Showcasing the university at annual Eastbourne Strategic Partnership event

The Eastbourne Strategic Partnership (ESP) recently invited Associate Professor Anne Mandy (Health Sciences) & Bethan Prosser (Community University Partnership Programme) to discuss their  local community-university engagement activities and to showcase the Eastbourne e-bike scheme at their annual event. The event brought together ESP members across statutory, public and private sectors to share and learn about each other’s’ work including Sussex Police, the Community Safety Team, East Sussex Better Together, The Eastbourne Business Partnership and 3VA.

Bethan commenced the presentation by introducing the ways the university and community come together for mutual benefit – research collaborations, student community engagement and community knowledge exchange.  Anne provided an overview of the Eastbourne  e-bike scheme, a collaboration between ESCC, Southern Rail and the University of Brighton, which was funded by a  Dept of Transport grant.  The success of the scheme had attracted interest from an external new business partner and negotiations are currently in place to extend the scheme across Eastbourne for local residents and employees. There was plenty of opportunity to network and Khadija Khan from Active Student joined us at a stall gaining several new volunteering opportunities for students. A lot of interest and new connections were also generated for the e-bike scheme.