Overturning miscarriages of justice and boosting local businesses – the power of real-world university learning

When lawyers at Northumbria University's Student Law Office (SLO) were approached by a man who appeared to have been wrongfully imprisoned for eight years for armed robbery, they believed their students could help. At the SLO, students research, interview, and sometimes represent clients on a pro bono basis, all supervised by experienced lawyers. They were right – students successfully worked to get Alex Allan's conviction overturned back in the early 2000s and, after taking his case to the court of appeal, he was paid £170,000 in compensation for the miscarriage of justice. Since then, real-world learning at Northumbria University has been driving change, helping the local community and powering the economy in the north-east.
While most cases at the SLO, set up in the 1980s to give students real-world law experience, are less high profile than Allan's, they are no less impactful for the clients at the centre of them.
'We get a lot of demand,' says Dr Jonny Hall, a solicitor who worked on part of Allan's case and is now the university's academic lead for all aspects of experiential learning. Students typically work in pairs, spending some 10-15 hours a week on real-life cases across areas of law including family, crime and human rights as part of their third-year studies. 'They gain skills and experience but also knowledge and attributes,' Hall says. 'The SLO introduces students to the reality of how lawyers might be able to help people.'
The SLO is just one example of how the university is integrating real-world learning within its courses, helping both students and those living, working and trading in the local area. The Business Clinic is a similar initiative. Final-year business students consult and advise national and international companies, local SMEs, social enterprises and charities on business problems, from helping a home fragrance business with its latest marketing campaign to supporting the RNLI with a series of events and fundraising ideas to help sustain the future of its base in the nearby seaside town of Cullercoats.
'It's embedded into the curriculum – we've made it an integral part of their degree – and that's important because students then have the time to devote to it,' Hall says. 'It's not just about learning by doing, it's about students applying the knowledge they are gaining in the real world to further their understanding, skills and future careers. Alongside this, they are contributing to the local economy and community – the benefits really are widespread.'
The majority of the university's undergraduate degree programmes already include real-world learning, and Northumbria's goal for the future is for every UK-based undergraduate student to take part in this transformative learning as part of their studies.
Many courses, such as nursing, education and social work, already require students to spend a significant percentage of their time on placement, developing the skills they need in a real-life environment. The university has enhanced the way these students train by investing in VR technologies which provide simulation scenarios to help them prepare and rehearse in a safe environment on campus, before they face similar scenarios in the real world.
This ethos carries through to other courses. Physiotherapy students help patients with real issues in the Physiotherapy clinic, supervised by a chartered physiotherapist.
Law and history students have collaborated to dig into legal archives, while fashion students work with major-label brands on live projects including design, marketing and social media campaigns, many of which have led to employment after graduation. 'It's a really important part of what we're trying to do across the university,' Hall says. 'We're trying to make these kinds of connections to the outside world, and to real experience,' he says. 'Each student goes on an individual journey, and for most I would say it enhances both their learning experience and their career prospects.'
This approach has helped Northumbria University drive social mobility and power an inclusive economy in the north-east, an integral part of the university's mission. 'Northumbria places more graduates in highly skilled north-east positions than any other university,' says Prof Graham Wynn, the university's pro-vice-chancellor (education). 'We do this by constantly evolving our education offer to be ever-more responsive to the educational needs of our students and our region.'
This creates a pipeline of talent for the area's economy and beyond – the university supplies policing, nursing and social work apprentices in the region, as well as healthcare professionals, entrepreneurs and skilled graduates for established and emerging sectors.
'I think Northumbria is a great example of a university that really is very focused on its economic mission and that means making sure students get good jobs on graduating, or create jobs for themselves and other people,' says Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, which has recently published reports on the skills needed by employers over the next decade and the economic impact of start-up and spin-out businesses originating from universities. 'The university works hard to make sure students can show prospective employers what they have done that has real-world applicability and will make them really attractive.'
One of the university's great success stories is iamproperty, a business founded by two Northumbria graduates in 2009, with support from the university. It has since grown to become a business with annual revenues of £76m, making it one of the UK's largest residential auctioneer companies, employing more than 700 people. However, back in 2008, founders Ben Ridgway and Jamie Cooke were just two 24-year-olds with an idea. '[The university] was able to give us a small two-man office in the business centre that covered our phone bills, print bills and post bills for that first year,' Cooke says. 'They put us in contact with advisers, helped with our accounting process and legals and that was really, really helpful.'
Without the university's backing, he says, it would have been difficult for the fledgling company to get off the ground. 'I'd like to think we would have got there, but I know for a fact that our growth would have been stunted without the support that we had,' Cooke says. 'They knew we were wet behind the ears and they put their arms around us and helped us.'
Now, iamproperty recruits graduates from Northumbria University because the founders value the real-world learning students get there. 'We were really looking back to the university as a talent pool to recruit from because we knew the kind of education and the knowledge people were coming out with, and we knew they were hands-on, that they'd had the level of experiences that we had had,' Cooke says. 'We attend all its graduate fairs … to make sure we're bringing in a really high calibre of people with a real base knowledge that we can push on from.'
Overall, Northumbria University's emphasis on experiential learning is supporting local communities and businesses, and beyond. The SLO, Business Clinic and success stories like iamproperty are examples of how 'economic powerhouses' such as Northumbria University are powering an inclusive economy that benefits everyone, says Stern. 'There are seeds of tangible, meaningful growth that will mean people in the north-east have access to better jobs, and money and investment coming into the region,' she says. 'And that matters – that really matters. People can feel it in their everyday lives.'
Find out more about how Northumbria University is shaping futures and driving change

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