We need to talk about Humanities education and celebrate the rich and exciting variety of perspectives and approaches within. On a sunny Wednesday morning on June 11th I found myself entering UCL’s Institute of Education to do just that, and here is what I found.

The day started bright and early with introductory speeches on the future of teaching and learning in the Humanities from Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (Founding Director of the Centre), Stella Bruzzi (Executive Dean, UCL Arts & Humanities), and Kathleen Armour (UCL Vice Provost, Education & Student Experience). Their speeches addressed some of my own concerns about the place of AI in the Humanities and acknowledged the challenges of teaching new generations of thinkers to respect and be curious about new ideas and visions of the world. I really appreciated these foci.

The large crowd of curious participants soon dispersed into several rooms to attend morning sessions. A panel in the discussion room led by Anne Grydehøj discussed the future of teaching languages at UCL, while Antony Makrinos looked at the future of Classics through VR goggles in the Technology Room. I didn’t get to take part in these, unfortunately, but the idea of wandering through a virtual agora or forum via an ultra-modern set of VR goggles was equally intriguing and entertaining.  As a Slade MFA student, I was drawn to the showcase of Spineless Wonders, an amazing collection of artist books and small press publications presented by Sharon Morris and Liz Lawes. After a quick cup of tea, I decided to return to the Showcase room and participate in a Culture and Language Show and Tell, an interactive discussion presented by Elletra Carbone about using objects from UCL’s Special Collections to provide a tangible connection between abstract language and material culture. Sadly, the nature of having separate discussions taking place simultaneously meant I couldn’t see Alexander Samson and Paula Rodriguez discuss the adaptation of Spanish Golden Age theatre classics in the twenty-first century or participate in the workshop “Ethical Encounters in Community-based Research, Learning, and Assessment”, led by Jelena Calic and Eszter Tarsoly.

In the afternoon, Jeff Bowersox led an interactive, multiplayer, pedagogical game that allowed players to take part in a model of the political system of the Weimar Republic, the post-war German government from 1918-1933, prior to the rise of Nazi Germany. Walking past, the session appeared in full and enthusiastic swing, so I made my way to the Showcase Room and joined a workshop on Graphic Narratives led by Eleanor Chiari. I entered the room with confidence, but it turns out an art degree doesn’t necessarily mean one would find sequential narrative storytelling easy! Thanks to help from Dr Chiari, however, I soon started storyboarding. It was amazing to see everyone’s results, with little zines illustrating different subjects and experiences. As an artist, I am used to creative exercises, but it was great to work with people who might not normally choose this way of working. I found it challenging to commit to one subject to illustrate – producing only five images requires a simplicity which is often missing in the way I paint. I nevertheless enjoyed this opportunity to be specific for a change.

In the late afternoon, many people were engaged in panel discussions on EDI Practices and Wellbeing in the Humanities Classroom. I decided to visit “A Mini Augmented Reality Exhibition of the Chinese Export Watercolours,” presented by Zeyu Zhao and developed with Gao Jin. I was really impressed with the outcome of this small display. Seeing the levels of engagement provoked by interactive displays made me reconsider my reservations against AR in exhibiting.

While many people engaged in panel discussions were UCL professional services or teaching staff, I felt welcome and encouraged as a student to share my views and ideas. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet and talk to experts in the humanities and make connections between subjects I wouldn’t have made before.  It was the first time I had taken part in such an event, and I felt empowered to seek out more opportunities like this one, just to have a chance to listen to and exchange perspectives on a wider variety of subjects than those directly concerning fine art practice.

And it was great fun! I would highly recommend attending similar events in the future to anyone curious and open-minded.

Noemi Stysiak is a Polish painter and second-year student at the Painting MFA at UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art.

The Our New Gold international digital storytelling festival invites students from all over the world to submit short films in which they respond to, adapt, perform, and present adaptations of Golden Age plays they have been studying. There are thought to be more than 10,000 extant Spanish comedias (plays) from before 1700. Similar to its Shakespearean counterpart in London, the first fixed public theatres emerged across the Iberian Peninsula in the 1580s and performed to large audiences representing a cross-section of society. The main difference between Spanish and English Renaissance Drama was that women played female parts, in contrast to the boy actors in London. Sir Richard Wynn noted that actresses were particularly good at playing women and were one of the main reasons for the theatre’s popularity. Although there are well-known classics of European theatre like Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s Life is a Dream (1636), many plays are little-known or unknown and new discoveries emerge all the time, including an unknown play by Lope de Vega discovered in 2010, Mujeres y criados.

The founder of the Our New Gold festival, Paula Rodriguez, is an actor, maker, and director who has dedicated herself to adapting this scintillating and underrecognised dramatic tradition. Student responses to the plays are incredibly varied and diverse. They reframe, reword, translate, set to music, perform, adapt, explain, and recast. At the root of all of them is a commitment to the plays’ texts—a love for poetic language, polymetric verse, and the plays’ resonant plots and situations, that so often feel so much more contemporary than they are.

We held a series of workshops in the autumn to discuss adaptation and begin to work on student projects. In the Spring, the jury convened to discuss the various entries and chose winners, special mentions and finalists. All of the winning entries can be viewed on the festival website: https://www.ournewgold.org/2024-festival.

In my opening remarks, I noted that theatre is embodied, presential, and located. Even in the more audio-visually driven short films, there are elements of performance, acting, fragments of mise-en-scene, alongside remarkable technical achievements from the animated photographs of Recuerdo to the soundscapes that accompany a translation of Calderon’s Life is a Dream Lucid Dreaming, and the animation of an Ode to Living Truthfully based on El monstruo de los jardines, reflecting on intergenerational expectations. The Golden Age has been written off too often as conservative and Catholic, linked by the Franco dictatorship with absolutism and hailed as a model for its repressive, pious ethnonationalism. This festival, however, embodies the radicalism, global resonance, and surprising diversity of these early modern representations. Ultimately, fiction and theatre are among the most challenging and fascinating sources for understanding the past because they reveal how people sought to represent themselves, the aporia and gaps in these representations provide the most important kind of evidence, not least because history is always in question.

It was an absolute joy to witness the creativity, the deep and varied engagement with the materials, the genuine attempt to build bridges between our world and the incredible culture of Spain’s Golden Age, its savagery, violence, and profound meditations on the human condition.

All the winning entries are on the website. UCL will be hosting the festival again in 2025 – 6, let’s see if we can get a UCL winner this time!

Alexander Samson is a Professor of Early Modern Studies in UCL’s Department of Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies.  His research interests include the early colonial history of the Americas, Anglo-Spanish intercultural interactions and early modern English and Spanish drama.  He runs the Golden Age and Renaissance Research Seminar and is director of UCL’s Centre for Early Modern Exchanges and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters.

What does it mean to search for your heritage in spaces that rarely acknowledge it? In Searching for Romanian Heritage in London Museums, a student-led ChangeMakers project at UCL, Maria Popa and Rares Muscar explore this question by revisiting London museums through the lens of their Romanian identities. With support from Ramona Gonczol (UCL SSEES), the project confronted the absence—and occasional presence—of Romanian artefacts in collections across the capital, using language, dialogue, and lived experience to challenge prevailing stereotypes. In this Q&A, they reflect on how museums can be spaces both of exclusion and (re)imagination.

1. Your ChangeMaker project, “Searching for Romanian Heritage in London Museums”, aimed to challenge stereotypical perceptions and prejudices about Romanian heritage by highlighting Romanian cultural artefacts in London museums, including the Migration Museum, the Horniman Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the British Museum. How does your project challenge common media stereotypes about Romanian identity, and how did museum spaces help you confront or subvert those narratives? 

Rares: Growing up as children of migrants and first-generation migrants ourselves, we have faced multiple instances of prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping. Whether it was a ‘joke’ surrounding Romanians as migrants, comments or looks when we spoke Romanian on the street, or even simply our parents’ inability to truly interact with the system and structures surrounding them, our Romanian-ness, in my/our minds, was internalised as a drawback. I started viewing Romanian culture as an amalgamation of negative stereotypes and limited my speaking of Romanian strictly to my home environment. Thus, our project, through reconnecting with our heritage through the medium of London museums, rewrites those unjustly indoctrinated narratives we were fed in our youth. We become able to construct and understand the beauty, diversity, and legacy of the Romanian presence within London, and challenge the lifelong media stereotyping of Romanians as a ‘horde’, ‘wave’ or ‘invasion’ who are (paradoxically) filling only low-level, blue-collar jobs AND living off benefits simultaneously. Through discovering Romania’s cultural legacies present in London, we effectively subvert narratives not only by illuminating a culture which has habitually been expected to be negated, but also by demanding—through the project’s existence itself—a reframing of the unjust stereotyping of Romanian-ness, with the museum artefacts providing tangible evidence of the realities and value of Romanian cultural identity.

Our project’s scope also calls for the amplification of self-understanding when it comes to intercultural heritage through departmental and wider dissemination in multi-modal formats, encouraging further initiatives of this self-exploratory nature for all marginalised ethnicities and cultures. Such initiatives would include presenting at various conferences such as RAISE through podcast format, presenting with UCL ProLang through presentation/project-poster format and also, more optimistically, presenting to the Romanian community themselves possibly through the medium of Willesden Library which has a Romanian section for the extensive Brent Romanian community. This form of dissemination will have to be gauged for an engaging discussion and interaction across multiple generations while also taking into account the importance of accessibility, broader diasporic class structures, digital and cultural literacy and historical knowledge of cultural engagement. So far, we have considered project-posters and presentations alongside an open-ended discussion, however this may change drastically depending on future considerations.

2. In your project poster, you strikingly describe intercultural identities as being shaped by “an inward tug-of-war—a constant questioning, negotiation and reification of belonging, displacement, heritage, adaption, and erasure.” How did your personal experiences and identities shape the project’s aims and methodology, and did the project alter your understanding of those experiences and identities? 

Rares: The feeling of an inward tug-of-war when conceptualising our own intercultural identities arose out of the necessity for code-switching. Our experiences with discrimination, degradation, and prejudice forced us to shed aspects of our identities, both Romanian and British, in specific situations. When Romanians were associated with crime, ‘invasion’, and ‘freeloading’, we had to associate ourselves with the notion of ‘the good migrant’, trying to construct a positive identity that would be accepted by the outside world.When we would speak to family members or friends back in Romania, we had to try and erase any residue of ‘British-ness’ that we had adopted in our lives, so as to not face ridicule and further accusations. The constant structuring and restructuring of our identities, and the subsequent confusion, meant that we had to understand the focality of this ‘tug-of-war’ in shaping our existences, and utilise it in an exploratory manner when forming our project.

Thus, our identities, directly shaped by our experiences of prejudice and discrimination, were not only employed in shaping the project’s aims and methodology, but were also the foundation we created our project around. We intended to create a project which would rewrite the long-standing narratives burdened upon Romanians in the UK while also being actively accessible, encouraging future similar exploratory initiatives and introspective intercultural dialogue for all. We therefore decided to utilise museums as our medium of choice, attempting to find traces of our culture within the realm of academia, a world within which Romanians are, for some reason, expected to be absent from. Supplementing this, our research interacted with multiple sociological theories such as Alina Dolea’s work on Ethnicity, Identity and the Diaspora, to refine the lens through which we were trying to understand and subvert prejudicial narratives. Our methodology also focused on reconnection and emphasising our Romanian identities, shaping our project by carrying out important conversations in Romanian, creating a symbolic but also physical link to our identities themselves.

Our project altered our understanding of our experiences and identities by bringing to light the psychological impact of discrimination and prejudice on our identities, and the fragmentation it caused. It emphasised the importance of truly grasping and celebrating your identity, even when its subversion is encouraged, and the significance of intercultural recognition for individuals of all ages, especially children, who navigate their identities without any true external support. The project enunciated the importance of rewriting injustices, and the necessity of breaking from academic rigidity so as to create the truly meaningful and emotion-focused discoveries which are often rejected by academia.

3. Your active approach to the artefacts in London Museums was very interesting—verbalising immediate impressions and deliberately holding conversations in Romanian to create “a deeper connection with our experiences and identities.” What did this feel like? Useful? Strange? Empowering? Was it a different conversation from the type you might normally have in a UCL classroom?

Maria: Speaking in Romanian to each other whilst interacting with the artefacts was natural for us, and in no way did it feel strange. I think a feeling of empowerment came through the discussions which we were having during the museum visits. Even if we felt slightly defeated that we couldn’t find as many objects as we had hoped for, it still felt freeing and powerful to be able to form an opinion on this matter. We reclaimed a sense of belonging in spaces where our identities are often underrepresented or overlooked, and therefore, speaking in Romanian simply solidified that feeling. A feeling of validation was also created through our verbal impressions of the objects, because it essentially brought us closer to the artefacts themselves. Our conversations were actually built upon what we had talked about in previous Romanian lessons at UCL, creating a full-circle moment in terms of our initial ideas within the classroom and how these developed in museum environments. In both instances, we conversed with fluidity, sometimes switching between Romanian and English as a way of expressing ideas that did not fully fit into either language. Ultimately, talking to each other in Romanian was not just about us using our maternal language, but rather instinctively using language to anchor our identities within the context of museums in London.

4. You stress the importance of “emphasising subjectivity as an important means of engaging with identity and heritage.” What challenges did you face in navigating the emotional, evolving nature of the project? 

Maria: The main challenge we faced was the fact that our emotional anticipation and expectations for our findings within the museums were not met. We entered these spaces with excitement and curiosity but left with some disappointment after seeing that the museums did not reflect the depth of Romanian identity we had hoped for. Of course, subjectivity itself lies within our disappointment, and it must be reiterated that the visits themselves can still be seen as a success, because our reactions could thus be used to share our opinions with the wider public, forming a representation of our heritage and what it means to us. The fact that the two visits prompted us to conduct more online research on Romanian objects and archives within London’s museums changed the course of the project for the better. For example, we made comments on how the descriptions in online catalogues of certain artefacts were too vague, or perhaps even incorrect. It was through the evolving nature of the project that we deepened our understanding and could become more vocal about our personal opinions on the portrayal of our Romanian identities. Navigating these difficulties? allowed us to pinpoint ideas that we did not initially think to comment on, and this itself highlights the benefits that can arise from unexpected challenges.

5. Your poster presents the project in a fascinating way, as a “dynamic and living artefact” that will promote healing and empowerment. What’s next for the project, and how do you envision it contributing to future educational and/or cultural initiatives? 

Ramona: We disseminate the project widely, through an initial e-poster, followed by this blog, then a case study for the ChangeMaker page. In September, we will create a podcast for the Research, Advancing & Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE) conference, a student–staff collaboration conference held at the University of Glasgow. We will then present in at least two more places at UCL, inviting undergraduate students through the PROLang series and in at least one or more community hubs around London, most likely starting with the Romanian library in Willesden Green. We want to reach as many young people as possible.

The project will also be presented to subsequent cohorts of language students at UCL, including students of Romanian, as an example of identity and heritage searching in immigrant communities and what we can do outside the classroom to make their learning life relevant.

We are already thinking of a new project to follow, so watch this space!

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Ramona Gonczol is Associate Professor in Romanian Language at SSEES, UCL. She is the (co)author of Romanian and Essential Grammar (2nd edition, 2020) and Colloquial Romanian(4th edition, 2014) and the convener of the PROLang group and academic coordinator for Short Courses. Ramona is a fellow of the HEA and the recipient for the Order for Cultural Merits in Promoting Romanian Culture and Language Abroad (2018). Ramona completed 4 years of outreach projects with Secondary schools on HHCL speakers of Romanian and is carrying out research on Romanian as a HHC language. Her research interests also include language acquisition, cultural identities, language policy, multilingualism and ethnographic pedagogy. She is the staff partner in the project.

Maria Popa is a first-year student Comparative Literature student at SELCS, having chosen to study Romanian at heritage-speaker level at SSEES for her degree. Her interests focus on humanities-based subjects, ranging from world literature to history to film, building an intrigue in multicultural identities, and how these formed and further developed. Maria writes bilingual poetry too, in English and Romanian and enjoys translating between the two languages.

Rares Muscar: ‘I’ am a first year home student at SSEES UCL, born in Romania, studying Politics, Sociology and East European Studies. I am essentially interested in anything to do with the humanities overall and enjoy learning different contemporary and historical lenses of seeing and understanding societal structures and functions. My attention is also particularly drawn towards class and how it manifests itself within people, psychologically and sociologically and throughout time. Having grown up as a first-generation migrant where both parents had ‘blue-collar’ jobs, academia seemed, and still seems, like an impenetrable fortress, but working on projects such as this has allowed me (us) to carve out a space forcefully, where we are allowed to explore the intertwining of class, cultural legacies, identity etc. in its entirety, namely its emotional foundations which in my opinion are severely overlooked in favour for rigorous quantitative forms of knowledge production. I am always interested in anything which intertwines culture, ethnography, history, politics, sociology, psychology, literature and related fields. I would always be eager to engage with and would deeply appreciate any further projects or discussions that explore these interconnected themes.

In this Q&A, we explore ongoing efforts at University College London (UCL) to support students from forced migration backgrounds. The Centre for Humanities Education was recently proud to support an audit of these initiatives, conducted by Freya Proudman, a PhD candidate at UCL’s  School of Slavonic & East European Studies. This audit is a pre-requisite for UCL to join the University of Sanctuary network, “a wide and welcoming community of students, university staff and supporters who all share the same vision: that universities should be places of safety, understanding and belonging for those seeking safety.” [1]

We interviewed Freya about UCL’s existing support structures, the need for more streamlined initiatives, and the importance of a holistic approach to ensure long-term, sustainable support. Through this conversation, we also reflect on how UCL’s work can serve as a model for other universities seeking to better support students from forced migration backgrounds.

[1] University of Sanctuary Network, see here.

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1. Could you tell us a bit about what inspired your project and the role of CHE funding in supporting it?

UCL academics are at the forefront of forced migration research and many UCL academics are acutely aware of the challenges faced by asylum-seekers and refugees as well as the transformative role that education can have in their lives.

For nearly a decade years, UCL staff and students have advocated for UCL to become a University of Sanctuary, a title that has been awarded to more than thirty-five UK universities and supported by many others. Becoming a Sanctuary University gives practical application to UCL’s mission and values while empowering greater support for forced migrants to both access and succeed in UK higher education.

As part of the University of Sanctuary application, universities must audit their current initiatives to show their compatibility with the award criteria. Thanks to CHE Funding, the team was able to commission me (Freya Proudman) to research these initiatives and UCL’s existing relationships with various community and support organisations.

2. What support for forced migrants currently exists across UCL?

Across the university, there are numerous commendable efforts to support individuals from forced migration backgrounds.

Forced migrants are listed as a discrete group under UCL’s Access & Widening Participation (WP) scheme. They can therefore participate in all WP programmes or activities such as ‘Experience UCL’, an opportunity for Year 12 and 13 students at UK state schools or colleges to visit UCL to learn about student life and receive advice on university applications. The programme’s previous two editions included a specific session for students from forced migration backgrounds. In addition, the WP has a designated email address and staff members serving as a pre-entry contact point for students from forced migration backgrounds to access support during the application process.

Regarding financial support, there are two UCL scholarships currently supporting students from forced migration backgrounds residing in the UK. The first is the Bowman Scholarship which is awarded annually to two students and fully funds course fees for the Undergraduate Preparatory Certificate. Recipients also receive a ‘Campus Pack’ to cover some costs related to transport, digital equipment and connectivity, catering, and other academic materials. If students from forced migration backgrounds have an offer for undergraduate admission but are ineligible for Student Finance England, they can apply for the Access Opportunity Scholarship (AOS). Established in 2017/18, the AOS is awarded annually to two students and provides full tuition fees and an annual allowance of £12,000 for the normal duration of the UCL programme. This scholarship is open to asylum-seekers, children of asylum-seekers, unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, or forced migrants granted temporary forms of leave. Students with ‘refugee’ status are not eligible for this scholarship, as they are eligible to apply to Student Finance England as ‘Home’ students.

For postgraduate students, UCL’s Department of Culture, Communications and Media (CCM), based at the Institute of Education (IoE), has created a scholarship covering tuition fees for two students to access their Master’s degree offerings. This initiative was born from CCM’s long-standing partnership with ReConnect, a charity supporting refugees and asylum seekers in UK Higher education and teaching. Since 2018, the CCM-Reconnect partnership has supported 324 refugees and asylum seekers (174 women and 150 men from 36 countries) in completing a Preparation for Higher Education Programme. The scholarship furthers their partnership by supporting two students from ReConnect to complete their Master’s degrees at CCM. The tuition fees are covered by the department and ReConnect covers additional maintenance costs.

Partnerships are a key way in which UCL provides support. Since 2006, UCL has worked alongside CARA (The Council of at Risk Academics) to host several academics who face imminent threat and/or displacement. UCL has a small central budget which can support 1-3 fellows each year. Between 2022 and 2024, UCL supported an additional fifteen scholars through its Academic Fellowship Scheme, created “in light of the current crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine”.

In terms of psychological support, in May 2022, UCL created a new support team for students affected by war, conflict, and disaster. This team is a collaboration between Student Support and Wellbeing, the Department of Psychology and Language Sciences and the University Clinic. They offer Psychological First Aid sessions, typically providing students with 2-4 sessions. It is believed that UCL is one of the only universities in the UK offering this kind of support. The creation of the war, conflict and disaster team is a positive step towards institutionalising more student support at UCL.

In addition to these established forms of support, UCL has also provided additional ad-hoc responses to specific global events – most notably, the wars in Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Through the UCL Students’ Union and Volunteering Service, UCL students lead outreach work, supporting forced migrants in the wider community. For example, since 2018 the UCL Student Action for Refugee Society (STAR) has hosted educational and fundraising events, including guest lectures and donation drives. They also volunteer through a partnership with Union Chapel and organise just-for-fun football matches between UCL students and the “Union Chapel Asylum-Seekers” team. The Students’ Union Volunteering service provides students with volunteer opportunities, but students can also propose and develop their own projects.  In recent years, two have focused on forced migrants -– the “Hospital Fun Team” (2021-ongoing), which organises games and conversations for Afghan refugee children and adolescents in hospitals, and  “Impact Initiative” (2023-ongoing), which connects UCL students with refugees aged 16-25 to support with English conversational skills and applications for jobs or university.

3. What are the most significant challenges within UCL’s current approach to supporting individuals from forced migration backgrounds?

While there are a number of initiatives across UCL, particularly at the departmental and faculty levels, the absence of a central website or named contact person means that many initiatives intended to support students from forced migration backgrounds are dispersed, fragmented, and difficult to identify and access. To properly support student success, these initiatives require streamlining and integrating into existing central structures. This is easily achievable within the already established frameworks, including the new UCL Success Team and Student Success Faculty leads, whose remit should include students from forced migration backgrounds.

With relatively few additional resources, UCL could significantly enhance their ongoing efforts to support people from forced migration backgrounds. This would bring greater coherence to existing initiatives including academic research, teaching, and outreach programmes. A centralised framework for these initiatives would improve visibility and awareness across the university and wider community, enabling greater collaboration, both internally and externally, and amplifying the initiatives and their impact. These efforts would also enable UCL to transition away from ad-hoc, crisis-by-crisis responses to a more embedded and holistic approach.

4. What are the key resources or steps required for UCL to improve its support and successfully implement the report’s recommendations?

The key steps for moving forward have been outlined by the interdisciplinary network, Refuge in a Moving World, which unites experts from across UCL working on displacement, forced migration, exile, and conflict. The group has consistently advocated for improving accessibility and support for forced migrants. During their open meeting in February 2016 they outlined a series of steps which remain vital to improving UCL’s support today. These include:

• Establish a centralised service to coordinate, oversee, and embed the various initiatives across UCL into one consistent and coherent framework.
• Greater recruitment and funding for students who are forced migrants to access UCL Undergraduate Preparatory Certificate (The pre-undergraduate foundation courses).
• Review and enhance the current scholarship provisions with a focus on a fair and sustainable scholarship programme for refugees and migrants at all levels of study (from foundation courses to academic fellowships)
• Gain familiarisation with Higher education volunteer-taught programmes to create a non-selective pre-foundation programme open to all displaced people in London regardless of immigration status.

Additionally, it is essential that dialogue across UCL continues. This is why we are delighted that on 10 February 2025 we will host another open meeting, in collaboration with UCL Senior leadership, to discuss UCL’s next steps to develop and implement meaningful, consistent, and sustainable systems to support students with forced migration backgrounds.

5. More specifically, how would becoming a University of Sanctuary support UCL’s approach to forced migration support?

By becoming a University of Sanctuary, UCL would contribute to building a culture of awareness and inclusivity for forced migrant students and better facilitate their access to university and funding. In doing so, UCL would join a network of universities who share the same vision: “that universities should be places of safety, understanding, and belonging”. This would enable further collaboration across the Higher Education sector, allowing UCL to learn from others, share experiences, and gain best practices.

As we approach UCL’s bicentennial anniversary, we reflect on UCL’s foundational principles. UCL’s mission is to “engage with the wider world and commit to changing it for better” through “integrating our education, research, innovation, and enterprise for the long-term benefit of humanity”. In line with UCL’s strategic plan for 2022-27, becoming a University of Sanctuary would support the promotion of equality and diversity, allowing UCL to more greatly “live our values” of “openness and inclusion” and celebrate our nickname as “London’s Global University”.

6. What broader lessons does this work provide to the Higher Education sector outside UCL?

We hope that our work may inspire other universities to consider joining the University of Sanctuary scheme and conduct similar mapping exercises to assess the support available at their own institutions. Understanding the current support landscape is essential for identifying areas of improvement and moving forward.

Many of the findings in UCL’s report — such as the need to transition from a crisis-driven, ad-hoc approach to a more centralised and institutionalised framework — are broadly applicable. A coordinated, long-term strategy ensures that forced migrants receive consistent support, regardless of global events. This approach is valuable for institutions across the sector.

Finally, our report emphasises the importance of partnerships and collaboration between universities, charities, and community organisations. These partnerships not only expand the reach and impact of support initiatives but also promote a shared sense of responsibility. The most effective response to supporting forced migrant students requires sector-wide cooperation within Higher Education. The key takeaway is that collaboration is essential to create meaningful, sustainable support systems.

