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Working with local communities around the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus

Posted on by Emily

Through the development of the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus (TQEC) and our network of civic spaces, we aim to deepen our connections with Bristol and work alongside a wide range of partners to find solutions to most pressing issues that affect all our lives.

Tom Sperlinger is Professor of Literature and Engaged Pedagogy and the Academic Director (Civic Spaces). We spoke with Tom about the impact of the new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus on local community engagement and our evolving network of spaces to work with local people and organisations.

With just under two years until TQEC opens, what are you looking forward to working on over the coming year and beyond?

We’re at a really exciting point! We’ve been imagining and designing civic spaces in the new campus for a long time – and they’re now being built.

The main building will feature the Bristol Rooms, a place for staff and students to work with a wide range of partners and communities on shared challenges, and the Story Exchange, a place for curating conversations between people with very different perspectives and experiences.

A room with chairs and co-working spaces
Bristol Rooms

These spaces will enable the University to be a meeting point for expertise from across society to work on urgent issues, ranging from the climate crisis to the future of technology.

One of our exciting challenges over the next two years is to find the right ways to operate these spaces and integrate them with our network of micro-campuses in Barton Hill and Hartcliffe. Through a recent Civic Connections funding call we are kicking off a series of collaborative projects that will take place at the micro-campuses.

The projects cover a really diverse range of activities. The first project in the Hartcliffe Micro-campus in June is a collaboration with the Vet School, the Student Union Paws society and Bristol Animal Rescue Centre who will run drop-in sessions to learn about pet care. One of the recent projects in Barton Hill was exploring Trauma-Informed Practices for translators and interpreters.

We want to bring the University to life in these locations through engaged research, teaching or outreach and create new offers for local communities.

What is the network of micro-campuses?

We created a micro-campus in Barton Hill, after being invited to rent a space at the Wellspring Settlement, about 15 minutes’ walk from TQEC. It’s a place for a full range of University activities – teaching, research, collaboration and more. All our faculties use it, plus many Professional Services teams. Despite its small size, it welcomes over 160 users weekly and has partnered with 58 local and national organisations in the past year.

3 people standing outside a community centre called The Gatehouse
L-R Hannah Tweddell, Lisa Mundy, Tom Sperlinger

We’ve just opened a similar space at the Gatehouse Centre in Hartcliffe and, thanks to a £178,000 funding award from the Office for Students we will be co-developing a new micro-qualification with local partners and communities. We’re looking forward to building new partnerships and exploring how the University can contribute to the skills and enterprise ecosystem in that area of the city.

 

 

 

How do these spaces relate to TQEC?

Network of civic spaces, demonstrated with the Sutton Trust Opportunity Index

The network of civic spaces we’re creating as a result of TQEC – including in the new campus and within nearby communities.

We sometimes underestimate what a once-in-a-generation shift TQEC is for the University. It’s a real reinvention of who and where we are in the city. We want to ensure we make the most of that opportunity, by opening the University up to a much broader range of partners (large and small) and local communities.

According to the recent Sutton Trust Opportunity Index, East and South Bristol are listed in the bottom 10 areas for opportunity in the country. Our micro-campuses are seeking to help improve this stark statistic for communities in these areas, not through outreach but by rethinking the model of the university in these places and helping to make it part of people’s lives.

That’s good for universities too. Covid-19 taught us that global challenges are increasingly being experienced locally. We’re entering an era of uncertainty with the climate emergency, rapidly changing technology, mass migration, and more.

All these challenges hinge on questions of participation; who has a voice in designing the solutions and who benefits from them? The civic spaces model allows us to ensure the University responds to significant global challenges in ways that acknowledge local expertise and brings stakeholders together to devise local responses.

How else is the TQEC civic engagement programme benefitting Bristol?

Working with colleagues in HR, TQEC has been a catalyst for creating the Apprenticeships and Employment Outreach team, led by Rebecca Scott. This team has made a huge difference to the employment opportunities we offer locally.

We’re a key participant in the Share to Support scheme, gifting our unspent apprenticeship levy to smaller businesses, creating 89 apprenticeships across 43 companies. We’re also on track for 1% of our workforce to be apprentices, and thanks to the efforts of the team, were recently named regional Social Justice Employer of the Year by the Department for Education.

What do you enjoy most about your role on TQEC?

I’ve learned more than I can say from this role: about project management, about different perspectives on the University’s role – and about how to be patient! I’ve especially enjoyed working creatively with such a broad range of people, within and outside the University.

I’m really looking forward to working with more partners in our micro-campuses and in TQEC when it opens next year. If you’re interested in getting involved, we’d love to hear from you. Take a look at our webpages to find out how. 

Abdulelah’s reflections: on placement with the Temple Quarter Team

Posted on by Emily
Abdulelah, BSc Business and Management

Over the last few months, Abdulelah has been on placement with the Temple Quarter Programme Team as part of the BSc Business and Management course. 

Abdulelah has been working with the leads for Civic Engagement and Social Purpose, learning more about the civic mission of the University and how the Temple Quarter campus development is helping to progress that in practice.

Abdulelah shares his experiences and reflects on his time on the placement so far.

Why did you choose to do this placement? 

