A Year in Review 2023
News
Bath Spa University's Year in Review 2023
Friday, 22 December, 2023From award wins to collaborations and so much more, our students, colleagues and partners have put creativity, confidence and curiosity at the heart of what they have achieved in 2023. Here are just some of the highlights that have made us #BathSpaProud as we wrap up another year of our community’s celebrations.
January: A month of new beginnings
2023 began with a month of firsts – from teaming up with 3SG to launch the Bath Social Impact Network, to starting an equality and diversity podcast with the Students’ Union and announcing our plans to create a world-leading fashion and sustainability hub, there was a lot be proud of.
We also awarded our first Honorary Doctorate of the year to Teach First CEO, Russell Hobby CBE, at our Winter Graduation ceremonies, setting the tone for the upcoming months of achievements that would follow.
February: A golden celebration
We are fortunate to have such stunning spaces in which to learn and work, and looking after the planet and its inhabitants is important to us, so we were delighted to be awarded the Gold Accreditation by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society in recognition of our commitment to protecting the creatures on campus.
Looking after students is also integral to what we do, and colleagues enjoyed helping students ‘navigate the numbers’ as part of National Student Money Week in February, equipping them with the knowledge to make their funds go further now, and in the future.
March: Co-creating worldwide change
In March, as part of a twinning partnership between Bath Spa University and the International University of Economics and Humanities (IUEH) in Ukraine, a joint project called ‘I Vote for Peace’ was born. The ethos of education, solidarity, and compassion underpinned the project and strengthened our bond of shared academic interests in education, humanities, and business, in a time of hope.
Our purpose is to make the world a better place and, in the same month, graduate Kamal Ali gained further recognition after creating the world’s first patented interactive prayer mat, having been inspired to solve a problem that was first brought to light by his infant son. Kamal's invention, My Salah Mat®, is now sold in more than 40 countries around the globe, in 20 different languages.
Collaboration was a key theme for the month, too, as students from Bath Spa and Falmouth also worked together for a final place in the 10th anniversary of the Porthleven Prize residency.
April: Footsteps and fashion
Our Newton Park campus is rich in history and in April we had the pleasure of welcoming Her Imperial Highness Princess Esther Selassie Antohin, Director of the Board of Bath’s Fairfield House CIC and great-granddaughter of the former Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie I, who had once walked through our picturesque campus during his visit in 1954.
It was also a month of many student successes, including that of then final year BA (Hons) Fashion Design student Anna Kalifatidou who was announced as the overall winner of the national British Fashion Council Student Fabric Initiative 2023.
May: Creating a caring community
May was a special month as we awarded our second Honorary Doctorate of the year to Dr Gopalkrishna Gandhi - grandson of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi - and continued our theme of promoting peace as we celebrated three years of our Care Dogs initiative to support the mental health and wellbeing of thousands of Bath Spa students.
June: Accolades, anniversaries and a new University Centre
It was a big month for news in June as we announced the New City College University Centre – a collaboration between Bath Spa University London and New City College to develop a ground-breaking new hub for learning in the Capital.
Bath Spa University colleagues, students and partners were also celebrating after being nominated for not one, not two, but an incredible eight Creative Bath Awards. Continuing the celebratory spirit, June saw us mark a decade of two truly inspiring Bath Spa University academic-led research projects with the 10th anniversary of the Forest of Imagination and 10 years of Teacher Assessment in Primary Science (TAPS).
July: A summer to shine
Entering the second half of the year, the speed of success did not slow down as we awarded seven more Honorary Doctorates to seven outstanding individuals in our Summer Graduation ceremonies, including 2023 Turner Prize winner and Bath Spa alumna, Veronica Ryan OBE and Kate Morton, CEO of mental health charity, Bath Mind.
Our community joined together once again in July to travel to Bristol as we made our Pride Day debut. In the same month, back in Bath, our very own state-of-the-art Locksbrook Campus won three top architectural excellence awards, while over in London we co-hosted the 2023 MIX Conference with the British Library to explore creative writing and emerging technologies together with writers, technologists, artists, practitioners and academics from around the world.
August: The perfect match
Announcing our sponsorship of the Bath City FC stadium and the Women’s team was a great way to kick off August as part of our new partnership to provide work and volunteering opportunities for students and staff, create local community engagement programmes and much more to come.
We were also delighted to be ranked within the top 40 UK Universities for Assessment and Feedback in the National Student Survey and be nominated for two sustainability awards.
September: University of the Year for Social Inclusion
What better way to start a new academic year than to be named as the Sunday Times University of the Year for Social Inclusion. This was an incredibly proud moment for everyone in the Bath Spa University community and was fantastic recognition of our commitment to empower students from all backgrounds with the opportunity to study and thrive in higher education.
Our reasons to be proud in September did not stop there as we went on to achieve a prestigious 'Silver' rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework and we were shortlisted in the national Social Enterprise Awards for a number of projects and initiatives as one of only five universities in the UK to be awarded the Social Enterprise Gold Mark.
We were also pleased to welcome fresh faces to our University with our new students being joined by University Chaplain Dr Katy Garner.
October: Creativity at our core
As part of our Black History Month activities, in October, we were delighted to invite Bath Spa graduate Olivia Hylton back to discuss her journey into the TV industry with a guest lecture on what it means to be ‘Black, female and animated’.
In the same month, we also hosted educators from the UK and Europe as part of our Adobe Creative Campus Collaboration event and proudly sponsored TEDxBath Unlimited 2023.
November: Chart topping success
We were proud to see Welsh rapper and Bath Spa graduate Ren secure the UK number one album this year and in our news story our Senior Lecturer in Commercial Music, Chris Blanden, fondly recalled teaching Ren while he was at Bath Spa University among a cohort of talented performers.
November also gave us an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved together for the local community, as we raised nearly £7000 for the British Heart Foundation and contributed to keeping more than 19 tonnes of items from going to waste in the city of Bath.
December: Upskilling for the future
Rounding the year off on a high, we proudly celebrated two years of the University’s free Skills Bootcamps and an incredible two decades of Commercial Music at Bath Spa.
The achievements will not stop there as we have also just announced that, along with the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority, we have secured £1m worth of funding through Arts Council England’s National Lottery Place Partnerships Fund to deliver a new two-year cultural experiences programme called Culture West.
Thank you to everyone who made this remarkable list of endeavours possible and watch this space for what is sure to be another year to remember in 2024.