sparqs Consultancy
About the consultancy
Consultancy is offered to institutions and students' associations who seek sparqs' support in a more localised and customised way.
By developing individual workplans of up to around five days in each institution, sparqs is able to provide research, training or development advice that responds to institutions' own specific challenges, ambitions and agendas. Our work can be both:
On-site - meetings and workshops to explore ideas, gain views, agree outcomes, and of course undertake substantive work. These may be large or small gatherings of teaching, administrative or management staff, student representatives, or students; or indeed discussions with key individuals.
Desk-based - underpinning the consultancy's value to institutions is preparation work, gathering of information, development of customised mechanisms of involvement, or research into areas as directed by the institution and students' association.
Some institutions are new to the consultancy and do not have particular priorities already identified, but are nevertheless still interested in finding out more. In these cases, we propose an initial meeting with around half a dozen key staff and student officers, at which we run a specially-designed interactive card-sort exercise that encourages institutions to reflect upon their institution's individual definitions, outcomes and tools of student engagement. This can lead to the identification of areas of work which institutions would like to explore or develop further.
In 2007-08, sparqs piloted the consultancy with twenty institutions across the North of Scotland. This region included the Highlands and Islands, north-east Scotland and northern Fife, working with Shetland College in the north to Perth College, Elmwood College and the University of St Andrews in the south.
These twenty institutions were offered the consultancy again in 2008-09.
Our approach in 2009-10
Following internal and external evaluations of the work, and thanks to further funding from the Scottish Funding Council, the consultancy approach has been expanded to the whole of Scotland in 2009-10.
Simon Varwell, Development Adviser, continues to work on the consultancy from our Inverness office. Meanwhile, Stephanie Millar, Development Adviser, has joined sparqs in our Edinburgh office as part of the consultancy's expansion to the rest of the country.
sparqs circulated a report to all institutions in Scotland in September 2009, explaining more about how the consultancy has operated in its first two years, and inviting those who have not so far been involved to consider taking up the opportunity. This report is available for download as a pdf below under "Resources", but if you would like a hard copy and have not already been sent one, please contact our office in Edinburgh.
This section of the website - including the links on the left - explains more about the past and current work of the consultancy, but do get in touch if you have any further questions or would wish to set up an initial meeting to discuss how we might assist you.
Resources
On our National Conference page, you can find a presentation that gives more of the background and nature of the consultancy, which was delivered by sparqs staff at the event in March 2009.
The Consultancy Report 2009 is available to download, which summarises work carried out during the first two years and our approach for the future.
Finally, details of institutions' successful work through the consultancy approach will periodically be added to our Clearing House and highlighted briefly on our "past work" page.