Goal 17: Partnerships for the goals

Our research

In 2023, the University joined with partners in South Africa and Mozambique to lead a project improving early warnings and resilience to tropical cyclones in southern Africa. Resilience and Preparedness to Tropical Cyclones across Southern Africa (REPRESA) is a £4.8 million international collaboration focusing on the impact of climate-related weather events in Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique. It is part of the Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) initiative between the UK and Canadian governments, and will involve sharing best practice around forecasting and governance structures with local communities.

Bristol researchers have partnered with academics from the UK, Canada, Ukraine, India, and Côte d’Ivoire to lead an international project on global HIV infection rates. The project, which was started in 2023, aims to transform global responses to HIV by gathering evidence and offering policy tools for addressing structural factors such as unemployment, homelessness, stigma, violence and criminalisation which limit the impact of existing HIV prevention strategies for key risk groups.

Our students

Embedding sustainability is a cross-cutting theme of our current University Strategy, with an objective to integrate discipline-relevant aspects of education for sustainable development into the learning outcomes and experience of every University of Bristol student. Supported by our Sustainability Team, every academic School is systematically assessing the baseline of content already included in degree programmes, and academic staff are working to identify relevant additional content, where to include it, and a timeline for doing so. So far, around half of the academic Schools have completed this process, including Physics, Anthropology, Medicine, Innovation and Civil Engineering.

We are an active supporter of the 1 in 5 project, which engages students in issues of biodiversity and climate and environmental change through final year projects. We encourage all programmes to offer relevant projects, and support students who wish to focus their projects in this way. Examples of undergraduate projects and dissertations in 2022/23 include investigating the environmental sustainability of thin film solar panels for renewable power generation in space, and developing a new generation of electrochromic films for smart windows to reduce the energy consumption of buildings.

Our communities

Carbon emissions and unemployment have both fallen significantly in Bristol over the past decade, according to a new report published in 2022 to hold the city to account for its progress in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Within the report, led by our Cabot Institute for the Environment and Bristol City Council, the progress check, which measures how Bristol is meeting the SDGs, also highlights areas of growing challenge, including social inequalities and poverty, which were exacerbated by the pandemic and look set to deepen with the cost-of-living crisis.

FUTURES 2023 is a festival of discovery, organised by the University and partner universities across the South West, with cultural partners such as the SS Great Britain, and the Holburne Museum. It is the largest showcase of research in the region, with over 127,500 people engaging with more than 350 researchers across 26 public, face-to-face and online events. Alongside family and school fairs, talks, virtual exhibitions, social media takeovers and creative workshops, the Festival offered innovative ways of engaging with research, such as community radio shows which were co-produced between listeners, researchers and radio producers. 

Ourselves

The University has strengthened our partnership with the University of the West of England, City of Bristol College, Bristol City Council, and the City Office through the signing of a Civic University Agreement (CUA) in 2023. At the heart of the CUA is a desire to ensure that the local population benefits from the thriving further and higher education sectors in Bristol. This partnership delivers many positive benefits to the city of Bristol including new jobs, apprenticeships, research collaborations and educational opportunities, and provides a strong foundation to work more closely together, using our combined resources and networks to make Bristol fairer, healthier, and more sustainable.

Following the inclusion of our civic mission as the third pillar of the University strategy, the Civic Engagement team was established within the new Global Engagement division. The team is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the global civic pillar, which aims to make a positive impact via the full range of the University’s activities. An Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor Global Civic Engagement was also appointed in 2023, to champion the global benefits and opportunities that we, as a university embedded in our city and region, offer colleagues and external stakeholders.