OUR CASE STUDIES
RESEARCH THAT MATTERS
RESEARCH
Institute for Global Innovation
Through our Institute for Global Innovation we aim to inspire, support, and deliver world-leading, interdisciplinary research that addresses the world’s most pressing challenges.
We believe that research works best when walls are broken down, and this will be critical to achieve the goals and priorities of our Strategic Framework. The Institute for Global Innovation’s role is to make that happen, combining expertise of academics from across the University of Birmingham and offering them the financial and logistical support they need to maximise the potential of their research.
The Institute builds and sustains cross-disciplinary research teams, helping them develop research ideas, and supporting them in their delivery of solutions that will have long-lasting sustainable benefits for the people who need them most. Examples of our research include projects on Gender-Based Violence during the Covid-19 pandemic and Air Quality.
RESEARCH
Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science and AI
The Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Science and AI is a nexus for collaborative research and education at the University of Birmingham, and demonstrates the ambition of our Strategic Framework to make a significant impact to the world around us by drawing on the full breadth of our academic disciplines. Working across all five Colleges, the Institute is developing and fostering a culture of continuous interaction to address important challenges in areas including sustainability, equality, health, and data-driven science. We are building on a foundation of excellence in methodology including modelling, statistics, machine learning, linguistics, optimisation, behavioural sciences, and the social, ethical, and legal implications of technology.
We are developing an exciting and innovative programme of education activities to ensure that every student can study data science and AI. These will join the University’s range of Masters programmes in Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and Responsible Data Science.
RESEARCH
Institute of Microbiology and Infection
The University’s Institute of Microbiology and Infection (IMI) was established in 2011 as a cross-College Institute to bring together academics working in the fields of microbiology and infectious diseases. Since then, it has become one of the largest and most influential research institutes in microbiology in Europe. The IMI has been at the vanguard of innovative research into combatting threats from age-old diseases like tuberculosis, newly emerging pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2, and the enormous challenge posed by drug-resistant microbes.
The success of IMI is evidenced by its significant grant intake, highly cited output in leading scientific journals and its ability to attract excellent researchers from across the United Kingdom and Europe for positions in the institute. Translational research in IMI includes research into novel biomaterials that are intrinsically antimicrobial and the use of modern DNA sequence technologies to map the spread of infectious diseases. The IMI’s expertise in this field was particularly pertinent during the COVID-19 pandemic, when IMI’s researchers had leading roles in mapping the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the United Kingdom and globally. In addition, IMI has made crucial contributions to the creation of the ‘Lighthouse Labs’, the United Kingdom’s high-throughput testing infrastructure for COVID-19.
EDUCATION
Employability Strategy
Our new Employability Strategy is a critical component of the educational aspirations of the Strategic Framework. We will draw on our strong partnerships with employers, organisations, and alumni globally and regionally. With relevance right across all our student groups, the strategy supports a diversity of career aspirations, enabling social capital and connections.
Through the ‘Birmingham Co-Op Model’ we’ll provide opportunities for all our students to engage externally. Making the most of our University partnerships with all types of organisations, regionally and globally, to enrich the student experience, enhance employability, and support students to make connections from their discipline to the world around them.
Our academic support programme to enhance and embed employability is based on a recognition that our academics have a critical role in supporting employability, with the curriculum a powerful mechanism to transform our students’ employability.
Our graduate support programme ‘UoB and Beyond’ acknowledges the challenging labour market our graduating cohorts will face, necessitating an elongation and enhancement of the support offered post-graduation to support positive transitions.
Partnering with employers on diversity and inclusion, through our employer package ‘UoB Diverse’, we will work collaboratively to harness our students’ and graduates’ experiences, backgrounds and perceptions, to shape a more inclusive and diverse future workforce.
As part of their journey, our students and graduates develop ideas that could shape a better world; set within our new student incubator, the ‘Elevate @The Exchange’ programme leverages the deep networks and expertise of the University to deliver a bespoke and expert support programme for student and graduate start-ups, enabling these ideas to deliver impact.
EDUCATION
Programme Framework for the Future
We are engaged in designing and implementing our Programme Framework for the Future (ProFF), which will be an enabling framework and make it easier for us to develop intellectually challenging degree programmes that remain relevant and exciting for next generation students. This flexibility will be key to delivering our educational priorities as part of the Strategic Framework. It is a ‘programme architecture’ and will consist of five ‘programme archetype templates’, underpinned by an agreed, coherent and consistent institutional structure. There will be a reduction in complexity and bureaucracy for staff, and increased opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation in research-intensive teaching. For applicants and students, the ProFF will enable a clearer and more accessible offer at the application stage, more and better opportunities for students to personalise their study pathway once they are here, and a stronger emphasis on future-focused employability skills within the curriculum.
