On Monday 20 January, Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and the University of Nottingham (UoN) kickstarted their new joint campaign to promote a more united city.
Planning for the scheme began in early 2019, and aims to use the expertise and resources of both universities to combat the challenges Nottingham faces.
Professor Edward Peck, President and Vice-Chancellor of NTU and Professor Shearer West, President and Vice-Chancellor of UoN issued a joint statement, and revealed the potential of the project was “striking”.
“As the Vice-Chancellors of Nottingham’s Universities, we agreed to commence the Universities for Nottingham project because, while both of our institutions were making a significant individual contribution to our region, we recognised the potential for further collaboration.”
“Once we started investigating the potential to deliver projects in the local area, the sheer scale and number of opportunities was striking,” they added.
The campaign has already identified the five key areas that it hopes to combat initially.
These are economic prosperity, educational opportunity, environmental sustainability, health, wellbeing and culture, and ‘unlocking’ the universities.
The campaign has been led on social media with the key statistic that every 22 seconds someone living in Nottingham interacts with a facility, programme, student, business or teacher supported by one of the two universities.
Their website also breaks down the positive economic impact that the two Universities have already had in the country, creating almost 30,000 jobs, and over 209,000 alumni.
You can find out more about the developing scheme here.
By Faith Pring
Feature image credit: Universities for Nottingham