NUS Year of Change

National Union of Students commissioned qualitative research as part of their Year of Change programme. This research explores the views of a wide variety of stakeholders; their feelings about the overarching role and remit of the organisation as well as their beliefs and expectations about how NUS should deliver its services, and how it should be funded. A series of options for change, arising from this report, will be put before the NUS Conference.

In November 2005, MORI carried out:-

• 8 depth interviews with HE/FE stakeholders from student-centre organisations, policy partners and sector representatives, and policy makers and sector funders
• 3 MPs with a particular interest in NUS who were asked to answer some questions via email.
• A workshop with 28 General Managers in Manchester
• A workshop with 24 Student Officers in Birmingham
• A workshop with 26 students in London(+ 3 x citizen researcher projects)
• 13 depth interviews with NUS staff and officers.

Groups at Regional Conferences also discussed the themes and fed into the report.

The study shows that stakeholders believe NUS is necessary and works well as a "non-vested interest" to understand and lobby for the interests of students. However, many see the structure of NUS, and the way it currently goes about its business, as old fashioned. To continue to gain support from students and from unions, they see an urgent need for NUS to communicate "value for money". There are many ways it can do this: particularly, by streamlining its own democratic structures, and taking advantage of new technologies, to motivate students to activism in new and more modern ways.