Behind the scenes ‘archetypes’ will enable us to re-energise teaching and further enhance the learning opportunities we provide. For undergraduates, the focus will be on providing learning opportunities with varying degrees of flexibility, offering students opportunities to specialise in a particular subject area or engage in multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary study. For taught postgraduates, the aim is to reinforce our classic offer whilst also supporting the lifelong learning agenda by expanding opportunities for students to build study pathways by ‘stacking’ microcredentials over time. Both undergraduate and taught postgraduate degrees will include future-focussed employability skills, linking with the University’s employability strategy. The overarching goal of the ProFF is to facilitate an excellent academic experience for students and equip our graduates to succeed in their futures.
ENGAGEMENT AND IMPACT
The Exchange
The Exchange uses the University's research, teaching and local, national and international networks to create a place of curiosity, celebration, collaboration and change that brings together communities to shape the ideas and solutions that will make our cities and regions better places to live, to work, and to learn. Opening in September 2021, it is one of the core assets that we will draw on to deliver the aspirations of the Strategic Framework.
The Exchange hosts exhibitions and a public programme co-created with community groups and aligned with the priorities of local stakeholders. It is home to a new policy institute, a business incubator for students and graduates, and teaching in leadership, executive education and in-demand skills.
Located in Centenary Square, The Exchange is a grade II listed building that was originally founded as the Birmingham Municipal Bank. Centenary Square is Birmingham's 'civic heart' and is home to many of our city's most iconic locations. It is part of an exciting new development that will revolutionise transportation and public spaces in the area, making it one of the UK's most attractive locations for work and leisure. Activity in The Exchange helps the University to enhance its civic mission and to deepen its engagement with the public and a range of regional stakeholders.
ENGAGEMENT AND IMPACT
Birmingham Health Innovation Campus
Birmingham Health Innovation Campus (BHIC) will deliver significant economic and health impacts across our region and nationally over the coming decade. It is a major innovation asset that will be crucial to the delivery of the research and impact ambitions of our Strategic Framework, and represents our ambition to drive the pace and scale of translation of new therapies and health technologies, catalysing a regional cluster in life sciences complementary to other life science clusters in the UK. It is set at the heart of our mature academic-health partnership, Birmingham Health Partners (BHP) which brings together the University and local NHS Foundation Trusts – University Hospitals Birmingham and Birmingham Women’s and Children's.
BHIC provides the platform for accelerating the commercialisation and translation of novel therapies and new technologies emerging from our academic and clinical excellence in areas such as genomics, immunology, cancer clinical trials and regulation, and interdisciplinary strengths in health technologies development and evaluation, and health data integration and analysis. Through collaboration with NHS partners and businesses, we will deliver new innovations to the clinic, addressing major health challenges that are relevant to our highly diverse regional population and globally.
The Innovation Campus provides the space to expand an already thriving community of bio-medical and health technology spin-outs and start-ups, providing them space to continue to grow their business in our region. It also provides the commercial mechanism for deeper engagement with the bio-industry, leveraging our partnerships with national industry bodies such as ABPI and ABHI, creating a landing pad for innovative businesses looking to inward invest. Through BHIC, businesses will gain access to the graduate talent, academic and clinical leadership in Birmingham, driving significant real-world benefit from our research, expertise and partnership working.
CIVIC AND GLOBAL
Commonwealth Games
The University is an Official Partner of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, having signed the most comprehensive university partnership agreement in the history of the Games. During the Games the hockey and squash competitions will take place at the University’s world-class sporting facilities. The University will also be the main campus village hosting athletes.
Working closely in partnership with Birmingham 2022 exemplifies our civic and global ambitions. The Games will provide many opportunities for the University to play its part in delivering a successful Games for the city and region, including showcasing the University’s outstanding teaching and research capabilities, providing volunteering opportunities for staff and students, and being the Official Partner of the Queen’s Baton Relay – International Leg as the ceremonial baton travels through Commonwealth nations and territories in the build up to the Games, providing opportunities to promote the city and University across the globe.
CIVIC AND GLOBAL
UoB Dubai
University of Birmingham Dubai demonstrates the University’s commitment to expanding our global reach, whilst interpreting our civic mission in all the contexts in which we operate. It is central to the ambition of our Strategic Framework to become a global top 50 university. With the opening of the second phase in September 2021, the campus will be home to up to 2,900 students drawn from across the world to study a diverse range of subjects including Business, Economics, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Psychology, Law and Education.
Birmingham was the first global top 100 and UK Russell Group university to establish a campus in this rapidly developing international education hub. It offers degrees taught, examined and accredited to the same high standards as those delivered on our UK campus.
As a global university with a civic outlook, the University is committed to playing its part in supporting the UAE as it drives economic progress through knowledge and innovation, whilst contributing to the development of a growing international education hub in Dubai.
CIVIC AND GLOBAL
National College for Advanced Transportation and Infrastructure
By acquiring the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure in April 2021, the University has created a special collaboration between higher and further education, demonstrating our commitment to using our world-leading expertise to benefit Birmingham and the West Midlands. The National College will produce a new generation of highly skilled professionals to lead Britain’s future rail, transport, and infrastructure workforce. By working with local education providers across the UK, we will increase participation for groups under-represented in technical education.
