Civic Impact Dashboard

Understand how your university makes a difference to life in your community

Welcome to the Civic Impact Dashboard. This tool helps you understand how the activities of your university can make a difference to life in your community and the current conditions that are present in your local area.

This tool was developed by The Institute for Community Studies as part of the National Civic Impact Accelerator programme, funded by Research England.

What you can do here

Look at data about your university's civic activities. Access comprehensive information about your institution's cultural and civic work in the community.
Compare your university with others. Benchmark against peer institutions in your region, of similar size, or doing similar types of work.
See information about your local area. Understand the context your university works in, including population, local needs, and community strengths.
Download reports to share with colleagues. Export data, charts, and reports in multiple formats to support your work.

Who is this dashboard for?

This dashboard is designed for staff working in higher education institutions (HEIs) who need to:

Understand and evaluate your university's civic impact
Show evidence of your civic work to senior leaders, funders, or partners
Advocate for civic initiatives within your institution
Compare your work with other universities
Identify opportunities for collaboration

Whether you work in community engagement, public affairs, strategy, research, or partnerships, this tool is designed to support your work.

How to view the Civic Impact Dashboard

The Civic Impact Dashboard is best experienced on a desktop, laptop or tablet. Please switch to one of these devices for access to its visual features.

Why use this dashboard?

Through our work with university staff, we've heard that accessing data is a major challenge when trying to understand and advocate for civic work. This dashboard addresses that by:

Putting all the data in one place

You don't need to search multiple websites

Using trusted official sources

HESA and place-based statistics you can rely on

Making it easy to compare universities

See what's working well at other institutions

Helping you demonstrate your university's contributions

Show your impact to your community

Getting Started

Follow these five steps to explore the data:

Step 1: Choose your university

Click the dropdown menu
Find and select your university from the list

Step 2: Look at the data

Click through the different civic impact tabs
Each section shows a different aspect of civic impact
Hover your mouse over charts and numbers to see more detail

Step 3: Pick universities to compare with

Select other universities to compare against yours. You might choose universities that are:

In your region
Similar in size
Doing similar types of work

Step 4: Understand what the data means

University data (from HESA) lets you directly compare institutions
Local area data shows the context your university works in

Step 5: Download data and reports

To save or share what you find:

Click the download icon (↓) at the bottom of any page
Choose your format:
- Image – saves a picture of the current view
- PDF – creates a document you can print or email
- Data – downloads the numbers in Excel format
- Crosstab – exports data in a table you can analyse
Your download will include the filters you've selected
You can also use the Print option from your browser menu

Tip: If you can't see the download icon, look in the toolbar at the bottom of the Tableau view or try the three-dot menu (⋮) for more options.

Watch our walkthrough tutorial video and explore the Civic Impact Dashboard.

Help Us Improve

Want to help improve this dashboard? We'd love to hear your thoughts.

This dashboard has been developed through a user-centred design process, listening to the needs and challenges faced by staff like you. Your feedback helps us make this tool more useful.

Get in Touch