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Civic Field Guide

Place

This section of the Civic Field Guide explores the importance of place. 

From neighbourhood partnerships to regional collaboration, this section helps you discover the full spectrum of place-based civic engagement.

A black-and-white illustration showing a woman carrying a young girl on her back, standing in front of a large, impressive university building with multiple towers and modern extensions. The background features green spaces, a tree, and winding paths leading up to the building, with a few red highlights drawing attention to key areas. The scene evokes themes of education, community, and family.

Rooted locally, connected regionally

An important consideration for civic universities is how they define and interpret the boundaries of their physical location.

This section of the Field Guide asks: how do these notions of place create different possibilities and challenges for action?

Here, we focus on civic as physical location – choosing to interpret civic as 'local' activity which is focused on realising benefits in a university's location. This could be hyper-local, neighbourhood, town/city or regional engagement.

What do we mean by Place?

Field Notes at a Glance

Distilled wisdom to guide your path across the terrain.

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Foundational Waypoints

By stepping back and seeing evidence in the round, new insights emerge from the clouds.

Think of these waypoints as signposts, not instructions. They capture shared learning and practical insights to help you navigate your civic journey with confidence, at your own pace and from your own place.

Place Partnership Policy

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Embed hyper-local working alongside strengthening strategic regional partnerships

Balance neighbourhood scale engagement with broader collaborative networks, creating connections across overlapping geographies and diverse community contexts.

Strategic place-based engagement requires universities to simultaneously develop deep hyper-local community relationships whilst building and maintaining strategic regional partnerships that enhance collective impact.

This dual approach recognises that authentic civic engagement must be rooted in intimate neighbourhood-level understanding and relationships, whilst also connecting to broader networks that can amplify local efforts and provide additional resources and expertise.

Universities excel when they demonstrate genuine commitment to specific local communities through sustained, intensive engagement that addresses hyperlocal priorities, whilst simultaneously participating in regional partnerships that tackle shared challenges requiring coordinated responses across multiple places.

This balanced approach enables universities to contribute meaningfully to their immediate neighbourhoods whilst leveraging broader networks to bring additional capacity, resources, and innovative approaches to local challenges.

Success requires understanding how hyperlocal action connects to and benefits from wider systems, ensuring that place-based work bridges different scales of geography, governance, and community organisation for maximum sustainable impact.

 "As a university, our greatest strength lies in bridging the spaces between doorstep and region, joining up the threads of working hyper-locally with the strategic regional partnerships that deliver real results. By fostering genuine relationships with our immediate communities, we remain agile to neighbourhood needs whilst playing our part in supporting shared regional challenges."

University Vice Chancellor

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Key Equipment

Take a moment to reflect on these resources, then see how the next waypoint builds on this learning

Place Practice Purpose Policy

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Universities can boost impact by sharing infrastructure: physical, social and cultural

Open institutional assets to maximise community benefit through shared access to facilities, networks, and cultural resources for collective flourishing.

Universities significantly amplify their civic impact by sharing their comprehensive infrastructure – physical facilities, social networks, and cultural resources – with local communities and civic partners.

This sharing approach recognises that universities possess substantial infrastructure that can serve several purposes, supporting academic excellence whilst simultaneously contributing to broader community development and social cohesion.

Physical infrastructure sharing can involve opening campus facilities, greenspaces, libraries, and cultural venues to community use, whilst social infrastructure sharing includes providing access to professional networks, expertise, and collaborative platforms.

Cultural infrastructure sharing could include enhancing the accessibility of art & cultural events, resources and programmes, and starting with community needs in the design of new cultural initiatives.

Successful infrastructure sharing requires systematic consultation with communities about their needs and priorities, alongside institutional policies that genuinely welcome and facilitate community access. This approach positions university assets as community resources that strengthen local capacity, creating mutual benefit and stronger town-gown relationships.

"Unlocking our campus doors, and minds, reminds us that infrastructure isn't just bricks and mortar: it's a bridge to wider communities. When we invite local partners into our spaces and networks, we amplify what our university stands for and spark new possibilities, fuelling genuine partnerships that drive lasting regional growth."

University Civic Engagement Manager

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Key Equipment

  • 1

    This report demonstrates how universities can leverage their physical estates and campus environments as community health assets. It provides practical examples of universities opening sports facilities, green spaces, and wellbeing resources to local residents, creating shared value through infrastructure that supports both student and community health outcomes.

  • 2

    Our framework provides structured guidance for universities to assess and develop their infrastructure sharing practices across physical, social, and cultural dimensions. It includes self-assessment tools and benchmarking criteria that help institutions evaluate how effectively they're opening campus assets to community partners and identifying opportunities for enhanced collaborative access.

  • 3

    The S.H.E.D™ represents innovative cultural infrastructure sharing, demonstrating how universities can create accessible creative spaces beyond campus boundaries. This dialogue arts space enables meaningful community engagement through shared artistic resources, offering a replicable model for institutions seeking to extend their cultural infrastructure into community settings for collaborative place-making.

