Campus Relations Innovation Fund: 2024 - 2025

This project proposes to hire an SCRG Delivery Officer to organise events and other initiatives to ensure the long-term sustainability of SCRGs work, despite the churn of Sabbatical Officers and society presidents each year. The SCRG unites key student societies to foster dialogue and collaboration despite potential disagreements.

The Delivery Officer will facilitate the implementation and operationalisation of actions from SCRG meetings; providing logistical, communications, and research support. They will also support in organising alumni and social events. Their work will ensure the longevity of campus relations initiatives and build student trust by delivering actions effectively and efficiently. 

The project aims to:

• Enhance Delivery of SCRG Actions: To ensure the efficient execution of collaborative initiatives
• Increase Student Engagement: Through enabling and supporting collaborative events between societies that represent differing viewpoints, fostering greater understanding and dialogue.
• Achieve long-Term Sustainability: To establish a lasting framework for campus relations through alumni engagement and consistent operational support, despite leadership turnover and current affairs.
• Improve Sense of Belonging: To expand the reach of SCRG activities to the wider student body, ensuring all students feel represented and included by having the support to host events beyond those invited to the SCRG.

The impact of the Delivery Officer’s work will be measured through regular review of their progress on actions, measurement of attendance and engagement at events, and through collecting  qualitative feedback from SCRG participants and the broader student body.

This programme proposes to enhance open and free-flowing inter-departmental conversations among students; through sharing experiences and stories.

Students from different backgrounds and departments will be matched together and then provided food/drink vouchers to facilitate them in meeting each other at an LSE restaurant or café for a free-flowing conversation. For each meeting, students will be matched with a different person, and activities and prompts will be provided to students to help them in breaking the ice. A social event or reception will be held for all programme participants, where students can interact again with all the people they talked to, or can seek new connections.

This initial short-term pilot can inform whether this scheme something that should be sustained on a long-term basis and could be scaled up.

The project aims to:

• Break down misconceptions students may have regarding other departments
• Foster interdepartmental collaboration, and an interdisciplinary outlook on world issues or general events
• Enable a community feeling not only within departments, but across the School.

The impact of the scheme will be measured through participation rates, attendance at the wrap-up social event; plus pre- and post-programme surveys tracking sentiment, the number of new connections people made, and how often they meet with these connections after the programme ends.

A proposal to use art as a tool to bring people together, bridge divides, and foster a sense of belonging.

The project will bring together different staff and student communities to create a collaborative art project that represents diversity, unity and shared values. Each phase will be structured to maximize participation, collaboration and dialogue.

The concept will be developed through numerous phases including organising brainstorming sessions with diverse numbers of students, staff, and local artists to generate ideas. A campus-wide call for submissions will allow for broader participation. Collaborations with creative societies and including professional muralists to refine the design will make sure the work has a cohesive visual narrative. This design will then be presented to the LSE community for feedback and approval. 

The project aims to:

• achieve increased dialogue and understanding, break down barriers and build trust. 
• create meaningful interactions between students and staff from diverse backgrounds and groups who might not normally interact.
• create a sense of ownership and pride among participants
• serve as a visual reminder of the community’s shared values.

The impact of the project will be measured by participation, and quality of dialogue and collaboration, in design workshops and painting sessions; feedback surveys (assessing changes in their sense of belonging, trust, and connection to the LSE community); and how the mural is used as a tool for ongoing dialogue and engagement.

An intersectional and cross-party social event that focusses on bridging the political divide in an increasingly divided political climate; by making opportunities to build cross-political dialogue more accessible for people from historically unrepresented backgrounds in politics.

Unlike other events, this event will not be debate orientated but represent a more inclusive environment of mentoring, mutual support and solidarity. The event organisers will collaborate with all political societies, careers societies and sabbatical officers to promote the event and increase diversity of attendees, along with using proportional quotas, based on background, society and ideology. People from under-represented backgrounds will be incentivised to attend, and will be offered a free ticket as a priority. 

The event aims to:

• emphasise the shared experiences in politics of underrepresented groups rather than political divisions
• help the political discourse on campus become more open and tolerant, reducing the risk of conflict. 
• open the door to more collaborative events in future, particularly those which currently appear less feasible due to potential hostility.
• create more goodwill and understanding between students in societies which hold opposing views while also encouraging people from diverse background to engage with and consider a career in politics.

The impact of the project will be measured via pre- and post- event questionnaires, and through future attendance to collaborative and cross-society events. The questionnaires will include questions that assesses participants’ perceptions and understanding of others with different beliefs and their views.

A proposal to fund bespoke, externally facilitated high-quality training sessions for club and society student leaders about Freedom of Speech. This training will deepen our 750+ Student Leaders’ understanding of the principles of Freedom of Speech, both on campus and in a wider Higher Education context, and awareness of the potential risks associated with hosting external speakers who may have divisive viewpoints.

