi Voudouris, Sílvia Perez-Espona, and Jenna Richardson.
• A network to support PhD students and engage staff members across imaging physics disciplines, by Lucy Kershaw, Michael Langsen, and Carmel Moran.
• Community building at the community garden based at the BioQuarter campus, by Alessia Stanistreet-Welsh, Nick Mullin and Kelly Douglas.

And many more… 2025/25 Student Partnership Agreement Funding It is also an opportune time to raise awareness of the new call for funding for 2024-25. This coming year includes the following priority areas, which are broadly similar to previous years’:

• Wellbeing, mental health, cost of living and student accommodation
  • Developing communities that promote a sense of wellbeing, positive mental health, belonging, and mattering in Schools, societies, and across years and degrees, and the University as a whole.
  • Supporting students through the cost-of-living crisis and the challenging student accommodation context in the city.
  •  Supporting students as they move to the University, from semester to semester, from year to year, as well as beyond the University and preparing for professional working life.

• Transforming curriculum 
  • Recognising the power of learning, teaching, and assessment to transform the student experience.
  • Encouraging meaningful student and staff engagement with the curriculum, including through co-creation of learning, teaching, and assessment.
  • University-wide curriculum transformation and making the Edinburgh Student Vision a reality, and effectively communicating this work to students and staff.
  • Developing students who are: disciplinary experts; ready to thrive in a changing world; and highly employable.
  • Exploring: experiential learning; engagement with global and local challenges;  decolonising the curriculum; generative AI; sustainability and climate change; online, in-person, and hybrid experiences of teaching and learning.
  • Creating a sense of community and belonging in the curriculum.

• Equality, diversity and inclusion
  • Ensuring we work in partnership to promote a University community where all are welcome, respected and nurtured.
  • Making intentional efforts to meet the needs of our diverse community of students and staff, and acknowledging intersectionality.
  • Recognising we may need to change the way we practice to ensure some individuals and groups, who have traditionally been systemically excluded, feel welcome and are enabled to engage.
  • Celebrating our incredible diversity of students and staff.
  • Listening to a diverse range of student voices and perspectives and closing the feedback loop.

Although there is a specific priority area of equality, diversity and inclusion, we expect all projects to include information to highlight how they will be inclusive in their project approach. The funding call for 2024-2025 is now open, with a deadline of Tuesday 8^th October 2024. More information, and the application form, is available on the Student Partnership Agreement Funding webpage.

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Jenny Scoles

Dr Jenny Scoles is the editor of Teaching Matters. She is an Academic Developer (Learning and Teaching Enhancement), and a Senior Fellow HEA, in the Institute for Academic Development, and provides pedagogical support for University course and programme design. She leads the University’s Learning & Teaching Conference, and her research interests include student-staff co-creation, interdisciplinary learning & teaching, professional learning and sociomaterial methodologies.