Winter Conference Round-Up

This year’s CUBO Winter Conference took place at Aston University, focusing on insight-led strategy for commercial resilience, reflecting the need for university campus and commercial services to continue weathering a storm of challenges.

We heard from a range of speakers giving insight into the current and fast-moving student and accommodation trends, discussed the latest findings from research into belonging and commuting students,  networked with peers and business partners, and got a closer look at Aston University’s thriving commercial strategy.

Here’s some of what we learned....

• UK Government policy favours the eight high-growth sectors (IS-8+2) identified in its Industrial Strategy - this is reflected in the lifelong learning entitlement and indicates a move away from 3 year full-time degrees.
  
  
• The number of students in paid employment is rapidly rising, due to cost of living pressures and maintenance grants not covering those costs. Some students are balancing full time work with a full time degree, spending little time on campus and catching up on lectures online. University teams should consider opening more on-campus jobs up to students.
  
  
• If your institution or service looks like every other one, you are competing on price - whereas if your institution/service feels different, you compete on desire.
  
  
• Students and customers are looking for sustainable universities and venues, so sustainability needs to underpin everything you do. One way to signal your commitment to sustainability is to become a B-Corp - a single department or service can register for B-Corp status instead of the whole institution.
  
  
• Embedding wellbeing into expectations, operations and culture means that staff and teams feel valued and perform better.
  
  
• We need to start putting social spaces with food back into faculty buildings, as that's where many students feel they belong. If staff costs are a concern, consider smart vending solutions.
  
  
• Create more eating areas for those who bring lunch onto campus, including facilities to heat up food. 
  
  
• 73% of participating institutions have seen an increase in commuting students over the past 4 years. The trend appears to be primarily driven by cost of living, with other contributing factors, and the impact on some student housing markets will be significant.
  
  
• In the current market, universities have much more power than they think when exploring student accommodation contracts and offers on their old accommodation stock - negotiate!
  
  
• Setbacks are an opportunity to bounce forward rather than "bounce back" - how can we improve on what came before? For example, the pandemic pushed many businesses online which they have since leveraged to grow beyond their 2019 operations.
  
  
• A NASA study found that 98% of children aged 4-5 scored at a genius level for creativity, but this number declined to less than 2% by adulthood. This is because the educational system favours a single, right answer over idea generation, suppressing creativity. To solve a problem, focus on generating as many imperfect ideas as possible, without judgement. You can test them later!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conference Partners