Watch the Nottingham Potential video
Learning is the greatest game in life and the most fun.
Glenn Doman, founder of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential.
With the support of philanthropists who share the University’s ethos and ambition, the opportunities within Nottingham Potential will be expanded to benefit even more young people within our local communities.
Will you help us to build on our strong foundations, and significantly expand the University’s commitment to Nottingham Potential over the next five years?
The Campaign will raise philanthropic support across five themes: The Nottingham Experience, Health and Well-being, Nurturing Talent, Ingenuity and Sustainable Futures. Each theme encompasses a series of projects and programmes that build upon our strengths in areas of strategic importance.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign has been developed to deliver our vision to:
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change lives
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tackle global issues
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shape the future
Widening participation
Nottingham Potential, which falls within the Nurturing Talent theme, will raise aspirations and support achievement by working with young people, teachers, schools and colleges in Nottingham and the East Midlands.
The University commits £8 million a year to widening participation. Nottingham Potential will build on this to significantly expand the University’s commitment over the next five years. With the support of philanthropists who share the University’s ethos and ambition, the opportunities within Nottingham Potential will expand to benefit even more young people within our local communities.
Nottingham Potential: Pathway for the region’s talent
The University has a long tradition of working with young people, teachers, schools and colleges across Nottingham and the East Midlands to raise aspirations and support achievements.
Despite changes in funding and fee structures for the higher education sector, the University is clear about the direction and commitment needed to improve access for those who aspire, and have the ability, to pursue higher education.
The University’s targets for widening participation are ambitious and broad, but our strengths across a variety of interventions and partnerships make us well equipped to deliver.
Nottingham Potential provides a framework to draw together more than a dozen existing and planned activities within our widening participation strategy. Philanthropy will play a vital role in helping the University deliver key components of this strategy.
Our vision
To be a beacon of best practice for widening participation and community engagement, enabling capable students from under-represented backgrounds to reach their academic potential.
Our mission
To promote and support, within less advantaged communities locally, educational aspirations and attainment at primary, secondary and post-16 levels and progression to higher education, including The University of Nottingham.
Our work
Excellence in education and equality of access and opportunity are guiding principles in our strategic plan. These principles are also central to Nottingham Potential. Through it, we will create a distinctive and high-profile pathway to higher education for the most deprived young people of our region.
Working with education charity IntoUniversity, Nottingham Potential will expand the University’s work with children of primary age, from as young as Year 2 (age 7), through the transition to secondary school and beyond, by providing a pathway that will support achievement and raise aspirations.
Nottingham Potential provides long-term support tailored to young people with educational ambitions. This can only be achieved in partnership with families, schools, teachers, community groups, and by drawing upon the extraordinary commitment and expertise shown by the University’s students and staff.
The University will deliver Nottingham Potential on our campuses and in centres run by IntoUniversity. These centres will be based within three of the region’s most deprived communities. With 24 new staff strengthening existing teams and based at both the University and the new Nottingham IntoUniversity centres, the number of opportunities for contact will almost double in five years, from 28,000 in 2011 to almost 50,000. This will make the University a positive and accessible presence in the lives of the region’s most deprived young people.
Our impact
Nottingham Potential will make a measurable difference to raising attainment and providing advice on how to navigate the various routes into higher education for the most deprived young people in our region. It will provide ongoing support and trained student mentors. Nottingham Potential will help those who aspire, and have the ability, to reach their academic potential and achieve the goal of higher education.
Nottingham Potential is an opportunity to target philanthropy in support of some of the most deprived young people in the region, identifying and supporting their talent and providing a pathway to success. This is an opportunity to transform lives, to transform the region and, through a pioneering partnership approach, to become a beacon of best practice – a model that can inform policy to benefit those beyond our region.
Professor David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor
I was very lucky to have enjoyed my school and university years and I’m in a position now to be able to make a philanthropic commitment. That’s why I am personally supporting Nottingham Potential and the efforts of my former University to make a real and meaningful difference on this issue in the East Midlands.
David Ross, Donor, Law, 1987