Collaborating with students
Getting Started: Collaborating with students
What is it?
Student partnership involves students working alongside staff as co-creators, advisors, and active contributors to projects, policies, and initiatives that affect their university experience.
This goes beyond gathering their feedback - it involves genuine shared ownership and decision-making power. This can take many forms, from project-specific partnerships to ongoing strategic involvement in university governance.
This approach recognises students as experts in their own experience, bringing valuable lived perspectives, diverse viewpoints, and fresh insights that staff alone cannot provide.
This encompasses the Co-create/design and Empower parts of the framework- for more information on student roles, engagement tools and anticipated effect check it out.
Why and when to use
Student partnerships are most valuable when aiming to:
- Improve course design, delivery, and student experience
- Embed meaningful student voice in decision-making
- Create inclusive, collaborative learning environments
- Strengthen mutual respect and shared ownership of education
Before committing to a student partnership, consider: purpose, resources, timeline, skills match and value it may add. This section will delve more into when to use and not to use collaboration, and scenarios for use.
Dos and don'ts
Successful collaboration with students is built on respect, clear communication, and genuine partnership. By setting clear expectations, supporting their academic commitments, and valuing their contributions equally, you create a positive experience for everyone involved.
Some things we delve into the dos and don'ts around:
Frequently asked questions
The way we implement collaboration will vary depending on the needs of your project or workstream. As such, we often get a lot of questions around things like challenges, what to bear in mind, how to support effective collaboration and much more. Get some insight into these areas, and others, and if you have any questions, reach out!
Links and resources
This section brings together a curated set of research, toolkits, reports, and journals to support your work in student-staff partnership.
These resources offer practical guidance, evidence-based insights, and real-world examples from across the sector.
Methods
Co-creation: Student-led agenda
This section provides practical steps and principles for designing and delivering student-led initiatives that meaningfully partner with staff. It supports students to engage as co-creators, and talks through things such as:
