Telling our story at UWE Bristol: RISE with us

Universities are facing new opportunities every year. These require fresh thinking and renewed commitment to engage differently, to collaborate more and to bring innovation and prioritisation into sharp focus to influence policies and change what we do and how we do it.

With this evolving national and international higher education landscape, universities must be agile and adaptable to embrace and capitalise on the emerging opportunities. Now, more than ever, universities have to prove their value as a cornerstone of society by transforming lives, addressing critical global challenges, driving innovation and contributing to their local and national economy. It’s more important than ever for universities to tell their story and stand for something.

At UWE Bristol, we’re saying: RISE with us.

RISE – standing for Research, Innovation, Skills and Enterprise – is a unifying lens through which we can tell our story. It shapes who we are, our culture and future growth at UWE Bristol. It invites us to be curious, inspired and encouraged to act boldly with courage and conviction.

Across our three campuses, we are fostering an environment which allows research, innovation, skills and enterprise to thrive, helping to drive societal change and improve lives. Key to this is collaboration, working with industry, public sector organisations, and our local community to challenge current conventions and knowledge.

RISE represents a way of working through collaboration, innovation, inclusion and enterprise. It invites everyone to explore and find out what we can do together.

As a modern, locally embedded and globally connected university, we’re on a continuous journey to enhance our research quality, and shape and build partnerships, to transfer knowledge and deliver impact and understanding. 

We’re proud that 84% of our research impact is considered world leading or internationally excellent. Our research is practice-based and rooted in action, tackling and solving global challenges. It’s influenced planning and transport strategies, advised local government on climate change, informed sustainable health models for the NHS, and helped to shape the creative industries in the West of England.

Our beacons represent our areas of expertise, where we have thriving research, teaching and knowledge exchange communities spanning;

• integrated healthcare;
• creativity and technology;
• culture, place and community; and
• green, sustainable and resilient futures.

Innovation is central to meeting the world’s challenges - to build a healthier, greener, more resilient and fairer society. As an NHS ideation partner, we co-develop cutting-edge products and services at our Health Tech Hub that transform frontline care and improve patient outcomes. Its focus is on advancing technology that enables people to live independently and manage their own health and well-being, reducing the amount of time they must spend in hospital.

In driving economic growth, skills and knowledge are essential. Our role is to discover and define the skills and knowledge that our industry networks will require in the future while ensuring our provision fulfils today’s needs. Industry and public services are changing fast. Rising technologies and artificial intelligence are transforming how we work, socialise and collaborate. The partnerships we have with industry, public sector and policymakers are vital to how we respond to this, shaping the roles of the future and keeping us at the forefront of the rapidly changing jobs market.

Enterprise must be at the heart of everything we do. It’s another route to supporting our local economy and central to UWE Bristol contributing over £500m to the local economy each year. As one of four University Enterprise Zones (UEZ) in the UK commissioned by the government, we have the ability to create opportunities. Our UEZ is a space for a thriving community of start-ups, fast-growing businesses and graduate entrepreneurs where ideas can be nurtured and brought to fruition. We are creating the future.

The four pillars of RISE will act as the driving force behind us to deliver purposeful change that will impact the lives of others. It unifies the work we’re already doing so we can tell our story and demonstrate our value to society, the knowledge economy and the world.

The road ahead can feel uncertain at times. As a sector we know there are more challenges to come alongside huge opportunities. In the face of these, at UWE Bristol RISE is what we stand for, guiding us and allowing us to grow and deliver impact that transforms futures.

Find out more about RISE at uwe.ac.uk/rise

Professor Sir Steve West, Vice-Chancellor of UWE Bristol