Bangor and its community

Reflecting the ambition and vision of the University’s Strategy 2030, our Civic Engagement Strategy developed in 2021–22 embraces our commitment to civic and community engagement.

Before the Covid–19 pandemic, universities had been challenged by policymakers to think differently about the ways in which they interacted with their local, regional and international communities. Underlying this appeal was a demand for universities to provide greater added value to core external stakeholder groups and to think differently about community engagement.

Bangor University makes a substantial contribution to the life of our local communities. Making our campus available for Covid–19 treatment, testing and prevention efforts, carrying out research that helped understand and address the challenges posed by the virus, the efforts by staff and students to support at–risk groups during the lockdown and providing support to Ukrainian refugees are examples of how the University has demonstrated its effectiveness as a community partner and thought leader.

The core objectives of the new strategy are represented by three ‘umbrella’ themes:

Canolfan Brailsford, Treborth Botanic Garden and the redevelopment of College Park.

Positive steps have been made to ensure that we can respond more effectively to the challenges and opportunities that confront us over the next decade through the creation of a Community Board that draws together a broad range of stakeholders from the public, private and voluntary sectors which will support the strategy by identifying opportunities to collaborate and providing feedback on our civic engagement work.

A Civic Engagement team has been established at the University whose role is to deliver on our civic engagement strategy, including identifying collaboration opportunities, developing models of partnership working and extending the reach of our community footprint across North Wales.

Listening to our community

The Institute of Welsh Affairs and Bangor University have created a partnership to deliver a series of virtual, in–person or hybrid events designed to contribute towards influencing the public policy agenda across a range of issues, including: The perceptions and realities of North Wales and the region’s social, economic and political relationships with the rest of the country and beyond; the porous boundary between Northeast Wales and Northwest England, and what it means for the migration of populations; and investment, innovation, the Levelling Up agenda and pre–devolution alliances.

The launch of this partnership in March 2022 included an online discussion Taxing Twilight: the Health Economics of North Wales where panellists were asked to discuss how we should address pressures in an environment of a reducing working age population share, whilst understanding the existing challenges brought by rurality and ultimately provide the first–class services North Wales deserves.