Welcome to the sixth series of Accommodation Matters – bringing sector experts together to discuss the Higher Education sector’s key issues through the lens of student accommodation.

In this episode, host Jenny Shaw is looking to learn more about the sector’s hottest topic: student belonging. The experts share their insights on topics including how a sense of belonging comes about in student accommodation, how student accommodation practitioners can facilitate it in their buildings, and supporting students from marginalised communities to belong in their accommodation.

This month’s panel features:

• Yvonne Turnbull, Director of Student Advice and Wellbeing at Liverpool John Moores University
• Tom White, Co-Founder and CEO at WAU Agency
• Luke McCrone, Postdoctoral Researcher at Imperial College London

Accommodation Matters was recorded on 16th February 2023 and produced by Ed Palmer.

Resources

The What Works? Student retention and success report can be downloaded from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation website [2012].

Unite Students’ 2022 Applicant Index is available to download from the Unite Students website, as is the Living Black at University research report [2022].

You can learn more about Imperial College’s Belonging, Engagement and Community (BEC) Project at the Imperial website.

More information on WAU Agency's 'Investor in Students' scheme is available from the WAU website.

Wonkhe and Pearson’s Building Belonging in Higher Education report is available to download from Wonkhe’s website [2022].