I first came across this placement before I became a student at the University of Bristol whilst I was taking my Kaplan Foundation Course. I was keen to gain work experience and this course stood out to me. From the module description and discussions with the unit leader, I thought this module would be a great opportunity to apply my academic knowledge in a workplace setting. 

What do you hope to get out of the placement?

From this placement, I hope to gain a firmer understanding of the inner workings of organisational efforts tailored to aiding the community. I have been on this placement for just short of four months and can assess that this goal is actively being achieved as I gain more experience engaging with the TQ work environment.

I am currently working on a business clinic proposal which has helped me understand how business cases are developed. By the end of this placement, I hope to continue using what I’ve learned in my course and apply it in real-world situations for the betterment of the community. I also hope that this experience will continue to enrich my learning experience and future work experience.

“This experience has helped me form a deeper connection with the city of Bristol.”

What has surprised you during the placement?

I was surprised was during my Barton Hill visit with Tara [Engagement and Innovation Manager]. Before this, I had not visited that part of Bristol. During the visit, it became apparent that given the Barton House crisis, local businesses serve a vital role in the community. At Café Conscious I saw provisions ranging from toys, bread, jam to Pampers that were provided to aid the community. Seeing this was one of the first instances where my passion for work that empowers the communities stemmed, as I was touched by the efforts of the local business to aid the community in crisis.

How has this placement developed your future aspirations as a workplace professional?

Prior to this placement, as part of my management reflection and development in practice unit, I did not have a full idea of what field within management I would like to pursue. The field of project management was an area of interest, but I did not have any knowledge of the topic from a standardised learning/workplace lens beyond online videos and websites.

During my time with the Temple Quarter team, my professional prospects have become more identified as I would like to work within the field of project management in the future; specifically, within the realm of community engagement and in an organisation from a project management lens that caters to aiding and empowering the local community.

As an international student, this experience has helped me form a deeper connection with the city of Bristol by conducting research on the local area, the issues faced and speaking with businesses regarding their methods of operation. This has enriched my experience as an international student at the University of Bristol.

Down the figurative rabbit hole: Aidan Shilson-Thomas takes us on a historical journey

Posted on by georgina.castledine

Aidan Shilson-Thomas is one of our students who is capturing the rich history of the Temple Quarter site. Read his findings about how a 200-year old visitors book revealed the secrets of Bristol’s imperial past.

History students working in the archives

As part of the team tasked with researching the History of the site where the University’s Temple Campus will be built, our brief sometimes seemed overwhelming: ‘Find out about the people who lived and worked there’. Sounds simple enough?

The land around Bristol’s enterprise quarter has been farmed, worshipped on, industrialised, deindustrialised, developed and levelled time and again for over 1000 years. The campus will be a major development, but from a historical perspective it’s just another blip on Bristol’s map.

With such rich history we were faced with a true mountain of source material. The archival records ran to hundreds of ‘items’, and some of these were hundreds of pages long! It’s no surprise, therefore, that we sometimes chanced on the unexpected. When you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, or even exactly what you’re looking at(!), the smallest detail can take you on a trip through the archives.

On the same land where part of the new campus will be built, 400 men, women, and children worked for John Hare & Co. in the 18th and 19th centuries, producing stunning decorative floorcloths that were sold around the world. A visitor’s log from the 1800s shows that people visited from as far away as Barbados, Cuba and New York.

Reading through the log, I had expected to see some international visitors. But an entry which took us all by surprise was for three signatures which had been marked as being from the sons of the King of Ashantee. What on earth were three African princes doing in a carpet factory in Bristol?

We learned that they weren’t there voluntarily. These princes were hostages to the British government after a treaty with the Ashantees broke down. Whilst in Britain, it was claimed that they had ‘greatly profited by care and attention bestowed upon their education; they [then] engaged in a tour through England to inspect the different manufactories…previous to their return to their native country.’

In light of this we re-examined another entry from an ‘Edward George Jenkinson, in service to the New Zealand government.’ Some digging revealed that Jenkinson was a translator who served the governor of New Zealand, and that he had brought 11 high-ranking Maoris to England in 1863 to teach them about British industry. This was, reported the Scotsman, so that they could ‘obtain such general information respecting the greatness and power of England as may prove a benefit to themselves and to their several tribes on their return…’

The Maori’s were also introduced to Christian leaders and visited the home of John Wesley. The Ashantee princes had received a similar treatment, and the papers reporting on their tour claimed that they had become ‘sincere and true converts’ to Christianity.

From these signatures we discovered a different history of the site to the one we’d been looking for. As a key manufacturing site, an exemplar of British industry and enterprise, John Hare & Co. became a means to carrying out the ‘civilising mission’. It was part of a process of religious and social indoctrination that was meant to acculturate not only the Ashantee princes and the Maori leaders, but also, eventually, the people who they ruled in Britain’s empire.

The history of the site of the new campus can give us a sense of perspective. The campus will be the next chapter in the site’s history, not the first. It was an ‘enterprise zone’ long before we decided to call it one! It also gives us fresh insights into the city that we all live and work in. Bristol has an intimate, complicated and problematic association with Empire. Our site’s history newly reveals one of the many ways that this was forged and reinforced.