Your Students' Union is changing! We launched a brand-new strategy that is genuinely student-focused and represents the wants and needs of our students!

Our Strategy

Your Students' Union is changing! We launched a brand-new strategy that is genuinely student-focused and represents the wants and needs of our students!

Community Organising
 Our Missions
 Key Campaigns
 Get Involved

Your Students' Union is changing! We launched a brand-new strategy that is genuinely student-focused and represents the wants and needs of our students!

We are building on the traditions of students' unions while drawing from the innovations of new social movements and the strength of community organising. Students' unions have a strong track record of advocating for students and have always fought for better academic, housing and wellbeing conditions for their members. By putting community organising at the centre of everything that we do, we are hoping to create a more impactful and connected union. We're excited to continue working with organisations like Citizens UK on implementing this new approach and to support the campaigns that impact our students on and off campus. To find out more about our ongoing policy and campaigning work, like our efforts to improve public transport for students in Leeds, head over to our Community Organising webpage here.

This new strategic framework is the result of lots of research, discussion, and consideration over the past few years including listening work, focus groups, reviews and audits. We want to make LBSU accessible to all students by creating more opportunities to get involved and ensuring every student community at Beckett has democratic power to shape our priorities.

Community Organising

Community organising is our central theory of change.We believe that you have the power to shape the world and your community around you. Through community organising we want to equip you with the skills to come together to hold those in power to account and to drive meaningful change whether that’s on campus, across Leeds or beyond. By working together, we’ll empower our students to build positive relationships and to use their collective voice to fight for their community.

We follow the 5 steps to social change:

  • Organise: Build a team by bringing together diverse people from different backgrounds and organisations.

  • Listen: Unite people around the issues that matter by listening to each other and our communities to find out what is putting pressure on students.

  • Plan: Identify solutions and decide which actions to take to tackle the root cause of the problems facing our students on campus and across Leeds.

  • Act: Take action to hold those responsible to account.

  • Negotiate: Work with decision makers and partners, like Leeds City Council and Leeds Beckett University, to identify solutions together and make sure change is effective and sustainable.

By following these steps and bringing our students together, we can create lasting change on campus and beyond that will positively impact our members. To find out more about the force behind community organising, head over to the Citizens UK’s webpage here. We’ve teamed up with them to help train student leaders and members of staff to empower our community to take back power and make meaningful change.

Our strategy is built around four core missions, designed to address the key issues identified by our students. From focus groups to diary studies and lots of conversations, we’ve heard from thousands of students about what you'd like our priorities to be here at LBSU. Thanks to the Big Student Survey and your input, we were able to collect insightful data that has informed our four core missions and new strategy. Below, you will find our core missions that will address the key issues you've helped us identify.

Our Missions

Fight to ensure the basic needs of every student are met

We know that without basic needs being met, our students cannot complete their degrees. Our intention is to prevent students from struggling with the issues that stop them from making the most of their experience at uni and address the societal disadvantages that stand in the way.

We're here to advocate for you and ensure you can make the most of your time studying at Leeds Beckett. We'll do this by:

  • Engaging in regional and national influencing to improve student finance, housing, and transport
  • providing free spaces for you to study and socialise on campus
  • Delivering empowering information and advice
Communities for every Beckett student to feel they belong

Finding your community at university can be difficult, and we know that students who make friends at university are more likely to complete their studies. We're here to help connect students and provide you with the tools to show you what's possible when meaningful communities work together to create lasting social change

Our goal is to provide the tools to enable students to build their social capital by connecting them with others and creating meaningful communities for collective change making.

We will ensure there's a community for every student to be a part of and provide spaces for students to come together to celebrate their cultures and passions. We'll do this by:

  • Hiring and training Student Community Organisers to support the creation of new communities on campus
  • Conducting listening work
  • Identifying core student communities at Beckett and promoting them at key times to highlight them to students
Improve the study conditions to enable students to succeed

We're here to support you in your education. We understand that students are facing financial pressures, and timetabling, teaching methods, assessments and regulations aren't working for you. We intend to create a student-centred vision for education, and to provide independent, empowering academic advice. We'll achieve this by:

  • Fostering a deep partnership with the University
  • Developing a new vision for education created by you, our students
  • Empowering student representatives
Create opportunities for students to develop and progress

We know that the full student experience requires opportunities in and beyond the curriculum. We want to be a student-centred organisation that fosters a sense of pride in Beckett amongst our students. We want our students to have the skills to thrive after university and to be confident members of civil society. We'll do this by:

  • Providing more student jobs and opportunities
  • Offering training and development for our leaders, volunteers, and staff
  • Providing accredited SU engagement

How We Will Achieve Our Missions!