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Postscript: Since the CHE-funded mapping report was completed, UCL has committed to work towards University of Sanctuary status. A high-level Working Group has been established with the goal of submitting an accreditation application in January 2026. For more information about the Refuge in a Moving World initiative, see here.

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Freya Proudman

Freya is a PhD Candidate at University College London (UCL) School of Slavonic & East European Studies (SSEES), where her research focuses on human rights, justice, and LGBTQ+ communities in Central/Eastern Europe and Russia. Her previous work, which centred on LGBTQ+ Ukrainian refugees, earned her the UK Student Pride’s Academic Contribution of the Year award. During the 2021-2022 academic year, Freya served as the SSEES Student President, where she helped lead the university’s support initiatives for Ukrainian students in the aftermath of the Russian full-scale invasion. She was proud to join the University of Sanctuary Team in 2024.

A blog post for all those interested in Student Engagement and Inclusion in Higher Education

By Elisa Valentin

A few months ago, I received an open call to join a reflective research project on students’ perceptions of generative AI in education led by UCL Arena researcher Jesper Hansen and Faculty Learning Technology Lead (UCL A&H) Abbi Shaw. Having mulled over that question throughout my master’s, I jumped at the opportunity to reflect on my own and hear about other students’ experiences. Fast-forward to September, I had the honour of sharing my experience as a participant in this project alongside Selin Abdik (see her blog about her experiences) at the RAISE (Researching, Advancing & Inspiring Student Engagement) conference in Leicester. This blog post is a reflection on this experience.

Over the course of my studies, I have encountered numerous ways of questioning systems of power and how to act within them. The RAISE Conference was one such space where I got to hear from those researching and working to advance inclusion and student engagement in Higher Education. Hearing from a mix of student engagement leads, faculty leads, student union officers, activists, and students like me felt like sharing perceptions of what the ‘elephant’ looks like, except that, unlike the parable of the six blind men, we were actually united by the commitment to improving student engagement and inclusion.

Placing Care at the Heart of Education

Dr. Iwi Ugiagbe’s keynote set the stage for this year’s topic on Equity in Attainment and Student Success. With the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis as background, the racial and ethnic achievement gap is increasing. In parallel, students’ expectations of and engagement in higher education have changed. Not only this, the challenges that higher education institutions face regarding student engagement differ based on their unique geographical and institutional context and their student body.

Among the topics raised were the need to adapt learning spaces, focus on delivering quality teaching, and mediate the external factors affecting attendance and achievement, such as costs of living, commuting, and caring responsibilities. This was all part of a broader reflection on what ‘education for the 21st century’ and the ‘post-covid’ model should look like. Presenters and participants did not shy away from relating this to structural inequalities and injustices. Through these discussions, it became clear how the questions of student engagement and achievement are intimately connected to questions of care.

A clear message I left the conference with was the need more than ever to place care at the centre of educational approaches and redefine ‘student success’ in academic and professional terms. To do so, we must start by seeking and hearing students’ voices to inform solutions and co-creation and involve them in improving and solving the diverse issues that concern them. This does not mean putting the onus solely on students to do this work. The RAISE Conference had some good examples of how student-led or student-staff collaboration gives centre stage to the voices it aims to empower.

The Power of Student Voice

From initially contributing as a research participant to co-presenting alongside Abbi and Jesper and attending the conference, it was powerful and validating to feel that people looked positively upon Selin and my input and even sought it. Equally powerful and a source of pride was witnessing fellow students being vocal about their experiences and sharing their projects at the conference.

The MedRACE Project left a notable impression on me as an example of what student voices coming together and receiving an attentive ear can achieve. Presented by medical students from the University of Leicester, MedRACE is a great example of a successful student-staff partnership that has grown over the years, working to foster equality in the medical curriculum and address racial harassment.

In the words of one of the student presenters: ‘We’re at the forefront of experiences, so we can highlight issues to staff.’ This encapsulates the need for student voice. Who else is better than the primary concerned to know what is needed for our education experience? Nonetheless, as the students repeatedly stated: ‘We could not have achieved all this without the help of our staff’.

Methods that Bring Value

Any project or initiative that seeks to improve the conditions of students should therefore strive to have them take an active voice on the issues that concern them. The question, then, is how to reach students when they are not engaging as much?

Effectively engaging students (or any target group) requires them to feel that there are benefits to getting involved.

Drawing on their experiences of doing anti-racism work in sports societies, doctoral researchers Rhianna Garret and Iman Khan made the case for the value of student-led advocacy in developing valuable skills for employability. Starting from the observation that ‘it’s really hard to do critical thinking and problem-solving out of context’, their point is that students can pick up valuable transferable skills from getting involved in issues they care about. Crucially, these advocacy initiatives must be institutionally backed and connected to an employability approach to yield such benefits.

The presentation highlighted the need to see students as agents rather than passive beneficiaries and, as a consequence, the need to also hold them accountable. Connected to this is the idea that students should be taught that they can and should be compensated for their work, notably when this generates an emotional or psychological cost.

Another way to encourage student engagement is through adopting research and data collection methods that bring value to the participants themselves. While surveys and questionnaires have their place to gather input, they can provide a thin understanding of a phenomenon. This can feel especially frustrating when grappling with questions of student satisfaction and expectations as a module leader, programme director or at the faculty level. On students’ end, this kind of practice can often feel extractive, of little value, or perceived as unlikely to achieve much change.