  • 4

    The Student Community Partnership exemplifies long-term social infrastructure sharing through collaborative governance structures. This multi-institutional partnership demonstrates how universities can share networks, expertise, and coordination capacity with local authorities, creating permanent infrastructure for managing student-community relationships and facilitating access to institutional resources across an entire city.

  • 5

    Lukeman Iddrisu's PhD research reveals how universities can embed civic values into physical infrastructure development through strategic procurement. It demonstrates that campus construction projects themselves become shared civic infrastructure when universities use procurement processes to ensure contractors deliver community engagement, local employment, and partnership opportunities throughout development phases.

  • 6

    The Barton Hill Micro-campus exemplifies innovative physical infrastructure sharing by establishing a permanent university presence in a community setting. It demonstrates how institutions create accessible satellite spaces and share estates strategically, bringing academic resources directly into neighbourhoods to overcome barriers and foster genuine partnership.

Take a moment to reflect on these resources, then see how the next waypoint builds on this learning

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Supporting Waypoints

Complementary insights that extend your understanding across the interconnected terrains of civic engagement.

These waypoints offer fresh perspectives to deepen and broaden your civic practice. They're here to complement your journey, giving you the space to explore connections, draw parallels, and engage with ideas that fit your own context.

People​ Purpose​ Partnership Place​

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Partner with communities through co-design and lived experience

Forge collaborative pathways by positioning communities as equal partners, centring lived experience, and creating shared solutions for place.

Practice People Place Process 

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Measure civic impact through quantitative metrics and qualitative narratives

Navigate evaluation complexity by integrating numerical data with community stories to capture authentic place-based transformation and meaningful outcomes.

Purpose​ Place​

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Place-based working complements and enhances global and national impact

Discover synergies between local engagement and international activities, recognising that deep community roots strengthen rather than limit broader influence.

Coming Soon Download

Take the Civic Field Guide with you!

A downloadable version of the guide is coming soon, designed for you to keep, refer to and share with colleagues.

Whether you're navigating new partnerships or refining existing ones, this portable edition will help you chart your civic journey with ease.

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Hidden Gems

Sometimes it helps to step off the beaten path and immerse yourself in a new experience or perspective. 

These hidden gems might help you reflect, refine or spark something new. Click to explore!

Expedition Debrief

Universities committed to place-based civic engagement should begin by developing comprehensive understanding of their local ecosystems, mapping the complex web of organisations, infrastructures, and communities that shape their geographic area.

This foundational work can be supported by using navigation tools that help academics and professionals understand local government structures, health and social care systems, community organisations, and economic development networks.

The Place Navigator provides essential intelligence for building effective partnerships across these diverse local sectors, enabling universities to position themselves as informed, credible partners rather than external actors imposing predetermined agendas.

Line drawing of a bullseye with a location marker.Authentic place-based engagement demands both depth and strategic breadth, combining hyper-local community relationships with broader regional partnerships that amplify local impact.

Universities excel when they demonstrate genuine commitment to specific neighbourhoods and communities through sustained, intensive engagement that addresses hyperlocal priorities, whilst simultaneously participating in strategic regional collaborations that tackle shared challenges requiring coordinated responses across multiple places.

This balanced approach ensures that university civic work bridges different scales of geography, governance, and community organisation for maximum sustainable impact.

Line drawing of three arrows coming out of a box.The terrain emphasises that universities can significantly boost their civic impact by strategically sharing their infrastructure assets – physical facilities, social networks, and cultural resources – with local communities and civic partners.

This asset-sharing approach positions university infrastructure as community resources that strengthen local capacity whilst maintaining primary academic functions, creating mutual benefit and stronger town/gown relationships.

Physical infrastructure sharing can involve opening campus facilities and green spaces to community use, while social infrastructure sharing includes providing access to professional networks, expertise, and collaborative platforms.

Place-based working requires universities to develop sophisticated understanding of local resourcing approaches and impact measurement that captures authentic community transformation across diverse geographic scales and community priorities.

This involves building robust measurement approaches that document both quantitative progress and qualitative narratives about how civic initiatives strengthen community capacity and address local priorities.

Success emerges when universities develop locally appropriate metrics that satisfy rigorous academic standards whilst remaining meaningful to community partners, policy makers, and stakeholders, enabling comprehensive accountability whilst providing evidence of impact.

Essential Equipment

Like a compass and a map, you need the right tools to set you on the right path.

Our essential equipment will help you plan a route and weather any storms along the way.

2025-12-10T14:58:10+00:00

The Geography of Higher Education in England and Wales

This OECD report explores how universities in England and Wales can strengthen their civic role by aligning research and innovation with local priorities, supporting regional growth and tackling inequalities through place-based partnerships.

2025-12-03T17:06:38+00:00

Contributing to Place

This collection of four evidence reviews examines the multifaceted impact of universities on their local places, from improving public health to driving economic development. The reports provide a comprehensive overview of universities' civic role.