Review of staff engagement with the third sector

Projects

Background

This research explores the extent and nature of UCL staff engagement with the voluntary and community sector. This might include a wide range of activities, including volunteering, trusteeship, research collaboration, forming and managing social enterprises or informal community-level activities with grassroots organisations (e.g. campaigning). The research will look at the motivations among staff for involvement, impacts on the staff involved and identify ways that staff engagement with the third sector could be developed in the future. The project will report in January 2012.

Aims

The aim of this research is to explore and quantify the extent and nature of UCL staff engagement with the voluntary and community sector. More specifically, the project aims:

To describe and quantify the type of engagement;
To explore motivations among staff for involvement;
To explore barriers to engagement;
To explore impacts on the staff involved;
To identify ways that staff engagement with the third sector could be developed in the future

Methods

For the pilot stage, a series of in-depth interviews will be conducted with approximately five members of staff in two departments. In addition to this, an online survey will be developed and tested on five people in five different departments. Upon completion of the pilot stage, an online survey (based on that used in the pilot stage) will be disseminated to all staff within UCL