Partnership with the University

We are committed to a deep and impactful partnership with the University. We plan to develop a new, sector-leading partnership agreement that will include data sharing to better serve student needs. We also want to become a trusted delivery partner of the University in relation to services and opportunities within the curriculum.

Community Building

We are committed to creating communities for every student. We will provide physical and digital spaces for students to connect and will work to ensure that communities are student-led wherever possible.

Student Leadership

We will shift most LBSU student leadership roles away from individual representation towards organising teams and communities. We have also reduced the number of full-time sabbatical officers to two from four to fund a larger number of part-time senior student leaders.

Campaigning

We will adopt a clear method of planning and delivering campaigns to provide greater strategic focus. We will collaborate and learn from other organisations like Leeds City Council and other students’ unions to help us action impactful campaigns. We will work in partnership with Citizens UK to build campaigns and work to improve the issues we uncover. We will also initiate city-wide campaigns and organise partnerships with other higher education institutions in Leeds.

Digital Transformation

We will invest in our website and digital services to boost engagement and facilitate online communities. We will also build a team of digital student leaders to create content for campaigns and communities.

What We’ll Focus On

Finance

We will be financially sustainable, generating extra revenue in our outlets, like The Hive and our music venue, to reinvest in our spaces.

Technology

We will invest in systems that capture and analyse data and use AI to improve services while making sure this work aligns with our sustainable goals and values.

Space

We will create spaces for students to meet, study, belong and develop.

People

We will create a People Strategy to develop staff and commit to being an exemplar student employer.

Insight

We will gather data, including through listening work to hear directly from you, across all services to power our insight, representation, and innovation.

Relationships

We will deepen our relationship with the University and develop relationships across West Yorkshire, including Leeds City Council, other students’ unions and key partners.

Our key policies & campaigns

Community organising is about bringing people together to win change. This means building community-led solutions to big and small problems, that work for everyone. In December 2024, we hosted our first Student Assembly where our students, Community Organisers and Students' Union leaders came together to discuss key issues impacting students at Leeds Beckett. From these conversations, we are now presenting six policies that will influence our work and help us to create meaningful change together:

  • Community and belonging at Leeds Beckeett
  • Employability and careers for our students
  • The housing situation in Leeds
  • Creating part-time work opportunities
  • Improve timetabling
  • Transport in the area

    • Through community organising, we will work together to make change on the issues that matter to you, from campaigning for better access and cheaper bus fares for students wherever you live in West Yorkshire, access to part-time work whilst you study, improvements to the way your course is timetabled, or long-term campaigns to improve student housing. The campaigns that we are focusing on this year are:

  • Employability and Careers Campaign
  • Community and Belonging Campaign
  • Housing Campaign
  • Timetabling Campaign
  • Part-time Work Campaign
  • Buses Campaign

    • If you wish to get involved and support your Community Organisers with progressing the campaigns, have a look at our Community Organising webpage and sign up to the campaigns you're interested in. We need all the help that we can get!

    Get Involved

    We are excited to start this work and collaborate with our members, student leaders, communities, as weel as our staff team! Whether you are looking to join a community, lead a student group, apply for a job with LBSU, run in the Leadership Elections, become a Course Representative or get in touch with your Student Community Organisers, there are so many different ways to get involved. Keep an eye on our website and our social channels for more updates on the student jobs and the opportunities to get involved in this work.

    We are committed to making a meaningful impact on the success of our students, empowered by community organising. Leeds Beckett Students’ Union is run by and for students, and none of this work would be possible without input from you. Thank you!

    Contact LBSU for more information