Making Connections is a 9-month research project exploring how staff voice can be more effectively embedded into decision-making and governance at the University of the Arts London (UAL). Conducted between January and September 2025, the project was commissioned by UAL’s Social Purpose Lab in collaboration with the People & Culture Group, and delivered by the Service Futures Lab.
The project responds to a widely recognised challenge in higher education: while staff across roles and job families demonstrate strong commitment to contributing ideas, experience and care, the systems designed to capture and act on staff voice are often fragmented and disconnected from formal decision-making. This can undermine trust, limit inclusion, and reduce the impact of staff participation, particularly in areas such as Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and sustainability.
Adopting a service design, co-design and research-through-design approach, the Service Futures Lab team worked as embedded researchers within UAL. The research combined multiple methods at scale, including desk and literature reviews, analysis of staff survey data, ecosystem and governance mapping, interviews with staff and leaders, and participatory co-design workshops across colleges and central teams. Engagement took place both in-person and asynchronously, enabling broad participation across job families and grades.
The research revealed that staff voice at UAL is dispersed across a complex mix of formal and informal channels. Key challenges include unclear remits for committees and forums, unclear feedback loops, limited transparency around how decisions are made, and insufficient time, resources and recognition for social purpose work. These conditions can create perceptions of tokenism, even where intent is positive.
At the same time, the project identified strong examples of grassroots leadership, staff networks and cross-college collaboration, showing that when engagement is genuine, reciprocal and well supported, staff voice becomes a powerful driver of belonging, inclusion and institutional change.
Through co-design and iterative prototyping, the project generated 12 concepts to strengthen staff voice. Following testing with staff and engagement with senior leaders, 4 proposals were prioritised for further development, including clearer governance frameworks, practical tools for inclusive engagement, improved meeting and communication practices, and new mechanisms for recognition and visibility.
Making Connections provides both short-term opportunities and long-term direction for embedding staff voice as a core institutional capability.
You can watch the project video above to hear directly from the team, or download the full report to explore the research, methods, insights and proposals in detail.
Project Report:
Grimaldi, S, Lai, V, Doruff, J, Mao, L J (2025) Making Connections: Staff Voice in Decision- Making and Governance at University of the Arts London. University of the Arts London.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.58129/stg4-3j42
Partners:
University of the Arts London People and Culture Department
Social Purpose Lab
Date:
January 2025 to July 2025
Funder:
UAL Social Purpose Lab
SFL Team:
Leads:
Silvia Grimaldi
Veron WK Lai
Researchers:
Jeffrey Doruff
Loretta Mao
Rose Thompson
Service Futures Lab 