Build community partnerships for safer campuses

Putting student well-being first and creating safer, more inclusive campuses requires a shift to a collaborative approach. Students’ unions, neighbouring universities, local authorities, third-sector organisations and police forces can be invaluable partners for support and well-being.

From gender-based violence to potential harm from alcohol, drugs or gambling, the complexity of contemporary student safety issues needs more than piecemeal interventions. The days of reactive responses, with policies written mid-crisis or after the fact, should be long behind us. 

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Instead, the foundation of our sector’s responses to student issues should lie in a more mature approach to collaboration – working with students, not just for them. Student issues are not unique to any one university alone, and students do not live and spend time in institutional silos. Why don’t we take a locality-wide approach and work alongside neighbouring institutions to share and support one another?   

Prioritising student voice 

How do university leaders create a campus environment with student well-being at the centre of all university strategy? Embed student voices at every level of policy development and decision-making, rather than adding them in as afterthoughts. We all have extensive and valued students’ unions yet they are often only viewed as stakeholders, not strategic partners. 

However, our students’ unions hear the diversity and nuance within the student voice most clearly. Governing bodies and executives should move from consultation to co-creation by involving students’ unions in policymaking. 

An example of where this collaboration has been invaluable at my university occurred during the cost-of-living crisis. At this time of sharp financial pressure, in collaboration with our students’ union, we sent cost-of-living payments to more than 90 per cent of our students. 

We also went further, recognising that our students’ union has a strong connection to students and was directly hearing about the problems they were encountering at this time. We established a long-running group for our students’ union to bring forward ideas and work to see them delivered. 

This has led to a package of support worth more than £10 million reaching students through a range of interventions, including cosy campus spaces, free breakfasts on Wednesdays and a brand new students’ union run Essentials Hub offering affordable food, toiletries and household essentials. Although listening to students to identify the areas where help is most needed is crucial, it is also important to make the case with a range of colleagues – not just senior leaders – within your institution. None of these initiatives would have been possible without the prioritisation of funding and a genuine desire across the board to improve the situation students faced.

External collaboration strengthens impact 

Students’ unions are not the only bodies with which universities can collaborate to strengthen responses to student issues. Despite many institutions across the country facing the same problems, we don’t often come together to work in partnership to address such problems.  

In Greater Manchester, however, the city’s institutions have been working in partnership for many years to support mental health, student safety and prevent potentially harmful behaviours. By pooling resources and expertise, we can work together to identify emerging trends and respond proactively, align regional and national policies and campaigns, and present a united approach to tackle student issues.  

An example is an initiative called GBVANs (Gender Based Violence Action Network for Students), which covers all harmful acts directed at an individual based on their gender, including sexual violence, domestic violence, stalking and harassment. The network was originally formed in 2022 by my university in partnership with other Greater Manchester-based universities, students’ unions and other representatives, Greater Manchester Police, local authority and GM Combined Authority, and local specialist services.  

The network is committed to providing an effective response to gender-based violence and harassment for Manchester’s significant student population. The first step for any institution looking to follow this example is to reach out to the relevant parties, both within a university and in the local community, start discussions about where commonality of approach already exists, and use these interactions to springboard ideas for solutions.

We also announced in April 2025 that we were one of five universities in England engaging with the EmilyTest Gender-Based Violence Charter pilot. The GBV charter has been developed to ensure institutions are adhering to gender-based violence prevention measures, providing intervention and support, and creating a safe and inclusive campus environment.  

Working together over a six-month period, the pilot institutions and EmilyTest adapted the existing Scottish GBV Charter for the English education system and its alignment with the new Office for Students condition of registration around harassment and sexual misconduct, which came into effect in August 2025. The EmilyTest network allows for the sharing of resources and learnings among universities committed to improving GBV support, and it is open to all universities in the UK.

Prevention over punishment 

Another vital way in which universities can work more effectively in partnership with their student population is through shifting from reactive, crisis-based or punitive responses to preventative, supportive approaches. This builds trust with students by positioning them as adults and as equals, and is more grounded in the realism of student life.

We’ve adopted a harm reduction approach to drugs and alcohol, again through collaboration with our students, replacing zero tolerance approaches with more receptive and supportive ones. Again, we’ve worked collaboratively with higher and further education institutions across Greater Manchester, along with NHS and city council partners, supported by sector group SOS UK, to develop a common position, meaning that virtually every higher education student in the region is studying in the first city region in the UK to adopt a harm reduction focused stance for all its students.  

This approach employs valuable rhetoric that can be applied to other areas of student well-being. Imploring policies – and policymakers – to view students reasonably and fallibly will ultimately strengthen, and open, the relationship between university leaders and teachers and their student bodies. 

Embedding change takes patience, infrastructure and time 

Collaboration can foster a more student-focused university environment, where student well-being is at the centre of all policy. But let’s remember that sustained change needs time, well thought-out structures and a change in culture. Initiatives must be connected to a long-term strategy of placing student support first, not just isolated strategies, abandoned as soon as the next crisis emerges.

We work continuously with other Greater Manchester higher education institutions and students’ unions to support students living in the wider community, on issues such as housing strategy, landlords and antisocial behaviour. This landscape changes frequently, so this work is always evolving and will always have its place.

It also offers a model that could be adapted nationally. Much can be done with little investment and strong interpersonal relationships; start with commonality, not difference, and build from there. Let’s look to our neighbours and hear their student voices and unions, to build safer, student-centred campuses and communities. By scaling local innovations, we can work collaboratively to redefine how universities support and protect their students. 

Simon Merrywest is director of the student experience at the University of Manchester.

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