Our work on RiT was to a large extent about building, strengthening and opening up communities:
Creating student research communities – an excellent example of this is the Junior Research Institute Pilot at the Department of Performing Arts and English
Bringing together the teaching and research communities of the University – in 2010 for the first time the annual Teaching and Learning Symposium and the annual Research Poster Exhibition were brought together with the Communities Marketplace as part of a two day University of Bedfordshire Conference
Promoting academic communities - our work on RiT was closely linked with the work of CETL colleagues, as a result of this collaboration we organised two University writing retreats which offered opportunities to colleagues involved in CETL and RiT projects to contribute to an internal publication promoting their work and sharing ideas and thinking on teaching and learning.
Providing support to the creation of new communities – the teaching of research methods is an important part of equipping students with the right skills to participate and engage with research communities, the Teaching Research Methods Group offered opportunities to share thinking, challenges and good practice in the area.
Providing opportunities for cross campus collaboration - our first steps in RiT at institutional level included a partnership project between the then School of Education and the Department of Applied Social Studies. This work informed our future work and in particular our departmental engagement.
