Skip to main content
Strategy 2030 – Bath Spa University

Strategy 2030

Our Context and Ambition (this page)

  • How we will accomplish this

Creativity

  • Our focus
  • Our research approach
  • Our work as makers and narrators
  • Our work as learners

Enterprise

  • A partnership approach

Talent

  • Our student journey
  • Our staff pledge

Enablers

  • Our size and academic portfolio
  • Our financial approach
  • Our physical and digital estate

 Our context and ambition

Our mission is to use creativity and innovation to successfully address the key issues of our age. We are a resourceful university with roots in the synergies between employers and creativity that are the drivers of sustainable economic development. We pride ourselves on our sense of community and our nurturing ethos.

Our excellent teaching and research are intertwined, novel and bold: we value the links between thinking, making and doing. We welcome the diversity of our students and value their individual narratives; we are a place where students change their lives and change the world.

We believe in the power of people to imagine and realise solutions for any problem and in the next decade we will apply our skills to global challenges and local opportunities. We will look outwards, establishing centres of inclusive teaching excellence wherever there is a need. While looking outwards we will be rooted in Bath, our City of Imagination, where we are essential to the region. Wherever we work, we will carry the creative values of the West of England as our lodestone.

Our purpose is to challenge our students and staff to realise their talent and thrive, for their own benefit and for the wider good.

By doing this we will think and make the world better.

Aerial view of Bath city

Our ambition

Our ambition is to bring professional creativity to the heart of all that we do, so that we are:

  • Big enough to be bold, sure of our own capabilities
  • Small enough to care, valuing, challenging and nurturing all our students and staff
  • Innovative and agile, able to make quick decisions and react to opportunities and challenges at speed and with effect.
  • Relevant and impactful, changing the world by seeing it differently
  • One community, valuing and celebrating originality and difference as a cornerstone of creativity
  • Passionate, compassionate, brave, inclusive, ethical, engaged and effective at the core of who we are.

How we will accomplish this

We will be judged by our achievements:

  • Learners who can change their lives, and hence change the world
  • Research that delivers social, cultural and economic impact
  • Creativity and innovation applied on all scales, from the delivery of a local cultural strategy to decisive engagement with global challenges
  • New narratives, understandings, objects and performances that challenge and create change
  • Sustained partnerships of long standing and proven worth.

We will realise these ambitions through developing four major themes of work:

  • Bath Spa Creativity
  • Bath Spa Enterprise
  • Bath Spa Talent
  • Bath Spa Enablers.

Our Education Strategy

The purpose of the Education Strategy is to challenge our students and staff to realise their talent and thrive, for their own benefit and for the wider good.

As an explorative applied learning community we will nurture lifelong learning capabilities, instilling the curiosity and confidence all our students need to navigate a challenging ever changing world of opportunity.

By doing this, we will think and make the world better.

Read our Education Strategy 2030.

Our Educational Partnerships Strategy

The purpose of the Educational Partnerships Strategy is to support the University's ambitions stated in its Strategy 2030, setting out our vision, and the key principles and principal objectives for our educational partnership activities.

Through working in partnerships with educational providers we aim to teach students from a wider range of backgrounds, and from a wider geographic reach, on a wider range of qualifications and, in doing so, add value to individuals and communities locally, nationally and globally.

Read our Educational Partnerships Strategy.

 Our International Strategy

Working across the University in collaboration with academic and professional services departments, students, alumni and the Students’ Union, and led by our three international-facing teams, GALA, Go Global and European Projects, our International Strategy aims to deepen and further develop international connections and activities that enhance our teaching and research.

The University’s aim is to embed internationalisation in everything we do across our core activities at home and abroad.

Read our International Strategy 2030.

Wera Hobhouse MP talking to Bath Spa Uni students Wera Hobhouse MP talking to Bath Spa Uni students Wera Hobhouse MP talking to Bath Spa Uni students

Our Research Strategy 

The purpose of the Research Strategy is to focus our research on areas of proven excellence and academic sustainability, and to create a distinctive and internationally recognised profile of innovative research.

Our goal is to become a vibrant and well-connected hub for new ideas, without internal boundaries, and with an international reputation for creativity, culture, and enterprise in research. 

We'll achieve this by embedding the University’s core values of Respect, Inclusivity, Collaboration, and Sustainability into all of our activities. We'll ensure that research underpins everything we do and actively engage with stakeholders from the local, regional, and global communities.

This approach will foster a culture of excellence and promote research that highlights our strengths and challenges disciplinary boundaries. 

Read our Research Strategy 2030

Edit section | Website feedback to web@bathspa.ac.uk