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LITE Strategy

LITE fosters Research and Development in Student Education. That’s at our core. Our foundation is in inclusivity. We create space for all members of the University of Leeds community to engage in evidence-based practice that makes a real impact, be it professional services staff, technical staff, students, or academics.

We refer to Pedagogical Research, or PedRes in our work and communications. You might talk about Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) or Discipline-Based Educational Research (DBER) in your own practice – our definition of PedRes includes them both. Read more about our use of language and why we use PedRes as an umbrella in this blog post.

Our support for individuals – through Fellowships, events, Student Research Experience Placements – is just one element of how we’re providing a platform for PedRes at the University of Leeds. It’s part of a wider vision: to make LITE – and Leeds – famous for impactful PedRes which enhances Student Education nationally and internationally.

The three pillars of our vision build on the three elements of the University’s 2020-2030 strategy: Community, Culture, and Impact.

We will:

  • …Enhance a culture of evidence-based Student Education
  • …Foster a community of expert scholars to drive Educational Enhancement
  • …Empower all to deliver impact in Student Education

Enhance a culture of evidence-based Student Education

Everything that we do is underpinned by wider evidence in the field, and if that evidence doesn’t yet exist, then that guides our next focus for pedagogical research.

In order to deliver the best possible Student Education, we need to listen to – and contribute to – relevant research and evidence. We’re enabling a culture at Leeds where there’s always someone in the room asking: “what’s the evidence?”. A culture which encourages looking wider than our own context and to the sector as a whole, learning from other institutions to overcome our challenges. We’re building an active community of expert pedagogical researchers, where ‘researchers’ aren’t individuals working in siloes, but systems and teams which inform practice at every level.

We will lead the sector conversation on evidence-based educational enhancement in higher education, positioning ourselves alongside our counterparts at other institutions, to become internationally recognised as a centre of reference for fostering impactful R&D in Student Education.

Foster a community of expert scholars to drive Educational Enhancement

We will create platforms for those involved in every level of Educational Enhancement to come together and share ideas and expertise to participate in meaningful PedRes.

The LITE Incubators is one such platform. Our Incubators provide a playground to collaborate and grow, co-producing PedRes into curriculum and educational enhancement alongside students, academics, and professionals from different parts of the University. Collaborative by their nature, our Incubators enable participation in pedagogical research for everyone.

Our Fellowships are unmatched in the sector: there aren’t many institutions where all staff (academic and non-academic) are funded to complete research into Student Education. We’re proud of all of the Fellows, past and present, who have been enabled to complete impactful pedagogical research. We’re engaging directly with underrepresented communities to make sure they’re included in our work, and that they have a home at LITE.

LITE isn’t just about our Fellowships, though. If you are already conducting PedRes, or are thinking about it, LITE is your home whether you are a LITE Fellow or not. We will support you and champion you.

We provide opportunities for people to meet, learn, and build relationships which strengthen our whole community. We work closely with local teams and individuals, such as schools, services, and school-based SoTL subject centres, to embed evidence-based practice across the University.

Empower all to deliver impact in Student Education

Every person working at the University contributes to Student Education.

We champion the embedding of impact at every stage of the research life cycle, from initial research design through to application in day-to-day practice and iterative development. We view our work through an impact lens: questioning how what we do makes a difference to student experience and student learning.

We invite our community to think broadly about their work, their purpose, and their intentions – and how they can contribute to an evidence base which will make a tangible difference in higher education. We’re able to do this because we have impact in mind from even the early inception of ideas – it’s not an afterthought, it’s something that features at every stage of our work.

Our enabling strategy

Designing, developing, and communicating impact in Educational Enhancement is at the core of our enabling strategy. To deliver impact, we’re using an impact lens with three pillars: fostering, leading, and promoting.

A table showing impact in student education. The content is repeated as text below.

Fostering

We are:

  • Developing sustained expertise
  • Driving evidence-based Student Education culture

We’re doing this through:

  • Fellowships and LITE support
  • Developing a LITE academic signature
  • Embedding thematic LITE Incubators for PedRes

Leading

We are:

  • Driving evidence-based Student Education culture
  • Developing LITE sector leadership

We’re doing this through:

  • Sector leading strategy
  • LITE Strategic projects
  • Developing a LITE academic signature in understanding and catalysing impactful PedRes

Promoting

We are:

  • Translating and embedding Educational Enhancement impact and success in Leeds community
  • Celebrating Leeds Student Education experts

We’re doing this through:

  • Innovation in dissemination, including spotLITE, LITE Bites, and En-LITE-ning Dialogues
  • Platforming subject centres

What this strategy means for you

There are so many ways you can get involved with LITE. We work with partners across the University to align our work and make a positive impact on Educational Enhancement.

As a School or Service

  • Work with LITE and the Incubators to signpost your objectives and priorities in Student Education and Educational Enhancement
  • Design with LITE and the Incubators the necessary PedRes to address those issues
  • Be a part of designing impact, by fostering, leading and communicating pedagogical research in your teams
  • Ask: What’s the research that’s going to help us to address this issue?

As an individual

External to the University of Leeds? Get in touch to discuss how we can work together: LITE@leeds.ac.uk.