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You can count the hours on your project towards the Exeter Award, where you can also access training in relevant personal and professional skills.
If you have already completed the Exeter Award, you can develop your skills further and more specifically within Leadership and Management through the Exeter Leaders Award, using your Change Agents project experience as your case study.
Get Involved
What counts as a project?
Change Agents and Partners projects are those which seek to change and improve the student experience, or the provision that the University provides to students. To get an idea of how broad this remit is, take a look at listings of projects currently running with us, and case studies of past projects.
Students’ involvement in a Change Agents project can take different forms, but fundamentally students must take a leading role in the direction and management of a project. The project can make use of one or more students in a partnership-based role with other staff leaders, or students can lead a project by themselves, or be delegated greater control by staff partners.
Funding to Set Up Your Own Project
Teams of students, or students and staff, who have project proposals they wish to run by themselves can register with us directly. Applications for our next round of funding applications are expected to open in September 2024. You can read about our funding application process, and browse through a list of recent case studies on the current projects page.
Internship Projects
In addition to applications for project funding, we are currently recruiting to internships for University Change Agents projects running in Summer 2024. Internship projects make use of a student working full time over 6 weeks in the summer to take a deep dive into a specific theme of the student experience, and look at how we can improve this across the University. Project topics are selected each year based on our top strategic priorities for the student experience. Check out the current projects page for more information.
Further Information
If you are a member of staff thinking about student-led improvements, you should think critically about how you are involving students, and how to give students as much active and direct control of the change as is practical. This might make your work eligible to be registered with Change Agents, by embodying the Exeter ethos of genuine student-led change.
The next tab has more detailed questions to consider if your project is eligible for Change Agents funding. If you have any doubt ot concerns though, please feel free to contact us.
Further eligibility questions
There are multiple ways of achieving and funding student-focused changes across the University. Students as Change Agents is only one means of doing so, and we work in partnership with other schemes to ensure every project proposal we receive is directed to and supported by the most appropriate means of funding.
The list below details examples of questions you should consider critically if you think Change Agents could support your project, or whether you might seek support or funding elsewhere.
Is there a student need clearly identified, and a focus on improving the student journey?
Projects do not necessarily need to know what solution to implement when they begin, but there must be a clear problem you wish to address. You should be able to evidence that this genuinely exists, and articulate clearly why your project will deliver the most effective and efficient means of addressing that problem.
Is the project student-led and co-owned by students?
Projects must be able to articulate that they have been developed and will be co-owned or led by students. If you cannot fulfil this criteria, we may suggest that you continue to recruit students to help you implement a change, but that your project cannot be a Change Agents project in the spirit of true change agency.
What will the project use funding for?
We understand that time is a precious resource that not every student can afford to volunteer. Therefore at present our funding is intended primarily to reimburse students for their time spent co-creating projects. We may be able to pick up incidental costs, but we ask that you keep these to a minimum in any proposal you submit. The University's Annual Fund is more appropriate to help fund events or purchase communal equipment to be used by student groups, sports clubs, or societies.
We are willing to consider projects that have received funding from both Change Agents and the Annual Fund, but you must have or be in the process of securing the latter funding when you make a Change Agents application. Please do email the team if you have any questions about this.
Is the project intending to explore or research pedagogic innovation?
While we welcome students helping to co-create what we teach and how, responsibility for implementing these changes ultimately lies with academic staff. We therefore request that projects focusing on pedagogical changes first explore support through the University's Education Incubator.
Is the project intending to introduce a long term group, such as for mentoring or social activities?
By definition, a project is a time-limited piece of work. If your proposal will introduce an ongoing piece of work, like a mentoring scheme or social groups, we suggest you consider alternative places for support first, such as through the University's Peer Support scheme, or by setting up a society with the Students' Guild or Students' Union.
Is the project focused on improving an existing service or provision?
In these instances, we would ask project groups to consider carefully and thoroughly if what they are proposing could be argued is the ongoing responsibility of an individual Department, Service, or Team. If this is the case, we may reject your proposal on the basis that it cannot be a Change Agents project in the spirit of true change agency, and should be more appropriately considered "business as usual".
We appreciate some teams may struggle to implement all desired changes due to resourcing pressures or lack of student insight. In this instance, we would still encourage you to employ students on a temporary basis to assist you, making use of the Student Campus Partnership (SCP) or Graduate Business Partnership (GBP) scheme. You may be able to find funding internally, from your home Service or Faculty, or from areas such as Access to Internships (A2I).
Contacting us and next steps
Applying for funding
If you already have an project proposal ready to submit to us, you should complete our online application form. If you are unsuccessful in securing funding with us during this process, we will support in seeking funding from elsewhere, or you can continue to run your project without funding where the student leads provide their time on a voluntary basis.
Contact information
If you have any questions about Change Agents, or require any help or clarification on completing any stage of your workflow, please contact us on changeagents@exeter.ac.uk
We also welcome correspondence from staff who would like to make better use of Change Agents projects in their department or Faculty, but are not sure how to go about this.
Students as Change Agents and all registered projects are administered and supported by the Student Voice and Change Team in Learning Experiences and Innovation (LXI).