This brings me to my last point, which was the object of my participation in Abbi and Jesper’s research. As a student and former academic representative, I can speak from personal experience about the value of creating spaces to exchange with staff and faculty on topics that are relevant to me and to the broader student body.

For certain ‘controversial’ topics, such as the use and perceptions of AI, disconnecting these spaces from the academics that teach and assess you on a daily basis increases trust. Equally, using alternative methods of inquiry, such as reflective research, co-creation or ‘embodied’ methodologies, can be perceived as more enriching by participants as it is an opportunity to gain insights on a topic relevant to their life and contribute to shaping the debate.

Final Thoughts

Through this experience, I developed a greater understanding of the power of the ‘student voice’ and the impact we can have as students on people in the room, probably beyond what was anticipated! Of course, this requires being (en)able(d) to make it into the room in the first place. The key is, therefore, to create spaces and opportunities for students to share their thoughts and get involved with issues that they care about in a way that can benefit them personally and professionally. Students must be given opportunities to join these spaces and be vocal about their need for them. This requires dedicating adequate resources to creating these spaces and exchanges.

Here are three takeaways I invite you to consider:

• We should approach issues of engagement and inclusion from a perspective and pedagogy of care.
• To increase student engagement and inclusion, seek initiatives and methods that bring value to all involved. Practices that invite reflection and contribute to an experience that participants might value intrinsically are especially interesting.
• To my student peers, your voices and experiences matter, let them be heard

As a recent UCL IOE graduate in Educational Planning, Economics and International Development, I am passionate about researching education equity, its connections to the ‘poly-crisis’, and what achieving quality education might look like depending on each context. A legacy of my Arts and Sciences (BASc) studies, I enjoy applying my ‘research imagination’ to investigate interdisciplinary issues. 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisa-valentin/?locale=en_US

RAISE 2025 will be happening on September 4-5 September at the University of Glasgow.

In May 2024, an email popped into my inbox that would unexpectedly lead to a great academic experience: presenting at a national conference on student engagement. In the email from Abbi Shaw and Jesper Hansen, they were looking for students to take part in their research about how Arts and Humanities students engage with and think about AI. As an undergraduate Arts and Sciences student with an interest in artificial intelligence, faculty research being conducted about our perceptions of AI as students intrigued me, so I expressed my interest in being a part of this research. Fast forward to September, I was a student co-presenter at the 2024 RAISE (Researching, Advancing & Inspiring Student Engagement) Conference at the University of Leicester.

After expressing my interest in participating in the research, we were tasked with writing a series of reflections on five key questions and then joining a focus group to discuss them with other students. The questions were not just technical—they asked us to reflect on our personal relationships with AI, from the role it plays in our academic work to how we see it shaping our future careers. The questions were designed to enable us to dig deep into our feelings about generative AI, with questions about what reflections the term ‘generative AI’ triggers, or about how AI shows up in our daily life, or even in our studies at UCL. The introspective nature of the questions made me want to answer them and hear about what the other participants said.

A few months later, I received an exciting email from Abbi and Jesper about another opportunity: to be a student co-presenter at the RAISE Conference at the University of Leicester. If you have never heard of RAISE, it is a conference that focuses on research around student engagement, with themes like accessibility, equity, and celebrating diversity. This year’s theme was “Equity in Attainment & Student Success,” which was very fitting with the nature of our participation in this research. The purpose was to amplify student voices and make them part of the broader academic conversation. At the time, I did not know what the conference was about or what to expect from presenting, but I wanted to give it a go. So, Elisa Valentin (who has also written a blog on her experiences) and I joined the team as student co-presenters and had the chance to extend our participation.

Our presentation at RAISE focused on UCL’s ongoing efforts to incorporate a wide range of perspectives—from both staff and students—into the research process. Elisa and I shared our experiences of participating in faculty-led research, talking about how meaningful it was to be seen not just as participants, but as active contributors to the project.

Standing up there as a co-presenter, I realised that this kind of student engagement—where our insights are valued on an equal footing with those of staff—is exactly what conferences like RAISE are all about, and it fits into this broader discussion of co-creation. Co-creation was indeed a recurring theme throughout the conference, and it became clear that involving students in shaping their own learning is not just beneficial—it is necessary. Whether it is redesigning assessments, building inclusive learning environments, or making decisions about course content, there was a strong push for universities to break down traditional hierarchies and engage students as equal partners.

At the conference, there were people from various universities, all with different experiences and backgrounds, who gathered to discuss how we can reshape higher education. One of the parallel sessions that stood out to me was the one about “Why are students not attending in-person classes post-COVID-19?” by Conor Naughton (Education and Student Experience Manager at the University of Nottingham), Tom Lowe (Assistant Head of School (Student Experience), School of Finance and Accounting at the University of Westminster), and Tania Struetzel (Director of Student Success at Southampton Solent University). This session, delivered as an interactive workshop, explored the students’ perceptions of the necessity of in-person attendance after the pandemic. The majority of the room was academic staff members, and as a student, it was interesting to hear the academic staff discuss what they think the reasons for students’ low attendance to in-person classes might be.

As I listened to the discussions on post-COVID attendance, I realized just how complex student engagement is. While many staff members pointed to flexibility and convenience as factors, I found myself thinking about the importance of mental health, diverse learning preferences, and the need for universities to adapt. It was reassuring to see that the conversation was not about ‘blaming’ students for lower attendance, but about rethinking how we deliver education in a way that truly meets the needs of today’s learners.

