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Edinburgh College Research Unit

Edinburgh College and its legacy colleges have a history of engaging and participating in research activity, which demonstrates organisational research capacity, and a commitment to good research practice.

Research Activity

Examples of our research activity include:

  • Socio economic impact of colleges
  • CDN colleges tackling poverty report
  • CDN schools college partnership report
  • Solar PV Meadow research report
  • Innovation capacity and need in local businesses research report
  • Addressing fear and anxiety in college leaners
  • How to best prepare college learners pre-entry to college
  • Integrating creative thinking into college courses
  • History of Edinburgh College
  • Student travel patterns pre and post Covid 19 Pandemic

Strategic Plan

The new Edinburgh College Strategic Plan identifies research and innovation activity as a critical success factor to the delivery of ambitions identified in the framework. In addition, a number of national and regional policy objectives also place importance on enhancing the breadth, quality and impact of research activity across Scotland, and the rest of the UK.

Research Plan

The Edinburgh College Research Plan has been developed in response to the above strategic ambitions, and identifies three aims, to improve the breadth, quality and impact of research activity at Edinburgh College. These aims are aligned to the three strategic themes in the Edinburgh College Strategic Plan:

  1. People - To produce high quality research activity to in order to develop our staff, deliver an excellent student experience, and improve the quality of learning, teaching and assessment.
  2. Place - To increase the scale and quality of research activity with communities, public and third sector partners, universities, industry and employers, in order to aid inclusive and sustainable economic growth.
  3. Performance - To improve the resourcing, coordination, governance and reporting of research activity to demonstrate progress and positive impact.

In order to deliver these aims, and related objectives indicated in the main plan, the College has established an Edinburgh College Research Unit.

The Unit brings together staff, students and partners, including the Edinburgh College Development Trust, through a range of groups and activities.  These include, sourcing research resources, funding research scholarships, organizing research placements, developing a staff and student research forum, identifying opportunities for research projects with business, universities, colleges, and other public and third sector partners.

All of this activity is overseen, coordinated and governed by the Edinburgh College Research Committee. This Committee reports to the Executive and Senior Management Teams, and thereafter to the College’s Corporate Development Committee, on all elements of activity to ensure good governance and public reporting.

The Research Committee also identifies how research activity will be funded and managed, how staff and students will be involved, what governance and ethical considerations and arrangements are in place, and how research will be published and utilised to ensure positive and lasting impact.

For further information about this framework, the Edinburgh College Research Unit, and the Research Committee, please contact:

michael.jeffrey@edinburghcollege.ac.uk – Vice Principal Corporate Development 

nick.croft@edinburghcollege.ac.uk – Director of Communications, Policy and Research.

Edinburgh College Research Plan