Our Civic Charter

Southampton Solent is a modern university of and for the city and of and for our city region. Our purpose is to transform the lives of our students, our stakeholders, and our communities through work-ready, practice-led learning and teaching, research, and innovation. 

We are committed to creating access to excellence, opening the door for people to develop their skills, nurture their ideas, and exchange knowledge across communities. Our courses, staff, learners, stakeholders, and alumni reflect the changing local, national and global communities we serve. We are proud to produce work ready, world ready, and future ready graduates and, as a university, we strive to be ready for the future in all we do.

Our proud heritage in the Southampton art and design school, in the school of navigation, and the college of technology embody how we have grown and evolved in line with our home city, its global networks, and outlook. As business and society have adapted, so has Southampton Solent.

Today we occupy a beautiful heart of the city site, blessed with outstanding facilities, enveloped by the city parkland. We sit at an intersection that connects us across the city and the region and beyond to the global connections of the port. We are a knowledge crossroads, where our open campus brings business and education together, breaking down boundaries that have impeded educational, economic, and social progress. Our impact reaches far and wide, with the institution acting as a diffusion engine well beyond the city region. Knowledge, innovation and inspiration ripple out across Hampshire and our further-afield communities, with our network of Southampton Solent global alumni going on to build successful working lives, contributing positively to the economy.

Southampton Solent has an international reputation in maritime – working across all aspects from crew training, research innovation in design, new engine and fuel technologies, safety, and sustainability. We train many regional health professionals and are ambitious to do more to contribute to the health and wellbeing of our local communities though our sports centre, health clinics, sports coaching, and staff and student volunteering. We actively support the region’s growing cultural scene, especially the development of digital media and storytelling, as well as building artist development programmes, encouraging business start-ups, and performing live gigs at city venues. Aligned with our inclusive values, our outreach activities focus on supporting access to education through literacy and numeracy programmes, or by encouraging women into STEM subjects. We deliver community law clinics; we inspire residents to live healthy, active lives; we are a University of Sanctuary - in all we do we utilise our skills, knowledge, and resources to fuel the region’s inclusive growth.

We champion the region’s strengths, recognise its challenges and seize the opportunity to work collaboratively and build a fairer, sustainable future for all. Our commitment to practice-led learning and research provides opportunities for business and society to shape our future provision in line with our institutional values, and we are committed to working closely with stakeholders, to agile co-design and leading technological/digital innovation.

Our connections, resources and knowledge allow us to make an impact on the issues that we believe can make the greatest difference:

• Enable access to excellent, flexible and future oriented lifelong learning opportunities as a multiversity.
• Build an open campus space and culture that fosters inclusive growth and healthy communities as a diffusion engine.
• Attract, develop, and retain talented people, and bring international best practice to bear, to connect our region to the wider global economy and society.

Our purpose is to drive economic and social prosperity and wellbeing for our city and city region. 

If you would like to find out more about our Civic Charter, please get in touch at engagement@solent.ac.uk.