This training will aid students in assessing the possible impact of inviting specific speakers, weighing the importance of protecting freedom of expression against the need to maintain safety on campus. It will also help to ensure the dialogue between different groups and individuals remains in line with LSE and LSESU guidance, and the UK laws on Freedom of Speech.

The training aims to:

• ensure that all student groups are well-equipped to manage disagreements and engage in constructive debates that promote mutual understanding and respect, regardless of their messages or perspectives.
• help to foster open and safe dialogue across campus.
• help build trust and connection across the community and ensure that LSE remains a place where all voices can be heard, regardless of their perspective.

The impact of the training will be measured through student, LSESU staff, and key LSE staff stakeholders’ feedback, and mid-year check-ins with student leaders to assess whether the training has informed their work during the year. 

A proposal for LSE and the LSESU to collaborate on a Campus Community Week, a week of community building activities where students from a wide range of backgrounds can engage with each other and understand different cultures. The week will start with fun social activities, ending with structured events with leaders from ISoc, JSoc, PalSoc, and Israel Soc, facilitating dialogue between different student groups. 

The week aims to:

• Create spaces where students can respectfully discuss opposing views, allowing for disagreement in a safe environment.
• Foster constructive dialogue across groups with differing opinions, and lay the foundation for continued dialogue in the future.
• Contribute to a more respectful atmosphere on campus and reduce tensions between student groups
• Establish a culture where students from diverse backgrounds feel more comfortable coming together, despite past disagreements. 

Success will be evaluated by participation, engagement beyond the events and discussions in demonstrating a desire to build bridges and move past differences, and whether xpanding this initiative into the next academic year will be the ultimate measure of the projects’ success.

A programme designed to foster cross-cultural understanding and trust between students from historically rival or socially distant regions, through a shared culinary experience that showcases their cultural heritage through food, music, and storytelling. An intentional approach to match participants from rival or socially distant regions ensures that the event promotes meaningful conversations and relationships among students who may not typically engage with one another. To remove financial barriers, participants will be given small monetary grants to aid in buying ingredients and preparing food. This fund would be used by teams to prepare traditional dishes while also sharing cultural narratives by decorating their respective stalls with cultural elements.

The festival aims to:

• Increase Cross-Cultural Interaction: By bringing together students from diverse backgrounds, it will create an inclusive space where individuals who may not typically engage with one another can connect. 
• Enhance Campus Relations: The event will foster dialogue and understanding between communities, reducing social silos.
• Encourage Cultural Representation & Awareness: Through food, and storytelling, the participants will develop a deeper appreciation for different traditions while enjoying diverse cuisine and music.

The event’s success will be measured by the number of students involved, number of cultural groups represented, and engagement levels with booths and activities. Its impact will be measured through participation in future initiatives, and through post-event surveys that assess attendee experiences, cultural learning, and whether participants engaged with individuals outside their usual social circles. 

A project that aims to enhance relationships between academics and Professional Services Staff at LSE by fostering spaces for open dialogue, collaboration, and trust-building; via a variety of events. Events planned include those bringing together staff members for:

• organic conversations and roundtable discussions on institutional challenges and broader societal issues;
• co-creating mini hackathon projects in research, impact, and on-campus engagement; and
• A talk on how fostering unexpected interactions can strengthen institutional culture.

The project will engage academic ambassadors as champions to drive participation, and use engaging formats to entice both groups to interact.

The project aims to:

• Bridge divides between groups that often struggle to interact.
• Explore institutional and social challenges through adversarial collaboration.
• Deepen conversations beyond surface-level issues, addressing both institutional and broader societal challenges.
• Shift LSE’s campus culture towards greater trust, collaboration, and mutual understanding, while also tackling misconceptions about entrepreneurship’s role in academia.  

The impact of the project will be measured through event engagement metrics, post-event surveys and interviews assessing whether participants feel more connected and engaged. A post-event report will summarise key findings and impact, and be shared via LSE’s social channels and internal networks to highlight the importance of cross-campus collaboration.

Projects which bring different areas of the LSE Community together  

Applications are encouraged which request funding for events, interventions or other types of projects which bring different groups or sections of the community together, rather than appealing to or supporting one particular group. For example, across cultural, interest, religious, political or national boundaries.     

Collaborative projects  

Applications are expected to demonstrate how collaboration and connection – including between people who might not be natural allies – has been embedded in the project design, and to list collaborative partners involved in the project.   

Action-oriented projects

While applications for the fund are welcome in relation to research, we will prioritise projects which are action-oriented or action-research based. We want to fund projects which are trying something new and are instigating change. The project should have tangible outputs and outcomes.  

Evaluation

As well as learning from things that work, we want to learn from things which do not work, or things which could work better if they were changed. As part of your application, we would like a light-touch overview of how you will measure impact and success.