The National College draws on the expertise of the University’s Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education, which is supporting regional growth beyond the Midlands. A £50m centre of excellence in the East Riding of Yorkshire is being developed between Siemens Mobility and the University of Birmingham. This centre will generate long-term skills and investment in the region as part of a multi-million-pound rail research and innovation facility.
The Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education is a lead partner in the UK Rail Research and Innovation Network and is the first Higher Education institute to deliver the Rail and Rail Systems Principle Engineer Degree Apprenticeship to industry partners including Network Rail. The Centre is working across the globe to enhance the future success of railways. Flagship partnerships have included a unique railway education partnership with Singapore’s public transport services provider SMRT – a model that the University is now replicating in other countries – and academic partnerships including Beijing Jiaotong University, Southwest Jiaotong University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
PEOPLE AND CULTURE
Birmingham Academic Career Framework
The Birmingham Academic Career Framework project is an ambitious, two-year project, which is transforming our offer for academic staff – introducing new academic titles, significant support for development (including for our early career research and teaching fellows), and a focus on clearer career paths – including introducing an exciting new career pathway in Enterprise, Engagement and Impact.
Essential to supporting the people and culture ambition of the Strategic Framework, this new approach will accelerate the career trajectory of staff and will improve representation at senior levels in the organisation. In order to achieve this, new Assistant Professors will complete an innovative 5-year academic development programme, successful completion of which will lead to promotion to Associate Professor; existing staff will be able to take advantage of new promotions criteria which are inclusive of all academic contributions.
PEOPLE AND CULTURE
Birmingham Professional
The Birmingham Professional provides an ethos and identity for Professional Services staff to support the research and education ambitions of the Strategic Framework. It is a framework through which activities and opportunities are available to support colleagues to develop, network, and understand the broader context of the University and sector. As part of this, the Birmingham Professional fosters a set of shared values for Professional Services, connects colleagues to career development opportunities across the University, runs events and workshops to develop the skills and capabilities of staff, recognises staff through annual awards and a network of local recognition schemes, and connects people across functional areas.
Throughout its activity, the Birmingham Professional encourages colleagues to develop and share innovative approaches, enables staff to take responsibility for their development, and builds a Professional Services community for which collaboration, within and outside the University, is a guiding ethos. The Birmingham Professional is owned collectively by Professional Services staff, and much of the programme is led by members of the Birmingham Professional Senior Management Forum, established by the Registrar’s Leadership Group to bring together leaders from across Professional Services to work together on issues of people and culture.
SUSTAINABILITY
Birmingham Institute of Forest Research
The Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) is a virtual research institute, established in 2014 to investigate the impact of climate and environmental change on woodlands, and resilience of trees to invasive pests and pathogens. Originally established through a major philanthropic donation, the Institute has received in excess of £45m of funding from Research Councils, philanthropy, and the University, to establish world-class research facilities to provide an evidence base for global sustainable living. The institute is made up of over 100 academics from across the University, and is supported by the Leverhulme funded Forest Edge Doctoral Scholarship programme which provides doctoral training for forest science in the UK for the first time, for 20 scholarships.
Central to BIFoR is the Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment (FACE) experiment, a 20-hectare site of mature oak situated approximately an hour from the University in Staffordshire. The facility is the only such in the Northern Hemisphere and will assess the impact of rising CO2 levels on whole forest ecosystems in mature woodlands, by elevating the atmosphere’s CO2 levels to the levels expected to be experienced by much of the planet by 2050.
To help build an international picture of climate change, BIFoR also connects to long-term ecosystem research networks in the UK, continental Europe, and North America. This includes linking closely with the already operational EucFACE facility in Australia and the AmazonFACE facility in Brazil, and any other forest FACE facilities built in the future.
SUSTAINABILITY
Birmingham Energy Capital
The West Midlands region faces severe energy, business and social challenges; energy poverty is the worst in the UK; there is a high concentration of intensive manufacturing; poor quality air and areas of electricity grid constraint. To work towards overcoming these challenges the University has invested in Tyseley Energy Park, a 16-acre site located in East Birmingham. It has received over £80M of investment from government, industry, and the University to lead the development of innovative energy technologies in partnership with local government and industry. Poor air quality, energy poverty and sustainability are major challenges in East Birmingham and beyond. Tyseley Energy Park is an Energy Innovation Zone ideally located to capitalise on the city’s rich industrial heritage and to play a key role in turning Birmingham into a leading centre for energy solutions. It is helping to shape the ways in which the city develops infrastructure for renewable heat and power, energy storage, clean transport fuels and advanced waste processing.
Tyseley is one of the major assets that will support the delivery of our Strategic Framework across our research, impact and engagement, civic and global, and sustainability pillars. We will build an innovation hub that will provide businesses with the chance to develop their technology in collaboration with University colleagues at the energy park. This hub will be a centre for training associated with state-of-the-art energy, waste and low-carbon transport systems, making a real difference to the people of the city of Birmingham, whilst also creating solutions to real global challenges.
TEP is a hub for technological, societal and policy change and is home to the largest public hydrogen refuelling station in the UK. The University is working with Birmingham City Council on a masterplan for expanding the energy park within the Tyseley Environmental Enterprise District.