This whole experience left me with a deeper understanding of equity in education, and how essential it is for students to be included in the shaping of our academic environments. It was pleasant to see so many educators and students working together to reimagine what inclusive education looks like. From being involved in the research to presenting at the RAISE Conference, this experience has shown me that students have a pivotal role to play in shaping not only our own learning journeys but also the broader academic landscape.

Author Bio: Selin Abdik is a second-year BASc Arts and Sciences student at UCL, specialising in the interdisciplinary application of technology. Selin has a strong interest in how technology can drive innovation and create impactful change across various fields. As a co-presenter at the 2024 RAISE Conference, Selin contributed insights on student involvement in research and policy changes within higher education. You can find out more about Selin’s work via Linkedin.

This project was supported by funding from UCL’s Centre for Humanities Education. The author wished to express their thanks to UCL CHE and the Randolph Quirk Endowment.

RAISE 2025 will be happening on September 4-5 September at the University of Glasgow.

by Poppy Shortmoor and Ella Bosworth-Gerbino (Department of Greek and Latin)

What was Rome’s ideal woman? Selflessness, sexuality, and dependency on men – these were the values that coloured the depiction of female characters in Roman epic, mythology, and elegy.

But this idealised helplessness of women in Roman literature is juxtaposed against their real economic liberties, where there was much more freedom and agency than is generally believed.

Our paper, titled “How the Economic Role of Roman Women both Challenges and Conforms to Literary Ideals”, focused on this juxtaposition, and was one of many presented at this year’s Greek and Latin Speaker Series, titled New Frontiers in the Ancient World.

The Speaker Series, organised this year by Mairead McAuley and Ronald Chiu, aims to diversify the curriculum and encourage students to explore new perspectives with regards to Classics.

Placing student work front and centre

Student participants volunteered to give a short lecture on a topic of their choosing within the themes of sexuality, gender, identity, race, and otherness.

After participants had their abstract approved, they independently researched and created their presentations over a few weeks. These projects covered topics like femininity in Sumerian literature, sexuality in Greek art, and feminist analyses of mythology and theatre.

A commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion is at the centre of this year’s Speaker Series. This focus allows for new topics not commonly discussed to be introduced to students, which hopefully will aid the process of broadening the wider curriculum.

Additionally, it highlights what students are interested in, fostering a more welcoming environment and allowing new perspectives into the discussion on the ancient world.

This interest in diversity was particularly evident in the wide variety of talks from other students. Not only were they able to explore their own interests, as we were, but also to illuminate topics that other participants might not have been aware of before.

Karen Guo’s talk “I petrify: Medusa and the Stone Butch” was a particular standout.

Bringing together contemporary queer theory and ancient mythology, she discussed parallels between the concept of the Stone Butch popularised by Feinberg in the late twentieth century, and the themes of sexuality in Medusa’s story.

Mitigating historical bias on modern literary reception

Our own paper was illustrated through an exploration of the historic figures including Ummidia Quadratilla and other Roman women.

Together, we set out a rough plan of our presentation, then went on to conduct our research separately before combining our arguments.

Ultimately, we reached the conclusion that it is important – when studying classics – not to take literature as unequivocal, historical fact, due to its intrinsic links to the ideals of its time and culture.

This topic was particularly interesting to both of us, because, as women studying in a traditionally male dominated field, we understand the importance of recognising the impacts of historical bias on modern literary reception, and of highlighting female history.

Exploring student interests beyond modules

The Speaker Series gave us an opportunity to explore our subjects outside of the modules available in the Greek and Latin department.

Being able to investigate a particular area of Classics that we are especially interested in, we were able to develop a sense of independence within our studies. In particular, the Speaker Series allowed us to develop skills that we have not had much opportunity to exercise as of yet.

Additionally, as we both plan on going into higher education, this project has provided an invaluable introduction into a more self-directed line of study, giving us skills that will no doubt be useful in our educational journey.

Poppy Shortmoor is a second year ancient world student who is planning on doing a masters in economic and social history and is particularly interested in the economy of the early Roman imperial era. Ella Bosworth Gerbino is a 2^nd year French and Latin student who is planning on going into teaching and is interested in the modern reception of classics. 

Or you can listen to a podcast made by students Maya Servio and Michela Capretto:

Michela: Anyway, so Maya now, I am curious, so tell me a story that encapsulates your entire experience of the summer school. Would you have a story for that?

Maya: So, we had, as Michela said before, we had night Portuguese classes. And during our last class for Portuguese, before we came back to the UK and everything, the teacher invited her friend, who was a professional Samba dancer. And she actually, while we were doing Portuguese, like everything was in Portuguese still, and we were still learning the language and everything, we were also learning Samba. And that was so fun because not only was I being exposed to a new language, but also the culture and the openness and everything. And then at the end, because there was two Portuguese classes, the other class all came looking through the door, being like, oh my gosh, I wanna do Samba as well. And then the teacher came through dancing, and it was just a very friendly, fun vibe. And that’s kind of what the uni was like as well. The student blog also features a suggested reading list and highlights from the summer school programme. Click here to explore the blog!

The student blog also features a suggested reading list and highlights from the summer school programme.

Click here to explore the blog!

This student blog was made possible by CHE’s Education Enhancement Grant, which was awarded to Dr. Ana Cláudia Suriani da Silva (SELCS).