Developing and deepening strategic partnerships with key non-academic institutions forms an important element of LSE School strategy, as well as that of Royal Holloway as a whole. These serve several purposes, including fostering collaborative research and expert advisory work, enrichment of the student experience through placements for work experience widening their horizons, and advancement of our Civic University agenda.
Opportunities to establish new partnerships are examined on a case-by-case basis, and taken forward at School or University level, as appropriate. Sometimes these develop out of longstanding informal collaborations but others are suggested as new opportunities deemed to hold substantial potential.
LSE has led on the development of several multifaceted University-wide partnerships:
Runnymede Borough Council, our local planning authority, which was cemented with signature of a Memorandum of Understanding in Spring 2022. Initial activities centre around student dissertation placements, joint research bids and the upcoming River Thames Scheme.
Diverse collaborations with Royal Botanical Garden, Kew, (see more below)
Relationship-building with Surrey County Council on behalf of the University
Developing a valuable partnership with the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce on the basis of RHUL’s membership. In particular, we are contributing to their new Sustainability Working Group, which is focusing on the small and medium enterprise sector of the Chamber’s membership.
School-level partnerships have also recently been established with:
Jacobs Engineering for purposes of collaborations on transport and place-making contracts with local authorities.
Surrey Wildlife Trust to provide an umbrella and new opportunities in LSE departments for joint research and advisory work hitherto undertaken principally within the Dept of Biological Sciences.
Discussions have been initiated with the Environment Agency (EA) to explore mutual interests and the potential for development of a relationship; the EA is already represented on the School’s Advisory Board.
Our partnership with Royal Botanical Gardens Kew
The School of Life Sciences and Environment has a long-standing relationship with RBG Kew, which stretches from the plant humanities to the life and environmental sciences. This partnership involves shared research, PhD supervision, teaching and knowledge exchange projects.
In 2022, we launched our new jointly taught MSc in Global Health: Food Security, Sustainability and Biodiversity and published a specially commissioned report from the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) on Plant Humanities. We also initiated a scientific investigation involving Kew Wakehurst designed to access the benefits of nature for people, demonstrating how different habitats and landscape impact human wellbeing.
In this short video, we explain why this partnership matters to both parties.
