Applying to your context

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When we first built our student partner team, I remember feeling that real sense of excitement. We had the energy, the ideas, the commitment, and we wanted to make that change. And in many ways we have, but I won’t pretend that it’s been smooth sailing throughout. I think partnerships bring many, many challenges and we’ve had to learn to navigate them as we’ve gone through the programme. But definitely one of the first hurdles that we faced was resistance. Some staff are definitely not sure about the idea of students being partners in the first place. It’s unfamiliar territory for many. So we didn’t get an overwhelming enthusiasm, let’s say, in the beginning.

Partnerships definitely take time to build because they’re built on trust and that doesn’t happen overnight. So we shared stories, kind of real examples of partnerships success, and we got students and staff to present together to show what that collaboration can achieve. This really helps staff and students see the benefits of partnership working. But again, one of the trickiest parts for us has been measuring that impact. We instinctively know that what we do is valuable, but we need to be able to show and evidence that, so we started evaluating outcomes together.

Our student partners became co-researchers in our programme evaluation, conducting follow-up discussions with all of the stakeholders to measure that value and that benefit and that impact of our programme. And this has actually led to a lot of student and staff publications from the programme as well, which has been really nice to see. And we’ve been really pleased to be awarded the Staff and Educational Development Association Student Partnership Impact Award in 2025. And this is an international recognition of students that have had an impact at their institution relating to educational development. This award’s really helped us kind of celebrate our work and build that visibility of our partnership programme at the university and beyond.

Once you have a Student Partner team in place, you are ready to start some partnership projects! But partnerships bring some challenges that require navigation:

Challenge	Opportunity
Resistance to students becoming partners	Staff who are not familiar with working in partnership with students may need support to embrace the idea. Communicating the success stories of partnership working will help colleagues see the benefits of partnership working. Evidence-based arguments help strengthen the rationale for partnership. These messages are best delivered by staff AND students in partnership. Embedding partnership practice in university career development and reward structures helps to reinforce recognition of the approach.
Establishing inclusive partnerships	Partnerships should include historically minoritised and underrepresented students otherwise, they risk perpetuating the advantages of the already advantaged students. Including students from diverse backgrounds, values the diverse knowledge and experiences that students bring to partnerships. Inclusive recruitment strategies can help build diversity within your student partner team. If you can remunerate students for their partnership work, this helps attract those students who need paid work. Offering accessible ways of engaging in partnerships can help attract a wider pool of students into partnership projects.
Unclear partnership expectations	Partnerships can become ineffective when students are unclear about what is expected of them. Supporting staff to work with students to develop a shared understanding of expectations (for example, of project objectives, timeframes, roles, ways of working, key deliverables, and outcomes) helps facilitate successful partnerships. These expectations can be subject to change, so they should be continually revisited throughout the partnership.
Partnerships are time-consuming	Effective partnerships are built on shared trust and understanding between staff and students. This takes time to build. For those new to partnership working, it is advisable to start with small projects and scale them up over time using the lessons learned along the way. Aligning projects with strategic priorities helps to build and sustain a culture of partnership.
The impact of a partnership is difficult to measure	Evaluating the outcomes of partnership projects is an important part of building recognition of their value and their reputation. Both staff and students must understand how partnerships have made a difference so that their contributions are celebrated. Providing opportunities for staff and students to work together to disseminate project outcomes (for example, via co-authored conference presentations and journal articles) is one way of celebrating partnership success. Engaging with sector awards to mark student partner achievements is another (see, for example, the SEDA Student Partnership Impact Award).