New 'micro-campus' to attract prospective students

A new "micro-campus" is to be opened to encourage people living in an area where very few go to university to pursue higher education.

The University of Bristol "micro-campus" will be based at the Gatehouse Centre in Hartcliffe.

Professor Tom Sperlinger, the academic lead for engagement at the university's new Temple Quarter campus in the city centre said: "The micro-campuses are spaces for the university to do things differently".

The project has been given £178,000 from the Office for Student's Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund.

The funding for the project will be shared by the University and Hartcliffe and Withywood Ventures (HWV), which runs The Gatehouse, and it will be used to design a new micro-qualification.

Hartcliffe will be the university's second micro-campus after it opened a similar centre at the Wellspring Settlement in Barton Hill in 2020.

Lawrence Hill (where the Barton Hill Micro-Campus is based) and Hartcliffe and Withywood are two of the three wards in Bristol which have among the lowest participation rates in higher education in England.

Prof Sperlinger said he hopes the micro-campus will "lead on to employment opportunities but also to opportunities to come and study longer term at the university as well".

"The starting point is accepting that if we want people to come to the university, then maybe we need to do something a bit differently, and that's why we want to have our own space in Hartcliffe," he said.

"We've learned so much from our first [micro-campus] in Barton Hill and this is our chance to say to people in Hartcliffe, 'This is your university, come and share with us what it is in your community'."

Tara Miran, the Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus civil engagement manager, also manages the Barton Hill micro-campus.

She said it serves as a "gateway into the university", where individuals can find out more about other services offered within the university, such as library services.

"It's a magical space, the Barton Hill community is a ward which is under-served," she said.

"I like to think that this is a place where the seed of an idea comes and we nourish that, water it.

"This is a place where we nurture those projects, to benefit us as a university, to benefit the community of Barton Hill - something that matters, something that's meaningful for the community."

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