Our plan moving forward
We have created a three-year plan, from August 2021 through to July 2024, which will ensure we continue to develop a culture of welcome. The working group created the plan in consultation with students, staff, academics, alumni and external partners who are part of Solent’s University of Sanctuary Network.
The plan includes everything from undertaking widening participation activities with people seeking sanctuary through to supporting Southampton’s School of Sanctuary network. You can see the full plan here.
As we implement the plan, we will keep this page up to date with our successes and impact.
Read our three-year plan
Examples of how we’ve been creating a culture of welcome
Enabling fair access: Contextual offers and scholarship schemes - Ongoing
Solent is a proud champion of widening participation, which is at the core of our operations and our culture. In 2020 we introduced our contextual offers scheme. The scheme uses additional information gained through contextual data to support our admissions process where we will identify disadvantaged students, their achievement and potential to succeed in the context of their background and experience, encourage application and make lower offers to support access. Refugees and asylum seekers are eligible for the scheme.
Find out more
In 2021 we also launched the Solent Sanctuary Scholarship scheme in addition to our scholarship scheme for Syrian national refugees.
Find out more
Engaging our students: BA (Hons) Sociology module - Migration and Refugees - Ongoing
Our third year sociology students have the option to undertake a module that develops their understanding of the various push and pull factors that drive global migration. The module enables learners to appreciate the connected and on-going movement of people as they live as residents of a nation, transnational migrants, settled citizens, refugees, and asylum seekers.
Find out more
Engaging our communities: Solent’s Showcase Gallery Narratives of Displacement Exhibition - January to March 2020
Based on a dialogue with internationally renowned artist Dr Rachel Gadsden, Solent’s Showcase Gallery presented exhibitions examining different experiences of the same themes: displacement, identity and social perception.
The first exhibition, Narratives of Displacement explored the use of art as a form to help refugee women tell their stories. Over 1200 members of the public visited the exhibition. The pieces in the exhibition were created by Iraqi and Syrian women who have found refuge in Germany, the UK and Jordan. Read more.
Driving research and knowledge exchange
Hierarchical Assemblages of Citizenship and Belonging: The Pedestrian Speech Acts of Gujarati Indian Walkers, Dr Aarti Ratna, 2019
Sustainable Refugee Migration: A Rethink towards a Positive Capability Approach, Dr Mohammed Al-Husban, Solent University, 2016